Honest Answers: Are Apple's as good as this iPod Touch?

[Zak33]

Sair's new iPod Touch is quite astonishing. The speed it works at... the way some things are actually BETTER on it than on a PC.

The user friendliness of it....

Tonight we discovered that Googlemail contacts can be put straight to iPod contacts in a split second.

Facebook works BETTER and is easier to find stuff, than on a PC. Right Move is a doddle. Google maps is a DREAM!
and HOW fast is that...? bloody hell.. Google maps is faster than on a quad core vista 64 machine.

And how the HELL does it find where we are located via wifi? I mean.. christ on a bike, HOW does it suss us from the wifi signals in the area...? Is someone REALLY driving round scanning the areas for wifi SSID's and tracking postcodes to the fingerprint?

How come it boots so fast? How come it is so damnably fast?

I don't have one... so how come I want one now too...?

Why is safari so fast to browse with on a basic little CPU and what must be a tiny operating system?

I refuse to smell of wee or have squirels in my beard... but why does Apple seem less of a rude word?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sair's new iPod Touch is quite astonishing. The speed it works at... the way some things are actually BETTER on it than on a PC.

The user friendliness of it....

Tonight we discovered that Googlemail contacts can be put straight to iPod contacts in a split second.

Facebook works BETTER and is easier to find stuff, than on a PC. Right Move is a doddle. Google maps is a DREAM!
and HOW fast is that...? bloody hell.. Google maps is faster than on a quad core vista 64 machine.

And how the HELL does it find where we are located via wifi? I mean.. christ on a bike, HOW does it suss us from the wifi signals in the area...? Is someone REALLY driving round scanning the areas for wifi SSID's and tracking postcodes to the fingerprint?

How come it boots so fast? How come it is so damnably fast?

I don't have one... so how come I want one now too...?

Why is safari so fast to browse with on a basic little CPU and what must be a tiny operating system?

I refuse to smell of wee or have squirels in my beard... but why does Apple seem less of a rude word?

I think you need a lie down man!! Be careful as this Apple thingamajiggy can be quite addictive!! Approach with caution otherwise you will be transformed to a PC hating Jobs loving iPhone carrying iLoveMacPhile(tm)!! You will watch you money ebbing away as you get the latest minimal iUpgrade every year on functionality which should have been included in the first place on iProducts!!


BTW,the iPhone and iPod Touch do not have flash so they are not perfect!!

[mmh]

location answer:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mmoDqPyofok

2:15 in..

[Whiternoise]

Part of the reason is that the iPod is limited to running one application at a time. Google maps isn't being run in an AJAX window in a browser, it's being run as a standalone app. It's really more like running Google Earth which is generally faster than Google Maps in my experience anyway. This single process mentality causes a bit of headache if you want to open more than one thing at once or have something on in the background, but it means that all the processor time is devoted to one thing. As a result, you don't have all the background crap slowing down the system so it can load up quick as you please.

It's not a particularly slouchy CPU by any means, it's got a great little graphics chip and again, if you feed it one app at a time it'll tear through them.

As for location, i presume it uses SkyHook?

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/

Actually this is a better link: http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/coverage.php

Scroll the map over to the UK, they've got pretty much all the major towns covered. So to answer your question Zakky: Yes they did employ people to drive everywhere logging access points!

[Singh400]

As for location, i presume it uses SkyHook?

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/

It does yes The video mmh linked to has more info.

[Terbinator]

Get a Zune HD.

[TooNice]

It's not a bad device by a long shot. It may not be the best shot for everyone, but contrary to what some people would have you believe, one does not need to be a rabid 'fanboy' to actually find that it has the best balance of usability and functionality that a specific individual may need.

Some people may find the absence of a working radio (allegedly, there hardware is there) to be a deal breaker, others the absence of a microSD slot, etc. But if it has the feature that you want and use, at the price you are willing to pay, then it's the right product for you

Apple a bad word? That makes about as much sense as calling it the holy grail of all companies.

[Zak33]

but HOW is it so fast?

Is nothing else running in the background, unlike Windows?

And... does she need Anti Virus for email?

[TheAnimus]

First off its running in a limited mode.

I did a post a while back when running on my laptop I turned off flash and the performance boost was massive, also in battery life too.

