I am, as of yesterday, a proud owner of a second generation iPod touch. I thought I’d write down a couple of obervations about it — including why I am NOT using it to type this blog post.
First, the design is pretty cool, but the back just looks dorky to me. The sides angle downwards, because the back of the iPod is not flat. Essentially, when you look into the back of your iPod, you feel like a 5 year old in a circus fun house.
The strange back also makes plugging in earphones/usb cables seem very uncomfortable. If you look at your attached cable from the front, it appears that the cable is inserted properly. However, if you look at the cable from the back, it looks like the cable is just hanging on. I suppose it really shouldn’t bother me, but it makes me think twice before plugging my expensive earphones in. I don’t like that part of the metal plug is exposed even when the cord is supposedly plugged all the way in.
Luckily, this was about my only negative experiance with the iPod. I was able to connect it to my computer (had to reboot into Windows — Didn’t even want to try in Ubuntu.) and sync all of my music at very, very high speeds. Transfering about 6.8 GB of music took less then 10 minutes. I was surprised.
Email was painless to set up. I could use the GMail account type even for custom Google Apps email addresses (ryan@rmarcus.info). If you want to create multiple accounts, you have to leave the mail application and go to settings, then go to settings for mail, then create a new account. I didn’t think this was the most effective way of doing things. I was disappointed that you could not use a landscape view to view your email — you are stuck in portrait, which makes viewing my Dilbert emails a pain.
I installed a couple of applications from the app store for free (Remote, graphing calculator, last.fm, pandora) and was definitly impressed with how easy it was. After entering my iTunes password (for each application, even though they were free) the applications installed and were ready to use in less then a minute. I was disappointed that the last.fm application was broken in version 2.1, but I am willing to wait for an update. Early adopters, even of a second generation, always suffer.
Safari on the iPod is impressive, but the lack of various features prevent it from being a 100% functional web browser. For example, there is no way to install plugins, making a lot of online streaming media (videos and music) inaccsessable from the iPod. There is a YouTube application that lets you watch YouTube videos, but other then that, you are pretty much S.O.L. with streaming music in the iPod. Good thing you’ve got your whole music library with you, right?
While there is a lot to be said for the built-in Apple keyboard, it just doens’t cut it as a full blown keyboard. And honestly, how could it? The iPod isn’t large enough to display a full keyboard, and Apple probably isn’t up for the technological task of something like this — at least not yet. It is easy to use, but if I were going to type this long blog post, it would have taken me much longer on the iPod keyboard then on my laptop. It works for what it is intended for — entering sort strings for things like searchs, URLs, etc.
The internal speaker is a bit of novelty. It isn’t the greatest speaker in the world, and I am sure Apple was not intending it to be, but the quality is good enough for me to take my headphones off in a quiet room, which is pretty useful. I am sure it will also add a hell of a lot more fun to More Cowbell.
Anyway, that’s all for now, I’ve got class soon.
