What IS an iPod, anyway? If you really need to ask this question, it's obvious that you've been living under a very large rock for the past few years. An iPod is a portable multimedia player. It plays music, video clips & movies, shows pictures and slideshows, and now – allows you to browse the internet and shop for new music right on your iPod. Easily setting the new standard for cool - the iPod touch does all of these things with a super cool touch screen/icon driven interface. But unfortunately, considering it's an iPod it's got some really big shoes to fill, and perhaps – it doesn't quite pack all it could...
What's new in “The Touch” Functionality wise, the iPod touch does several things no other iPod has ever done. First, it has a WiFi adapter built right in, which lets you connect to the Internet and browse it using Apple's Safari web browser. You can also shop the iTunes Music Store using the new iTunes WiFi store. Songs you buy on your iPod are automatically transferred back to “your library” (on your PC) when you synchronize. Finally, using the internet, it allows you to browse YouTube's full library of idiotic user contributed videos right in the palm of your hand. Everything is commanded by the new iPod touch-screen interface - a system of menus and controls strangely reminiscent (virtually identical) of the new Apple iPhone. This isn't a bad thing. The new touch-screen interface is very intuitive. Browsing through songs and albums using the traditional “click wheel” actually seems clunky and confusing in comparison with the new touch-screen system. In addition to a touch screen interface, the iPod Touch also has an “orientation sensor” that knows then the unit is being held “upright” or “on its side”. Depending on HOW you hold the iPod, different controls become available. For example, when browsing the music collection, holding the iPod Touch sideways places you in album browse mode, where you can flip through your albums (and their cover artwork) with your fingertips… Restore the “upright” position, and you can browse songs and use the other music menus.
In Safari, the sideways hold makes the iPod browse the internet in widescreen mode. It provides a bit more convenient way to browse certain websites. Features like Video, on the other hand, are wide-screen (sideways) only. Videos will only play on screen in a certain way, so you have to hold the iPod in that manner to view the video properly.
The ability to browse the internet is provided by Apple's Safari web browser. For those poor Mac users out there stuck with Safari know full well that while Safari may be a decent web browser, many more advanced websites won't work with it.
But Safari is, nonetheless, technically a full featured modern day web browser, and employs some cute tricks to squeeze a website designed for a 15” monitor into your 3 inch iPod (zooming and panning) Aside from these new kitsch features, the iPod touch is still an iPod and features the full swath of video and multimedia support every other iPod now comes with, including the built in rechargeable battery (that's not replaceable either,) compatibility with (most) iPod peripherals, and... for the first time ever...
You can switch it off instead of “asleep”.
Music The iPod was originally a music player, and that functionality is what really shines in the touch. People loved how convenient Apple's click-wheel navigation system was on the original iPod's. It let you navigate your music collection quickly by song title, artist, album and Apple's unique “compilation” designations, all that the touch of a button (and the slide of a fingertip.)
But the iPod Touch brings a new touch-screen interface to the same system. With one tap you can change between songs, albums and even those “custom designations” (genre's, composers, and compilations.) You can also change between songs and albums easier, by selecting any song, and then looking at an “album track-list” for that song. This feature lets you listen to the entire album your favorite song is on, should you decide to listen to your music that way.
Shuffling has changed on the iPod Touch. You can no longer shuffle by “Album”, “Artist” or “Compilation” like you could on previous iPod's. The touch features a song-only shuffle, though the context by which songs are selected (random songs in one album, one compilation, one playlist or your entire library.) Since the iPod Touch uses flash ROM instead of a hard drive, it's only got between 8 and 16 gigabytes of space for your music collection. granted, that's 6 days worth if you listen from beginning to end... but... Sometimes it's nice to have your entire library there with you, you know? For those moments when you want a “particular song...” Considering how much the touch costs, the “storage space” is pretty dinky.
Video The iPod Video introduced portable video on it's amusingly teensy 2” square LCD screen. The new touch has a larger, 16:10 display that showcases multimedia in ways the old iPod could never do. With the new, larger letterbox display comes support for higher quality videos, and provides the better video viewing experience the original iPod Video should have had.
The small size of the iPod touch's memory, however, tends to hinder the experience of watching videos from your pocket. Additionally, the iPod's video format support is very limited – it really only supports videos that are “adapted” for it by iTunes, and iTunes can only “readapt” video in the most generic of formats. So realistically, you'll probably never want to wait the 4 hours or so it takes to “transcode” a 35 minute video from your personal video library for viewing on an iPod.
