iPod Touch One Year Later

October 20th, 2008

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Has Apple Done Enough to Overcome My Doubts?

The iPod Touch has been out for just about a year now (September 5th, 2007). When it came out last year, I wrote an article (Who Else Wanted More from the iPod Touch?). I thought that it was a very promising device, with several flaws that prevented me from pulling the trigger.

ipod-touch-revisited

Well, there has been a full hardware upgrade released and several firmware releases since then. So how has Apple done to address my laundry list of wishes?

Wish List	Actual	Result
Realistic Storage	Slight Upgrade (Not even Close to enough)
GPS	Yes
Bluetooth	It’s there, BUT Apple has purposely made it unusable.
Third Party Applications and Games	Free and Paid through iTunes Store
Skype	Available with Fring Application

What’s Still Missing?

They’ve done a mediocre job of addressing some my big concerns, but what issues still need addressing?

STORAGE – OMFG, give me a hard drive already. Music, Videos, Photos, Applications, Games on 32 gigs? You’re killing me. Honestly, if Apple fixed this, I would just forget about every other issue.
Copy / Paste – Re-Friggin’-Diculous! Palm Pilot did this way back in the last millennium. hard_drive
Flash Support for Safari – Seriously, it’s 2008 already.
External Keyboard – Let me connect a Bluetooth keyboard. Why does the Nokia 880 support Apple’s keyboard, but not Apple’s own product?
More file formats – Let me sync over and play some other video formats. Yes, I’m sure that Jailbreaking it will take care of some of this, but why make it so hard.
Camera with Video – This thing could be a great way to capture and post things to the web.
Microphone – Use it as a voice recorder, Skype phone, Video recorder. Kind of like my (non-smartphone) cell phone did 5 years ago.
FM Radio – I don’t listen to the radio, but lots of people do. Just throw it in there already.

Why Apple will not fix these things any time soon.

Partial Solutions to these Issues

Jailbreak the Touch: You can use an “unauthorized” software application to unlock some of the idiotic hardware crippling, customer screwing limitations that Apple places on the Touch. There are two popular tools that will allow you to Jailbreak your iPod Touch: iPod Touch Hacks application and QuickPwn application. I have not used either, but I hear good things about both.

jailbreak-ipod-touch

If you poke around the internet, you can probably find someone who has fixed many other issues.

Would I Still Buy One?

Yes, forget the music. It is still the best PDA I have ever seen. I just love flicking through photos. The browser is the best mobile internet experience, period! The application store puts it in the category of Palm (you broke my heart) and Windows Mobile. The music experience is still the best of any portable device. The Video screen is amazing. There are so many third party accessories that you can’t go wrong.

Get yourself an Apple iPod Touch.