My new iPod touch

ipodtouch My old 4th generation (click-wheel) iPod finally died. Its hard drive started to give me problems, every second iTunes-sync or so it failed. I had been waiting for a 16 GB iPod nano, but it still seemed to be far away. A friend at work had bought an iPod touch and its user interface seemed very nice... and a 16 GB version was available. So I finally decided to get one!

I have to say, now after many weeks of use, that I am pretty satisfied with this iPod. The interface still seems “wow” after so many weeks, and it functions nicely as my music player, calendar, notepad (when I don’t have my paper notepad close by) and e-mail and web surfing when away from my computer (and WLAN is available). I also watch an occasional video on it. Using VisualHub it is very easy to convert for example DivX videos which are then directly copied to iTunes and synced to your iPod the next time. VisualHub is not free, but it’s very easy to use. The conversion of course always takes some time...

Also the Google Maps software is really nice, and it works without WLAN if you have previously checked the same spots on the map. This is very handy if you need to recheck some streets when you are out-and-about.

If I have to pick some negatives it would be the lack of any tactile controls for the music player. At least a real volume slider or wheel as in the iPhone would have been nice. Also why can’t the notes application sync for example with the notes in Apple’s Mail?

Now when I have this device, carrying around an additional phone seems a bother. The iPhone now seems like a much more attractive idea... maybe when my Nokia gets “old” :)

March 5, 2008

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