17 September 2010

4th Generation iPod Touch


Earlier this week I received the new Ipod touch, something I’d ben toying with buying since they were first released a few years back. It wasn’t cheap, I bought the64 gig version, but it was less money than the lowest storage capacity iPad and for my uses, more practical. I’ve never had a smart phone or touch device, so it was all new to me and therefore likely a little more exciting than it would be to many people who are used to these sort of devices.

This is one impressive device, easy to use, fast, versatile and very useful. This new version comes with 2 cameras and can take video and also take advantage of Apple’s new «Facetime» feature. This is a feature many people will have hard time trying as it only works with new iphone and ipods touches. I only know one person who I might be able to video chat with and we haven’t been able to set that up yet. The camera quality isn’t great, isn’t terrible. I see complaints on many sites about this and I don’t quite get it.... it’s music player, not a camera after all! It’s perfectly fine for taking snaps here and there and sending images of the vase you just have to buy to the spouse for approval. «Skype» on it is a dream, if you live in a heavily covered wi-fi area as i do, it’s almost like having a cell phone without the extra fees. The mail app from apple, once you get it working which was , to say the least, a very frustrating experience for me, is fantastic and syncs seamlessly to my mall app on my computer. The ability to group apps into folders is so useful, I can’t imagine how people managed on older versions. Book reading is easier than you’d think and browsing the internet fairly simple. The lack of «flash» is not really a problem. I’ll be updating the Behemothmedia page over the next months to make it more mobile friendly and «flash» will no longer be a part of it. I imagine eventually, the player will come to Apple devices but until then, it’s not exactly crucial. Watching videos, especially after years of watching them on an Ipod classic is a dream. The next 8 hour bus trip to Boston won’t be nearly as dull.

Short comings are what I would have expected. My fingers are not small enough for fluid typing, the auto correct is a horror show if you write often in 2 languages as I do... one of them will always be «corrected» with words that are hard to remove once the ipod has decided what you meant to type. The app store is a nightmare, trying to find things can be tedious and a chore. Electronic books should not cost the same as printed ones and many apps are not updated enough, but that is more a complaint about apps in general and not limited to the touch.

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