Next its not caching its data on HDD, if you have a RAM drive for your temp internet files then shazam, watch the browsing speed.

Also its flash memory. Flash memory is just so much nicer than spindle in my mind, it just feels 'cleaner' and pleases my OCD side, just think how insanely stupid having a rotary disk, with a bit of metal magnetizing and such.

As for virus scanners, not yet, no one is targeting the ipods really, that said you should always have good AV/AntiSpam on your mail server to protect not just when you receive, but what you might blindly forward on!

[Mike Fishcake]

Yeah, the iPod touch is fantastic if you try to ignore all the fanboyism surrounding the iPod range. Obviously it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think some people are put off it just because iPods are so damn popular. I didn't really care about them until I had a chance to play on one at work.

I've got the 8GB version, but actually don't have any music stored on mine I only really use it for web stuff, applications, a couple of casual games, Last.FM and various different relaxation/meditation apps.

I did actually have a problem with the sound hardware a few months ago, but I just took it to the local Apple store, they had a play with it, found it was faulty and changed it at the store with no farting around.

One thing I also found out from a work colleague (although this is 2nd hand information) is that he dropped his ipod in a puddle, and apple have some sort of way of finding out if it's been given a bath, so his ipod obviously wasn't covered for this, but what they apparently did was sell him a new one at a substantial discount (half price I think)

Even if you don't like Macs, have a play with an iPod touch for a while and see what you think.

[Terbinator]

One thing I also found out from a work colleague (although this is 2nd hand information) is that he dropped his ipod in a puddle, and apple have some sort of way of finding out if it's been given a bath, so his ipod obviously wasn't covered for this, but what they apparently did was sell him a new one at a substantial discount (half price I think)

Lol, i know what you talk of, however my auntie managed to get hers replaced.

[Rob_B]

One thing I also found out from a work colleague (although this is 2nd hand information) is that he dropped his ipod in a puddle, and apple have some sort of way of finding out if it's been given a bath, so his ipod obviously wasn't covered for this, but what they apparently did was sell him a new one at a substantial discount (half price I think)

Apart from the dents & possible signs of liquid on the PCB...

2 small squares that turn from white to pink when they get moist, inside the headphone jack & near the charging port IIRC.

[kalniel]

Zak I hate you.

You just convinced me to get one over the nano I was thinking of instead.

[Michael]

My first (And so far only) Apple product is my 2G iPod Touch... I bought it second hand on a whim because it was cheap... all I knew about it really was that I can do most of the things an iPhone can do, except make calls.

I basically use it as a small device for mobile internet, email, and as a GPS tool.

Because it's second hand and I have no warranty, I Jailbroke it, which allows me to run third party software. I've been able to install an alternative Bluetooth stack which allows me to connect my Bluetooh GPS reciever to it, and use any/all GPS functions that the iPhone is capable of.

I have installed several other tools, such as Backgrounder, which allows you to leave apps running in the background... in my case a GPS logging application... and use other apps without causing any problems. I have also installed Insomnia, which ties in with Backgrounder and allows applications to continue running if the screen is off and device is locked.

I will be travelling to Thailand at the end of the month on my first real adventure and will be using it to log my trip via GPS and share my location with family and friends every so often when I connect to a wireless network and publish the data. (Example)

Really, I see it as an amazing portable tool that I have been able to customize to my needs. I love it, and it really has swayed me towards buying Apple products in the future.

So... in summary... yes. They are awesome.

[TheAnimus]

Really, I see it as an amazing portable tool that I have been able to customize to my needs. I love it, and it really has swayed me towards buying Apple products in the future.

So... in summary... yes. They are awesome.

But to do that you've had to loose all warenty, and litterally open a can of worms?

Is it worth that?

[Michael]

But to do that you've had to loose all warenty, and litterally open a can of worms?

Is it worth that?

Absolutely. It wouldn't be half as useful to me as it is if it wasn't Jailbroken. I don't mind waiving all rights to warranty. I see it as an investment in a "blank canvass" piece of hardware to be tailored to me personally. It's MyPod

If this one breaks anytime soon, it'd probably be down to how many times i've dropped it rather than any software modification I have done. I'd happily buy a new one to replace it and do the same again... obviously after making sure it has no immediate faults. (Or maybe switch to an iPhone and be done with it!).