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So I bought an iPod Touch...
And the apocalypse is coming. Head for the hillls...
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LycoLoco 2008-08-23, 13:11 #1
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Subject: So I bought an iPod Touch...
So I did it. I bought an iPod Touch from Macky...me, the one who rails against Apple at pretty much everything they do? Yep. It was too good of a deal to pass up on what could be a really good mobile computer with such an active community backing it. Anyone else on this board have one or have any tips on how to make the most of it? I'm gonna be jailbreaking it the day I get it so that I can use any apps I find. Anything else I should know about it?
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"Apple is like the cool, popular blonde girl at school. Who wears expensive clothing that's easily stained. And is a slutbomb." - Flatty

<macky> i think LycoLoco is drunk

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This post was edited on 2008-09-01, 02:06 by mrk.
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Peregrine 2008-08-26, 09:41 #2
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2 Things I would recommend.

If you are into cars:
http://www.dynolicious.com/index.html

If you are into music, duh:
http://www.pandora.com/on-the-iphone
[Image: http://pfalcon.org/sigs/Siggy.jpg]
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krazykit (Administrator) 2008-08-28, 18:10 #3
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Unless he wiped it, it already is jailbroken.
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LycoLoco 2008-08-30, 18:14 #4
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He did wipe it. His iTunes account was on there, so it was easier to do that way. Already got those two Peregrine :) I think I'm gonna do a writeup in a little while because it's quite an interesting device I've found.

So far my favorite apps are...
Tasks - Simply shows you the tasks you have due for classes and how many are coming up soon
AIM, Facebook, and Twitteriffic - Great apps for Web 2.0 communication
CarriesDots - It's got a clunky interface but the game is freakin great
BtBx - Beatbox loop creator
Sol Free - Solitaire
Where To - Lets you look up all kinds of things in a given area
Pennies - This has literally change how I track my money. I'm much more observant about it when I choose to write down every last thing that I buy and what category it is from.
[Image: http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/840/publiconml3.png]
"Apple is like the cool, popular blonde girl at school. Who wears expensive clothing that's easily stained. And is a slutbomb." - Flatty

<macky> i think LycoLoco is drunk

[Image: http://www.xboxlc.com/cards/sig/red/LycoLoco.jpg]
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LycoLoco 2008-09-07, 13:49 #5
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The iPod Touch
or
How I Learned to Get Over Hating Apple and Buy a Mobile Computer
(TL;DR people can go to the bottom for a summary)

As I said, I bought Macky's iPod Touch from him that he got as a refurb from woot.com a little while back. I also had a friend who got one from woot at the same time and after seeing everything that it could do, I decided if I could find one for cheap enough, I'd get one. My first impressions? I'm in love with it.

The interface is very intuitive such that even my mom could work with it after a few minutes of playing with it. The keyboard is very, very typo friendly and the Touch seems to have a huge dictionary for fat-finger typos and can almost always interpret what I'm trying to type. This makes conversations or making notes easier than it would be on a phone keypad. This makes things such as using AIM when on the go less of a pain and more of a reason to buy one if you enjoy being able to easily chat online. The ability to bring up music controls from inside any program by just double tapping the button (of which there are only two physical buttons) is a pretty neat feature too and shows some forethought on Apple's part. Also, it's the best DAP I've ever owned as far as podcast management goes. As shitty as iTunes is as a music player and organizer, the iTunes Podcast library is pretty extensive and makes managing lots of shows less of a chore and automatic bookmarking for podcasts takes the annoyance out of resuming your place in a podcast, something I've had an issue with more than once with my Gigabeat running Rockbox.

The real capabilities of the Touch, However, are in the hands of the application developers. For as good as the hardware on the Touch is, it's nothing without good software to back it up. I think Apple realized this when they saw how many people were jailbreaking their iPhones and Touches to get the added functionality that jailbroken apps were giving them. The apps store is HUGE with more programs than you could probably even get around to trying, but this is a good thing. I've always been a huge proponent of any hardware that has a large community behind it - Linksys WRT54G routers, Rockboxable DAPs, Xbox Media Center (now known as just XMBC), and the like. If people have the ability to push hardware further than it was originally designed I'm usually going to be interested in it and such is the case with the Touch. If it didn't have Apps, jailbroken or not, I wouldn't have even given the Touch a second look. I've actually started keeping track of my own finances after finding a program called Pennies. The only complaint about Pennies I have so far is that you can't backdate a purchase or control your exact budget, just an amount to the closest $100. There are actually some pretty cool games on there for wasting time or even playing with friends. If you've got one and have kids, I could see it being a pretty good thing for them to play with on long car rides as there are a lot of 2 player games or games that could easily be passed back and forth as long as you've got kids who aren't afraid to share with each other.

