iPod Touch

I've been living with the iPod touch for three months now and overall I think it is great. Here's why (and a few why nots as well)...

Using it

Like the MacBook Air, the iPod Touch comes packaged in a work of art- the box is robust and is still sat beside my iMac looking for something to store in it - I refuse the throw it out.  Once unboxed, the Touch simply connects to the compute with the enclosed USB cable and iTunes bursts into life inviting you to register the iPod against an iTunes account.  Making this link then enables the iTunes mobile store application on the Touch to purchase and download songs via your existing iTunes account and then automatically sync them back to your computer and authorise them to play the next time you sync your iPod- very neat, very easy- very Apple.

In use the iPod Touch is quite reliable but I have seen a couple of music player crashes and many Safari crashes.  I overheard an iPod genius talking to another customer about this and he said you should reset (full power off and on) your Touch once a week to keep it reliable. I've been doing that for 3 weeks and have not had a crash since and I was seeing several a week so it sounds like good advice!

Mobile Safari is easy to use and a very good browser - I just wish it would synch my Safari bookmarks from my Mac to my iPod Touch.

The photo application is very good, with some pretty iPhoto like transitions which hint at some of the horsepower hiding under the hood of this tiny little device. That said, I find the photo application gets most use as a means to show off the device to friends and let them play with the multi-touch gestures rather than anything else.

The contacts application is simple but effective and allows you to email contacts easily when you have a Wi-Fi signal to hand.

The Mail application is really good and integrates with my gMail account reliably.  The Mail application provides the most use for the onscreen keyboard which I have found more reliable the more I use it, but no where near as fast or reliable as my old BlackBerry.  Not a major issue for an iPod Touch if you only use it for adhoc emailing but if we were talking about an iPhone then I would have reservations about it being able to replace my blackberry for heavy email and texters - much as I would love to have one.

I like the Google Maps application and having submitted my home wi-fi router to SKYHOOK's database, I expect to be able to use the auto-position feature any day now- from home anyway.

What really makes the iPod touch exciting are the new raft of web based and soon to be native applications being developed for the iPhone - dont forget they work on the touch as well.  The BBC iPlayer is a dream over a wi-fi connection and the native FaceBook and Encyclopedia Britanica applications are great to use.  I can't wait to see what the iPhone SDK produces in the summer.  Then we will see the game change as we realise the iPod touch is not an iPod with a browser built in, it is a pocket computer with an iPod built in.

I've got the 16GB version and find it full most of the time - just add a single move and lose 10% of your capacity in one go.

In the UK iTunes movie purchases are not yet available by my iMac has Elgato EyeTV software with a digital TV (DVB) tuner so I regularly record TV programmes and movies and then EyeTV can export them direct to iTunes in a touch compatible resolution for easy synching and watching on the train.

Problems

The Screen and casing of the Touch feel strong in the hand, but the silver rear casing was looking scratched after just a few days so I quickly invested in a case to keep it safe.

The iPod Touch has no external volume control, you can only change the volume through the touch screen- which will pop up the screen saver and lock after only a few second in your pocket so given my Touch is in a case I have to take the touch out of my pocket, open the case, slide the unlock control on the screen and the adjust the volume slider... by that time the mobile phone has stopped ringing or you have missed a quiet bit of the podcast/ deafened yourself with that unexpected loud blast of rock.

Overall the iPod touch is a 4/5 bit of kit and an external volume control would up that to 5/5. The additional software scores a 3/5  - expect to see that rise to a 5/5 this summer when the SDK starts producing.

Available from: apple.com/uk at £269 for 16GB