I have had an ipod touch for just about 90 days now. Tomorrow I will be off to Costco to take advantage of their awesome return policy. My refunded cash will go towards the purchase of an iPhone 3GS (which due to supply shortages has yet to ship). Since this will be my last night with this glorious device I thought it fitting that this review be composed and published on it.
As I have previously mentioned on this blog, I have been a Sprint SERO subscriber. My 2 year contract recently ended which opened up the possibility of getting a new phone. My HTC Mogul isn’t cutting it anymore, not even with a Windows Mobile 6.5 rom on it and since January I was nearly certain that I would be getting a Pre. My original intention was to use my cheap SERO plan for my “phone” purposes and my iPod for everything else.
Unfortunately Sprint requires that you subscribe to their more expensive phone plans if you want to get a Pre. That requirement alone made me question whether it was worth it for me to stay with Sprint. Aside from Sprint’s customer service I have been happy. Especially considering I pay around $32/month for it. The day before my contract ended I got a friendly call from a support representative of which I was only able to understand roughly 25% of what he had to say. I think he was asking me if I was happy and if there was anything he could do for me, but all I heard was that I didn’t think I could stand to put up with your customer service any longer.
The Pre itself is a marvelous device – both the device’s hardware design and operating system is nearly everything I wanted in a mobile device. The decision to not get a Pre came down to apps. In particular I looked at Evernote, which had just come out on the Pre and the updated version for the iphone’s 3.0 OS. The Pre’s version showed promise but the 3.0 version was by far the superior app. I have no doubt that with time Pre developers will produce amazing applications for it but from a user perspective I don’t want to wait.
Additionally I didn’t see the Pre completely replacing everything that I use the touch for. Yes the browser is fast, but the experience isn’t quite as well done as what Apple has produced.
So what do I like about the ipod touch? For me it has been the ultimate internet appliance. Combining all my internet needs inside a thin, light device. When my computer is down or I feel like lounging on the patio, at a friend’s place, or at a cafe the touch suits all my needs.
Recently I moved my main computer to another room where it would no longer have a wired connection. I wanted to avoid using a pci wireless card because I have experienced system instability while using them under high loads in the past (like bittorrent). So instead I bought a 2nd router and used my touch to configure it to support Wireless Distribution System. This mode had the effect of extending my wireless network to this new router. Now I could plug my computer directly into the 2nd router and use the connection of the first. Since my computer didn’t have a wireless connection I would not have been able to configure this 2nd router without my ipod touch.
What do I do on my touch on a daily basis?
- keep up with the news using Google Reader
- check my email
- keep up to date by having my calender automagically synced with my google calender
- wake up with the great default clock application as well as use the timer for cooking and workouts
- listen to audio books and podcasts (Pre doesn’t save positions in audiobooks)
- buy and read books through Kindle (not supported on the Pre)
- read twitter (with Tweetie)
- browse Reddit using iReddit
- browse flickr
- take and read notes using Evernote
- find new restaurants using Yelp
- track my runs using Nike+
- track my pushup and situp programs using dedicated apps
- control VLC and iTunes
- chat with gtalk, aim and Facebook using BeeJive 3.0
- keep up with my facebook contacts using the dedicated app (really Palm you couldn’t have had one at launch?)
- manage my blog with a dedicated wordpress app (just found out I could do this today!)
- track my bank account using Mint
The majority of the things I use my touch for on a regular basis are either not supported on the Pre or would not have offered as good of an experience. So in the end I would have still needed to carry around two devices.
Without a doubt the touch is a gateway drug to the iphone. You can’t appreciate all that the touch has to offer and not want to be able to do everything and more with phone and gps functionality like the iphone can. I look forward to not needing WiFi access everywhere and being able to use location aware services.
So long my beloved ipod touch. You have served me well. You will be dearly missed during the time that I return you and when I finally get my iphone.