All of that said, it's not the Messiah of DAPs. As a mobile computer, it's awesome; As a DAP, it's a terrible device. Having come from DAPs like the Karma and Rockbox, I've become accustomed to having lots of playlist control, the ability to add in tracks to the now playing list, things like that. The Touch only has the ability to change around the "On The Go" playlist, not the "Now Playing" list which annoys the hell out of me when I just want to add a single song into the mix. Also, as well as the touchpad works for nearly everything else, it makes selecting songs or changing a feature while walking around a bit of a chore. The same can be said for the keyboard - While the typo dictionary is great it probably wouldn't need it as much if it had a tactile keyboard. I know that would take away from the appeal and look of the Touch as well as reduce the screen size, it is worth mentioning.

It's also worth to note that the Touch is apparently missing a few features that the Zune has mostly with podcasts but also WiFi sync, as Macky made sure to point out to me ;-) If he can provide the link or I can find the article again, I'll include it in here. Take note Apple, you still don't have the be all end all DAP on the market as far as features go.

iTunes: It's still horrible software. Beyond being slow and bloated, you only have the option to sync the iPod automatically on one computer or you have to manage it yourself on all computers. To me this is unacceptable, why can't they make a list of what was added from which computer (maybe based off of MAC address or some other identifying factor on the computer) and only change that subset of tracks? I know that using MediaMonkey on my Gigabeat I run into the same problem, but I can also separate each computer into a separate folder (it's far less annoying than it sounds because of the way I have it set up) and not worry about losing music when I sync at work vs at home or on my laptop. It's just annoying to be honest, but seeing as it's not my primary DAP, I don't have to worry about this that much.

Finally, the battery life clocks in at about 15-18 hours if it's looking for a WiFi signal all of the time, which honestly isn't bad but it does make it annoying when I take it onto campus where we don't have blanket wireless coverage and having to charge it every night. I'll have to give it a fair chance and see what the battery life is if I don't turn the wireless on or leave it on when I'm at my apartment and have wireless all the time.

All in all, I'm ridiculously pleased with the product that Apple has put out and the gripes I have with it are minimal considering that I have my Gigabeat to use as a proper DAP, however if it were the only DAP I had, the review would probably be a little bit more scathing. I also got it for about half off, so I feel like I can be a little more critical than if I had paid full price because I don't have to justify my purchase to myself. :-p Is it worth $300? I don't think so, but if you can find a used on or pick up a refurb directly from Apple I would highly recommend it. If there's anything else you want to know about it, just ask!

Pros: Podcast Management, Applications, Ease of Use, Size
Cons: The iPod functionality is poor, iTunes, Not much of a product without applications, Battery life when using wifi, Missing ability to sync over WiFi.
[Image: http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/840/publiconml3.png]
"Apple is like the cool, popular blonde girl at school. Who wears expensive clothing that's easily stained. And is a slutbomb." - Flatty

<macky> i think LycoLoco is drunk

[Image: http://www.xboxlc.com/cards/sig/red/LycoLoco.jpg]
This post was edited 2 times, last on 2008-09-07, 14:11 by LycoLoco.
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Peregrine 2008-09-08, 12:48 #6
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Surprised you don't mention surfing the net which is the one thing I believe the iTouch/iPhone does better then anything out right now.
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LycoLoco 2008-09-08, 16:19 #7
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Actually, I've found that even on WiFi it's very slow. I haven't used it for surfing the net much because of this reason and have found that it's actually faster to get most content through using Apps, but that is a glaring omission on my part.
[Image: http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/840/publiconml3.png]
"Apple is like the cool, popular blonde girl at school. Who wears expensive clothing that's easily stained. And is a slutbomb." - Flatty

<macky> i think LycoLoco is drunk

[Image: http://www.xboxlc.com/cards/sig/red/LycoLoco.jpg]
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krazykit (Administrator) 2008-09-08, 19:01 #8
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Even shorter summary:  as a PDA it's nice, as a DAP it sucks.
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MacDancer 2008-09-09, 12:43 #9
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My brother feels that if you want both it's a good machine.

I still wish it did everything my Karma does as a DAP whenever I'm fiddling with it.
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