I Bring Nothing to the Table

Mr. Digital: iPod Touch

So my iPod Video decided that my right ear was incidental, so it stopped transmitting sound to my right headphone, unless I applied pressure is some sort of arcane, randomly determined direction at all times. Lucky for me, since I got it pre-owned off of eBay, I put a SquareTrade warranty on it, so they will cut me a check to replace my old iPod.

With said money being more than half the cost of an iPod Touch, I forked over the cash to pick up a brand-spanking new iPod touch. Let me just say that it is awesome. Here’s the Pro/Con breakdown

Pros

-Sleek, small, sexy
-Flash memory instead of a hard drive
-Connects to the internet through 802.11
-Touch screen interface is totally intuitive and works well
-If you do Jailbreak your iPod Touch, you can update in Amarok via 802.11 and scrobble while listening and a connection is present. Otherwise, scrobble data is stored and uploaded when network resources do become available
-Tons of neat little things you can do with it, especially if you Jailbreak it

Cons

-POOR LINUX COMPATIBILITY (when not Jailbreak-ed)
-Hard to impossible to adjust volume and skip tracks without seeing screen
-Unless you have magically oil-less fingers, you will smudge the glass screen to all hell
-Apple SDK is not out yet, so you have to Jailbreak the iPod for now to download third party software and interface with Linux

I don’t know if it’s too subtle, but my main gripe is said lack of Linux support at the moment. God knows Apple’s never going to waste its time adding Linux support to their product just to appease a computing minority, but why do they have to radically change their systems so that they no longer function or interface with old software? Until I either Jailbreak my iPod, Amarok comes out with better Touch support, or the SDK fixes things, I can neither easily scrobble tracks or even use Amarok to interface with my iPod. Instead, I have to use the one piece of software that I loathe, yet deal with as a necessary evil as rarely as humanly possible: iTunes.

Everything else is great though. Great sound output, internet capability, easy e-mail checking of Gmail, Google Maps integration, and the usual video, music, and picture capabilities. My recommendation: worth a purchase, especially now that there’s a 32 GB model available.

Posted

in

by

Dan

Tags:

, , , , , , ,

Comments

7 responses to “Mr. Digital: iPod Touch”

  1. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    Lots of comments here:
    1) I envy you. I have a lowly shuffle. However, it does afford me the following benefits: tiny and light – important because I use it at the gym, all of the controls can be adjusted without looking at it – also important for the gym, and, most importantly, it was $70.

    2) With the problem your iPod video was having, did you have to press on some random part of the iPod to get sound coming out of the right ear, or some part of the headphones? I had a laptop once that was temperamental like that, if you didn’t squeeze it in the right way, it stopped getting power.

    3) Do you need help with the jailbreak? Someone at work here knows how, at least for the iPhone

    4) Does all your music fit on it?

    5) May I suggest jailbroken vs jailbreak-ed?

    6) Does it still work if you buy one of those PDA screen protectors for it? Then you can change it every couple of months when it becomes too smudged.

    7) How well does it work with the Wi-Fi connection at Cornell?

    8) Do you think the awesome Wi-Fi/Connectedness part of it will die off when you come move down here where there isn’t Wi-Fi everywhere? vs, say, an iPhone where you can use your data plan when Wi-Fi is unavailable?

    Sounds like you’re really enjoying it and that’s good. Oh yeah,

    9) I think it’s awesome that the eBay world has evolved a Warranty structure for used items. I think that’s one of the neatest things about the net and the types of jobs it has allowed to be created.

    Reply
  2. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    1) I’ll show you the dimensions of the Touch when I get back to MD, but it is pretty thin and light, thanks to the flash memory HDD. I’m also getting better at touching and will hopefully one day be able to do it blind, but that may be overly ambitious.

    2) I had to push on the headphone jack where it interfaced with the iPod to adjust the pin with the contacts inside the port. In any case, unacceptable.

    3) Nope, I found a great program (Ziphone) and great a configuration article somewhere in the Ubuntu website. Man do I love the Ubuntu community!

    4) Yes, it does. This was the primary thing that kept me from getting an iPod Touch before the 32 GB model came out. My music library sits somewhere around 17GB at the moment.

    5) I’m not entirely sure if Jailbreak is an application or a process. If it’s an application, I’m almost certain that Jailbroken would not be correct (I had that in my first draft)

    6) I know that screen protectors and cases exist, it’s just a matter of getting my lazy butt to a store to procure one

    7) It works splendidly with the Wi-Fi connection at school. Redrover’s seen some upgrades since you left

    8) iPhones are sick because of that option, but 16 GB is as big as they get and that’s just not gonna cut it for me. Wi-Fi will still be useful for me in airports, Starbucks, your house, and other hot-spots, even with less penetration than on campus. Don’t forget that campus penetration isn’t that great anyway, I use my own wireless network when at home and Redrover only covers buildings (even then not all corners of the building). Even the mundane things, like wireless scrobbling, are worth it to me because I don’t have to connect my iPod to my computer to get all the scrobbling done before I start listening to music in Amarok, it just does it.

    9) eBay itself doesn’t offer warranty services, but certain vendors have agreements with Squaretrade to get warranty service on items purchased. I, too, think it’s awesome. eBay’s a really great place (can’t wait to get my MGS soundtracks from them soon!)

    Reply
  3. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    I forgot to mention that lack of .ogg support makes me want to give Steve Jobs a good talking to. I’ve been diligently re-burning my .ogg tracks to .mp3s in the meanwhile…

    Reply
  4. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    Very cool to hear. I’m not 100% sure, but there’s a program you can use that automagically converts the OGGs to MP3s when loading it onto an iPod. Perhaps that’d be easier?

    Reply
  5. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    I’d just have to find something that was more configurable and robust than the ogg2mp3 app. ogg2mp3 has a max bitrate of something below 128…either that or I couldn’t figure it out.

    Reply
  6. Eric Mesa Avatar
    Eric Mesa

    Any comments 2 years later now that you’ve also had an iPhone for a while?

    Reply
    1. Dan Avatar
      Dan

      Aside from “I hate Apple and I think they are pretty evil”? Not really. The iPhone and iPod Touch are both solid products that do what they do VERY well hampered by DRM and hyper-restrictive management policies. As much as I love the devices, I’m strongly considering moving to a more open platform for my next player. We shall see…

      Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.