Impressions Of The iPod Touch - 1 update

Originally posted September 11, 2007 - 1 update, see below

Apple, Inc. has done it again - a great new portable device, called the Apple iPod Touch. Essentially it's an iPhone without the phone functionality. Oh, and no email subsystem. And no ability to update your address book on the device. And, no doubt, other de-featuring by Apple to subtly persuade you to spend just a bit more money, and monthly fees to AT&T (of which Apple gets a perpetual cut), in order for you to get the full "iPersonalComputingDevice" capabilities (experience).

In my opinion, the one great feature of the iPod touch is that it has built-in Wi-Fi and a decent-enough web browser in Safari. In one handheld device you can have your music collection, all your key info such as address book, calendar, and you can browse the web whenever you're in range of Wi-Fi.

The big new feature for the iPod Touch (and a new capability being added to the iPhone via software update) is that when either device is connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, you'll be able to browse and order music directly on the iPod Touch and iPhone.

But, only music. Not video content. Not podcasts.

That's just dumb!!! As are the other restrictions that Apple is building into the iPod Touch and iPhone.

(Click below to continue the story.)

One thing that we've learned is that telling your customers what they can't do with the devices they're buying from you, especially when the device is fully capable of a function, and the vendor doesn't allow that function to be used in order to protect a higher revenue service or device, simply won't stand.

One of the best possible uses for an iPod equipped with Wi-Fi, that doesn't need the intermediate step of a desktop computer with iTunes software is to automatically download podcasts. With such a capability, it's an acceptable substitute for listening to live broadcasting,as I discussed two years ago (PDF link) in my newsletter FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access:

Here’s one very small, but significant example that comes immediately to mind. An Indian cab driver can subscribe to a podcast of the Indian equivalent of the two hour National Public Radio (NPR) program “Morning Edition”. He can leave the house with his iPod Wi-Fi, and while standing in line waiting to get his morning cup of coffee or tea, his iPod Wi-Fi will automatically (it detected that it had Wi-Fi connectivity) download that podcast via iTunes Music Store. So in his cab for the two hours of the podcast, he can be listening to the latest news from India in his native tongue... with no involvement of a paid wireless connection, especially a wireless telephony connection.

Either Apple will get this, and quickly... or new services will quickly emerge to exploit this capability. And they will certainly emerge - because they can, because giving people a "little" capability - the ability to access anything on the Internet via the web browser and Wi-Fi, means that they will, and there will be entrepreneurs out there to service those users hungry for podcasts on the their iPhone and iPod Touch.

It might take a while, but even Apple gets the message eventually.

Update 1 - 2007-12-22   I've come to the conclusion that the iPod Touch is fatally flawed. Not by anything inherent in its "architecture" - basically an iPhone minus the direct wireless telephony functions, but rather flawed because of Apple's decision to deliberately "de-feature" the iPod Touch to not let it compete so directly with the iPhone. I've been slowly persuaded with the utility of of carrying around a truly usable, pocket-form-factor computer, and the only one that's made my personal cut is the iPhone / iPod Touch. But there's a critical feature that the iPhone has, that the iPod Touch doesn't - landscape mode in the Safari browser. The iPhone works exactly as you'd come to expect. Rotate it to landscape, and Safari changes to landscape. Not so on the iPod Touch - Safari doesn't change, though a salesperson said that the iPod Touch does do this when playing movies. If that's true, then the sensor is there for orientation; Apple apparently decided to not enable this feature in Safari, and in my opinion that renders Safari useless on the iPod Touch.

The other feature I think that the iPhone and iPod Touch really need is a way to view user-created files, and from what I was told by several salespersons, that capability isn't present on the iPhone or iPod Touch. That's a perfect illustration of why both are of limited overall usefulness until Apple deigns to officially sanction, and enable, third-party applications to be loaded onto the iPhone and iPod Touch. It'll be a very interesting MacWorld keynote in January to find out how much pressure Apple is feeling to "open up" the iPhone and iPod Touch to third-party applications, and how it will be implemented. While there's some justification to "protect" the iPhone from "too much hacking" to "protect" wireless telephony networks, there's no such justification to "protect" the iPod Touch because it does not have the wireless telephony capabilities at all.

Dumb, dumb, dumb feature / lack of the iPhone / iPod Touch #01 - not enabling the Bluetooth system of the iPhone / iPod Touch to work with the new Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard. There's some controversy whether the iPod Touch has Bluetooth capability at all; if so, it's not enabled on the iPod Touch, and if Bluetooth is in there, or even if it's not, it's just more dumb de-featuring of the iPod Touch on Apple's part. Why would you make a product that deliberately isn't the best it can be? Again, Apple will have to learn the hard way that, in the end, they really aren't smarter than their customers.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Comments

[VMN]

You made some great points here. Seems to me that the iPod Touch is great for college campuses, with high-speed WiFi and iTunes U.

Apple's been too engaged with the educational market, and educational possibilities for iPods and iTunes, *not* to recognise the tremendous possibilities.

[Free iPod Touch]

Thanks for the update, I agree the ipod touch is somewhat flawed, but it is still a cool gadget. Of course it would not "beat" the iphone, it was made for those who didn't want to throw out the extra money and get an iphone.

[rcb]

ok, a wifi device that doesnt include virus/net nanny software?????

[Editor's note - Does it really NEED it? - sks]

[TJ]

Great article, but I have a few comments... First, the landscape mode in Safari is enabled (I'm using it now). Second, Apple has promised that it will open the iPod touch to 3rd party applications with a SDK slated for release in February.

I know that this info may not have been available at the time the article was posted, but I think that it's relevant enough to be added.

[Editor's comment - TJ - so how do you engage landscape mode in Safari on the iPod Touch? The two salespersons I asked didn't know. - sks]

[BP]

Just purchased the Ipod Touch and the Safari did rotate into landscape mode when I turned the Ipod. The bigger flaw is the lack of bluetooth.

[chris]

to get lanscape mode in safari on an ipod touch
you rotate the iPod 90 degrees and you then have
lanscape mode...if only works for youtube, video, and
safari...I'm sure in the coming months you will see the
touch get lanscape mode for all apps...at least I hope!

[liedetector]

I have an Australian Ipod and it rotates in safari, iphoto and itunes and that was before the upgrade. There is no setting for this it just does it out of the box.

[Alex]

That was the most ignorant under informed review/rant I have ever read in my life.