Apple iPod touch 16GB without Software Updates

Just when their competitors were finally figuring out how to copy the iPod, Apple dropped this bomb on them. The iPod Touch is a very impressive piece of technology with a lot of promise for the future. It's much more than an MP3 player. It's really two thirds of an iPhone, and much more like a PDA than the previous iPods were. The multi-touch screen is radically different to a standard touch screen in that, it tracks your finger movement, allows two fingers to be used simultaneously, and knows the difference between a tap and a hold. Combined with Apple's cutting-edge animated interface, this provides a very fluid, elastic, slidey, zoomy user experience.

One of the previous reviewers criticised Apple for not supporting 3rd party applications. In October 2007 Apple announced that a software development kit (SDK) would be made available to third-party developers in February 2008. So, in just a couple of months, you can look forward to a lot of new Apps designed specifically for the iPod Touch. These Apps will further extend the capabilities of what the iPod Touch can do, but will (most interestingly) transform it into a respectable handheld games console!

Safari, for me, is the killer app of the iPod Touch. It lets you go on the real Internet, not the mobile Internet, and look at real web pages. You can log into Amazon.co.uk on the iPod Touch and add things to your Shopping Basket. You can check your gmail account, archive and compose new messages. You can read RSS feeds. You can view PDF files, MP3 files and Quicktime video files. You can use over 600 free web apps such as JiveTalk, which enables you to have IM chats with people on MSN Messenger and Google Talk. When you can do so much on such a small device, it makes you wonder if you even need a proper computer! Compare this to the abysmal experience of "surfing the net" on a Sony Ericsson 3G mobile phone and you'll soon realise, the iPod Touch is in a different league.

Despite the impressive technology, the iPod Touch actually lacks a lot of standard iPod features that even the £89 iPod Nano has! For example, It doesn't support Playlist folders. It doesn't have a Music search feature. It doesn't support any of the iPod Games on the iTunes Store. It doesn't support To dos from Mail or iCal. And then there are the bugs. For example, your music will quite often stop suddenly if you're surfing the Internet while listening to Music at the same time. Also, there's really no way of pausing your Music or adjusting the volume without getting out the iPod Touch and using the touch screen. This is unacceptable since Apple have already created special earphones for the iPhone, which have a play/pause and track advance button on their cord. Why not sell these for the iPod Touch to solve the problem?

**15 January 2008 Update** Existing owners of the iPod Touch can now buy a bundle of 5 iPhone Apps from the iTunes Store for £12.99. The 5 apps are: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes. The Mail app allows you to send and receive e-mail from your Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, .mac Mail or AOL Mail accounts. And the Maps app is an amazing implementation of Google Maps which automatically triangulates your current location, allows you to see maps of addresses in your Address Book, show your maps in Map, Satellite or Hybrid views, drop pins and plot Directions from A to B. It's all beautifully animated and super slick.

"Wow!" was the first thought that entered my head as I unwrapped my new toy - even the packaging is fantastic!

This really is a marvellous piece of kit, *doffs hat to Steve Jobs for another amazing innovative product*

Okay so it's only 16GB and, as with all methods of storage, you don't get exactly what it says on the tin due to system files and the like. That said, and despite what others have droned on about, this is as good as it gets for publicly available flash drive technology at the moment.

Obviously there'll be storage improvements further down the line, perhaps even switching to the hard drive technology that's in the previous iPods and the Classic. However, I did read a review that the cover flow function on the classic absolutely kills the battery so it could be a case of waiting until the flash drive technology improves, which it undoubtedly will.

Anyway storage aside I can't find any fault with this little gem. The touch screen is incredibly responsive which, after using the Sony DSC-T50, is quite remarkable. The pop up keyboard for internet surfing and WiFi configuration is a bit fiddly so you wouldn't want to use it for writing large emails but that's a very minor thing imo.

Cover flow is seamless which is probably, in part, due to the flash drive. YouTube and Safari apps are a nice touch - I can't see myself using it as a web browser that much, but watching YouTube videos I certainly will. Contacts and calendar all look very pretty. Only quibble here is that, if you're using the Vista contacts and calendar apps, the contacts will sync (including photos!) but the calendar isn't recognised at the moment - still, that's easily fixed with a software upgrade. Outlook users (on any platform) won't have any issue with this. Video playback is absolutely fantastic. It also handles videos that are in playlists better than my previous iPod - previously I would get pauses every 50 or so seconds, but on the Touch it's just like a normal track!

So to summarise, it's a great piece of kit that not only looks the business but works as good as it looks.

Finally, I should also give props to Amazon - cheaper than retail even including the next day 1pm express delivery.

So the big question is this: is the iPod Touch all it's cracked up to be?

The short and easy answer is yes.

You want negatives? I'll give you the cons, but bear in mind that they don't mean much because if you like the idea of the Touch, the cons will be very tiny flies in a very luscious ointment. However, you will probably, like me, wish first of all that the rear panel wasn't so prone to fingerprints. It does seem a bit pointless, but there it is. It's not as though you'll be looking at the back of your iPod much is it? The glass panel attracts fingerprints too, but what do you expect? It's a TOUCH SENSITIVE device. Anyway, you only see the fingerprints when you switch it off and Apple give you a little velvet cloth, which you'll throw away soon because it doesn't do a very good job with fingerprints.
The biggest flaw, I think, is that there's no speaker. You can wow your friends with YouTube videos, but they can't hear them unless they use your earphones, and it's yucky to share earphones. Just a little speaker would have been nice.
It's also a bit heavy. Well, compared to my nano that is. You'll know it's in your pocket, that's for sure.
Other people moan that the calendar won't let you add events [stop press: now you can do this] and such nonsense, but I'm not going to criticise the software. Give it time. With an interface like this, and third party software to come, the Touch will be able to do a whole lot more before long. That's pretty exciting.
Now onto the good stuff. The touch screen interface is stunning. It just makes you feel very cool when you use it, and not only that, it's logical, responsive, attractive, and decidedly compulsive. When did you last get a gadget that was so much fun just to switch off and on? Seriously, this is the future of interfaces. If we never realised it before, we do now and nothing less will do in future.
Even without wi-fi, the Touch would be the dog's whatnots. But by adding wi-fi, Apple has created a device that's in a different league to any other iPod because you can surf the net. So when somebody asks you what's on your iPod, you can now say, EVERYTHING. IF you have the internet, you always have something to do on your iPod, and the internet looks so brilliant you'll want to use it a lot. You can even check your emails if you know how to do webmail. And send emails on the surprisingly good keyboard that pops up on the screen whenever you tap a text field. It even learns the words you type more often. And the way you position your cursor is just amazing. You need to try it. And there's the iTunes wi-fi store, that works perfectly.
Obviously you need to be near a wi-fi hotspot you can get onto, so that's something to think about, but how long will it be before cafes and bars are using free wi-fi to lure us in?
At home, I got onto my wireless network in seconds and now I use my iPod to check online rather than my computer because it's so much quicker, even though the Touch takes a surprisingly long time to boot up. And you can carry it around the house and even out into the garden, where the screen works extremely well, no matter how bright the sun.
Did I mention web apps? There's a huge and growing list of these now and they work just like applications, as long as you're on the net. Yes, the wi-fi connectivity is a crucial part of what makes this thing tick.
And when you're not on the net, you've got a terrific music and video player that also has your contacts and calendar, a great calculator, an amazing variety of clocks and timers with alarms (setting them is a dream) and the coolest gadget anybody has seen for years to impress your friends. And believe me, they will be VERY impressed.