Apple iPod Touch

Steve Jobs (co-founder Pixar) is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded with Steve Wozniak on April fools day 1976. Originally they just made computers, now the company is now well known for a mobile phone, and of course the iPod media player. They’ve sold over 110 million iPods, so the Touch comes from a history of innovation. Those first Apple computers were hand built by Wozniak in a garage, and financed by among other things, Jobs selling a Volkswagen bus. Last year the company made over $24 billion.

I’ve owned an iPod since 2002 (they were first introduced in October 2001), and overall I’ve been very happy with them. They have always had a sleek and elegant design, and the Touch takes this to an entirely new level. The first thing you notice when you take it out of the box is how small it is (2.4in x 4.3in). The screen is 3.5in diagonal, which is surprisingly readable (480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch). And here’s the kicker- it’s .31″ thick. That’s not a typo, it’s ALMOST too small- it does however fit very easily in a shirt pocket. The unit has a clean minimalistic design- it has one button on the front (home), pretty much everything else is controlled by the touch sensitive screen. You do power it on/off using a button on the top, but the vast majority of actions on the new interface are smooth and fast. So what can do with it? Plenty!

Play Music & Videos

Well sure, kinda the point right? If you have the 16GB model, you can store about 3,500 songs, or 20,000 pictures, or 20 hours of video. For the 8GB you’re looking at those numbers halved. For audio playback it supports AAC (M4A, M4B, M4P, up to 320 Kbps), Apple Lossless (a high-quality compressed format), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR), WAV, AA (audible.com spoken word, formats 2, 3, and 4) and AIFF. Video is H.264 or MPEG-4. The cover flow feature (seen in the large picture) is great, just drag your finger along and you can pick the album you like. Click an icon and you can see the songs on the album. The unit integrates this drag, drop and flow throughout the entire interface, and it’s very intuitive. Battery life is okay- 22 hours for audio, 5 for video. I’d love to see a removable battery, but alas like its predecessors the battery is hardwired in and not user replaceable.

Surf the Internet over wireless

The Touch has a new killer feature in that it supports wireless (Wifi B/G) connectivity. I plugged it into my wireless at home with minimal effort, and in less than a minute I was able to surf the web using the Safari browser. Not the mobile web mind you, the full Internet. A quick double tap and you can zoom in to read an article. Turn the unit 90 degrees and it flips the screen, and you can read in a landscape view. A minor complaint is typing on the keyboard with my man sized fingers requires a bit of effort, but overall the performance is stunning.

You Tube

You can bring up and search You Tube videos, and the playback is great over wireless, no loss of quality or stuttering.

Integration with iTunes

You can search for, browse, preview, purchase, and download songs and albums from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store directly to iPod touch. Your purchased content is
automatically copied to your iTunes library the next time you sync iPod touch with your computer.

Photos

You can download albums, and see a list of thumbnail images when you choose an album. Touch a thumbnail and the photo opens, or you can create a slideshow.

Extras

There’s also a fairly basic calendar, contacts list, calculator and a clock.

You can read the manual here. Seeing is believing, here’s Apple’s demo on the Touch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S1Khm46PPg[/youtube]

Overall this is the best iPod yet, and it makes a great gift for someone special- and of course yourself!

Order here the 16GB here: Apple 16 GB iPod touch
or the 8GB here: Apple 8 GB iPod touch

Sources:
Apple
Woz.org
Wikipedia

Tags: apple, iPod, Touch