Here goes my first attempt at being involved in popular culture: Comparing the Touch to the old hard drive iPods is like comparing (*insert popular fat celebrity*) with (*insert popular thin celebrity*) it's Thinner, lighter, prettier and has a bigger screen. Wait, that hasn't worked.
To be perfectly honest, not only is it a bad attempt at a comparison but I really shouldn't compare the old iPod with the touch because there is in fact a better comparison with the new 'iPod Classic' but I don't own one of those so we're stuck with this. Read on to judge whether or not the new Touch is worth the heavy price.
PROS
Better audio - Noticeably better sound quality. I went back two steps with the 80GB iPod when I had been using the Archos AV400 line of players which had (have) remarkably superior sound over the iPods. The Touch is marginally better and I noticed better low and high tones in music. What ever that means.
No more bloody click wheel - I swear I was the only person who thought the click wheel was an appalling way to navigate your music, now Apple seem to have read my previous blog post and created the iPod Touch. On the Touch all the menus are in list form and a simple flick of your finger scrolls through them. There's also the option of Cover Flow which allows you to browse your music by album artwork, filling the gap of people who still feel the need to have a visual aid like the CD covers of yester-year. It's a very pretty and well implemented way to browse but to be totally honest, it's a much slower way to get to the track you want and i do tend to just forget it's available. Basically, the list view is so well done that it makes the cover flow option obsolete. God I’m glad it doesn't have an on screen touch version of the click wheel like some of their early patents for this device had.
Instant connect to your trusted wifi networks - Ok, maybe not instant but it's very fast, you'd be hard pressed to open safari quick enough to see that it wasn't connected. This is similar to the Macbooks etc, very useful.
Wifi for web browsing is incredibly good. I've used several touch screen devices to browse the web in the past and the Touch is by far the most impressive, easy to use, stab at mobile web browsing out there. Sadly I tend to get very spoilt when a suitable Wifi connection is about and very much miss it when it's gone. It just becomes a video iPod without the added dynamic of the web. It's impressive to think that the Apple web browser, safari, only has one real difference between the full Mac OSX application and the Touch's version and that is that the Touch's version is actually really good.
No more hold switch - That's right, there's no hold switch, it's now a firm button which I'm finding is much better to use than having to flick the thing back and forth. This does sound rather lazy on my part but when you've been using it for a prolonged period of time, going from sleep to awake a lot it does make sense and IS useful.
Enough of the praise, we all know it's a good looking wee bastard, it's the things it does wrong or doesn't do that irritate me and may interest you. Welcome to the cons.
CONS
I've always thought that the curvature to the corners are there not just there for the aesthetics; they also trick the mind into thinking this is an object that's been used, worn down like a pebble in a river over hundreds of years. This creates an immediate love for the device and is the reason you see every woman, man and child shining their finger print ridden iPod on the train. So they make you love the thing, but how do they ensure that this product still has a limited lifespan? A piss poor shiny back, that's how! When are they going to drop this idea or start using a metal that isn't made of 90% butter so it picks up every conceivable scratch possible? When the cable of your headphones leaves an impression in the metal casing, you know there's a problem. I mean, for christ's sake, un-boxing it left a hairline scratch before the end of our first few minutes together. So this cynical view of the shiny back is that Apple is perfectly happy for you to gradually scratch the hell out of the device to add the visual ware and tear which will eventually implement a new iPod purchase.
16GB - Too few gigabytes? This really is a double edged sword and is only held back by the technological advances in flash memory being slower that we'd all ideally like. I frankly loathed the sluggish hard disk based menu on the older iPods browsing and flash memory being noticeably faster in all instances, with better battery life kind of makes me not care about the space limitation. It feels like there was going to be a time when Apple jumped to flash based memory for their flagship line and I'm happy it's sooner rather than later. Maybe this should be in the Pros section?
No email app/no 'add calendar entry'
This is infuriating and frankly is the biggest reason to shelve the idea of buying an iPod touch all together. If not for the fact that you can't live without a fully functioning calendar, then for the fact that Apple has deliberately disabled a productivity feature to extend the narrow divide between the Touch and the iPhone. To cannibalize the iPhone's market is something they are desperate not to do; they've just gone about it in such a ridiculous way. GSM and EDGE capabilities alone are by far the biggest and most obvious separation between the two different products, so why they feel the need to take the 'Add Calendar entry' button is beyond me. Moving away from the admittedly small calendar issue, there's other more glaring things that are missing such as Google Maps and remarkably there is NO Email application. Roll on the hackers who unlock the device and allow iPhone applications to be run on the more than capable hardware of the Touch.
No casual games - That screen is really quite clever, being multi touch and all. To have an addictive little touch screen game on it would be great but they seem to have over looked it. Well at least, they've not started charging for them (yet).
No way to view 'Track information' - Being able to view the ID3 tag info is really useful at times, especially for Podcasts when there's text about the episode. Not having an option, or at least one I can find is really annoying. I can't imagine there's a good reason to exclude it.
No hardware volume buttons - Granted, the double click of the home key to bring up your current music feature is good and works well but it'd be much more convenient to alter the sound in your pocket using a button with tactical feedback, say on the side of the device. It would kill the lines somewhat but frankly it's best to opt for functionality over sex appeal sometimes.
No free content on wireless iTunes store - Though very slick and incredibly fast to download from, the iTunes store is missing quite a useful section. Podcasts and Video Podcasts have been left out entirely. I was actually looking forward to being able to get hold of podcasts on the go, more so than the expensive DRM infested music they sell. Just for pure interest alone from people exploring their new device I would have though a podcast section would be perfect. My guess is that a lot of people, myself included actually bought music to see how it works where as if free items were available I would have used them. At least I was supporting a friend’s band but incredibly I can't now share their own music with them because of Digital Rights Management.
Proprietary cable - WHY can't apple start using mini/micro USB like the rest of the world's consumer electronic manufacturers?!
No wifi sync/music transfer - Such a shame that a device with wifi can't get one of the most useful things right in being able to transfer your music to it without using the supplied cable. To be able to access and update your library while the iPod Touch is in your bag, in another room would be beyond useful. Even the ability to use that wifi for streaming to a wifi media center or your Mac plugged into speakers would be great. And, hey; it would mean I wouldn't have to find that bloody proprietary cable every time.
Conclusion - The iPod Touch is a funny creature. On one hand it's a fantastic iPod, with good video functionality, music and photos but on the other, it's a poor PDA with a pretty screen and clever picture scaling. I knew when I was buying the device that the excluded apps and functionality (comparative to the iPhone) would bug me - but they honestly haven't. I've found that every missing app is easily replaced with a 'made for iPod Touch/iPhone' web app (read: Gmail, Digg and the dreaded Facebook). So if it's not the functionality then what is it?
I think what really pisses me off the most is the fact that this device is more than capable of running every non GSM/EDGE reliant application that the iPhone does and the simple reason for them not including it is the cannibalization of an entirely different product. There's two many iPod Touch reviews focusing on the similarities and comparisons between this and the iPhone which frankly miss the point entirely. Even the Engadget review seemed like they were struggling to justify their $599 iPhone purchases when real the point in hand is that this IS the new iPod, it's the way they're going in future and so far, that future is looking very sunny indeed.
(Additional note, if the future is sunny indeed, screen may not perform as expected in bright light.)
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