Ah sweet vacation. It is something to be treasured with family and friends or an opportunity to travel around and enjoy a change of scenery. It is also a good way to find some free time to get a hold of and review a few things. Things like my shiny new iPod Touch, my not so shiny NiGHTS Journey of Dreams for the Wii, and completely un-shiny movie In the Name of the King.
iPods are something that are in no way unfamiliar to me. My brother got one when they were fresh from Apple’s idea box Steve Jobs. Back then there was no touching involved. The thing worked on an analogue wheel instead of a digital touch pad. When the thing finally died some years later and he decided to see if it could be repaired, he brought it to the apple store and impressed the guys behind the counter with his ancient bit of technology. Through it all, we have had just about every version with the exception of the small flash drive driven ones. This new iPod is the first one I have had that doesn’t have a real hard drive in it. My first pair of the mp3 players were the same version and they didn’t even have a color screen, let alone a touch screen, so it is a bit of a jump for me both in size (from 40 gig to 8) and functionality.
The thing that strikes me most about the Touch is the unactivated potential. It comes with several functions built in including the standard modern iPod fare, music, videos, photos, and a few small features like an alarm clock/timer. The new features it brings to the table are: Safari for browsing the web (it is very nice but I really truly wish it had a function to search a webpage), an advanced calendar that allows for the editing and adding of events opposed to just viewing, an advanced contacts list that follows the same upgrades as the calendar, an iTunes shop, and a calculator.
As far as I am concerned, that list is pathetically weak when you consider it next to Apple’s far more expensive iPhone which comes with much more impressive features. Google Maps functionality, a Mail application, a weather application, and a small notepad in addition to everything the touch has. It is not a limitation of hardware that keeps these useful tools from those who want them on their iPods, it is Apple.
I am an Apple fan. I was raised with Macintosh computers around me, and have always been most comfortable working within their operating system. Yes the hardware is expensive and you don’t get the widest selection of options, but if there is one thing Apple does right, it is an interface. Steve Jobs and his company think the same way I do when it comes to operating a computer. It should be intuitive, stable, and beautiful. When these three elements are not present, it really gets to me. I can sum up my feelings on windows by describing the mentality that spawns unbidden an annoying looking paper clip that shouts at me things I already know or don’t care about before he promptly drowns in an ocean of blue as the computer crashes. This is becoming a bit of a tangent, but the point of the matter is I don’t often criticize Apple software.
The software that runs the iPod Touch and the iPhone is nigh identical. Infact, the iPhone applications run on the iPod Touch! Why is it that Apple refuses to make the software available for the Touch? It’s smart marketing if you want people to buy the iPhone, but there is something else and that is it is impossible to add third party software to eaither item without hacking into it and voiding your warante.
This is the unexplored potential I was speaking of. For those who are willing to risk it, the iPod Touch can become nearly as functional as the iPhone (minus the phone and camera functions obviously) and so much more. With a hacked Touch, one can add all sorts of third party software that is being developed. The software was obviously built to add a myriad of applications in the future, one look at the design of the icons on the main screen can tell you that. It is very unlike Apple’s design crew to use so much negitive space. Installing new applications fills up this void, and once full, even allows you to scroll pages of applications. If Apple had no intention of adding new features to the original set of software, such things would not exist. Even the iPhone has signs that it will soon be adding more power. For one thing it has all the hardware for a functioning GPS, yet doesn’t have one. It has hardware capable of working on more than just AT&T’s network, yet it doesn’t. It is fully capable of moving beyond a smart phone and going into a full blown iPDA… so why hasn’t it? I am unhappy that Apple is not making these features more available after making it so very obvious that they exist.
I am using my new Touch as a PDA and movie viewer, and keeping my old iPod around as a portable hard drive and mp3 player since the Touch can’t handle the girth of my main music collection.
Thats enough ranting for tonight. I’ll write up my thoughts on NiGHTS and In the Name of the King later.