The iTunes WiFi store only allows you to browse & buy music for the time being, not video (or even podcasts,) so if you want to buy or download iPod ready video, you’ll need to use your PC and the iTunes store.
Pictures The iPod Photo was “revolutionary” in its ability to store photos, and play slideshows with pictures loaded onto the iPod by iTunes. The Touch continues this tradition. New to the touch is the touch screen interface, allowing you to slide the iPod sideways, and even zoom and pan in on pictures in your library. In addition, you can set “wallpaper” for when the iPod is locked, to any picture loaded onto the iPod. Because the iPod Touch comes with a little plastic stand, presumably, you can stand this thing up on your desk and turn it into a portable digital photo frame...
A $300 photo frame...
Web As anyone who has a Mac will tell you, Safari is Apple’s default web browser. And it sucks. Sure - it’s a modern standards compliant web browser supporting advanced Javascript, XHTML and a whole load of other acronyms you never though belonged on a simple MP3 player. But most websites weren't designed for it, and it shows.
Safari on the iPod touch is virtually identical to Safari on the Mac (and even Safari 3 on PC). The iPod version features a “zoom and pan” feature that lets you browse full size web pages from the internet on your comparatively diminutive iPod screen, without reformatting. Just double tap a region you want to zoom in on, or use your “finger speculum” (in a pinching or spreading motion) to enlarge a region of the page for reading or navigation.
The built in WiFi connection makes all this internet functionality possible. And that’s really cool, if you’ve got WiFi. Also, if you own a laptop, this kind of functionality is a bit redundant, except for when you're in the bathroom.
Trust me, the iPod in your pocket is less awkward.
The iPod touch can “multitask”. You can listen to music while surfing the internet, or browsing through the iPod’s menus. However, two tasks that output audio can’t be done at the same time, so no listening to music while watching videos or shopping in the iTunes WiFi store.
Safari on the iPod doesn’t support plugins, flash, Java or many other web technologies making some websites work.
But not all is lost! Behold! The iPod read’s PDF documents!
More Durable The new iPod is built around the design of Apple’s iPhone, which features, as a last minute design change, an actual hard glass screen instead of a buttery soft plastic one. The weight gained by the iPod touch with having a glass screen is well worth the protection of not being able to permanently scratch the screen with one’s fingernail. Just don’t put it in the same pocket with the keys, or the change. The iPod Touch doesn’t use a hard disk drive to store music, but instead a flash ROM unit. This means the iPod touch has no moving parts to fail. Because no moving parts are present – the touch gets much better battery life than the iPod Video. In fact – you can actually watch a full movie on your iPod now, instead of the first 20 minutes and then looking at a big red battery meter.
Speaking of batteries...
Batteries… iPod’s come with a rechargeable, irreplaceable built in battery. iPod’s with a hard drive require power to operate the disk unit and load data. Surprisingly, the touch doesn’t have a hard drive; it uses Flash, and iPod’s with a flash ROM require less power to read data, and only slightly more to write it. As a result, flash based iPod’s last longer. Though the iPod Touch does have features that DO really drain its battery noticeably faster. Watching videos does drain the battery faster than just listening to music. Using the touch screen (which would shut off during inactivity if not used) Using WiFi (the WiFi can be shut off)
Summary The iPod touch has 8 or 16 GB of memory. Which, compared to other MP3 players, and even other iPod’s, isn’t a lot. The new touch functionality is a gimmick, even though it’s like the unquestionably coolest thing to hit a portable media device EVER.
The internet functionality only works in Wi-Fi areas, which you very likely already have a regular PC in, and there are some outstanding glitches can hit browsing the internet on the iPod (yes, your iPod can crash.) Also, with the removal of the USB disk drive functionality, the iPod touch does become less of a “universal accessory” to computing. Safari is a fine enough web browser, but without flash support, it really feels handicapped, since Safari is hated by most of the websites on the internet.
The new Wi-Fi iTunes store is a real nice touch. I'm impressed it wasn't as stupid as it could have been – being able to take the songs you buy online back home is a very impressive touch.
I'll never watch YouTube videos. If you do, well... You'll love the YouTube app.
The iPod Touch is a nifty appliance, but could use some software updates. If Apple added Flash back into Safari, cleaned up some of the bugs when browsing, then I'd venture to say the iPod touch would be the coolest mobile media player ever...But for the time being. It's a cute toy.
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