iPod Touch??

[eddiecanuck]

For anyone that has one (miftah?) what do you think? Are you glad you got it? Did you have a previous iPod, and if so is this better? The big thing I'm holding up on is the space on it. Right now I have the 60 gig iPod video, which I have over 20 movies on as well as all my songs, Podcasts, etc. I'm afraid that even with the 16 gig unit I'm gonna be out of space. What I could do is only sync movies that I plan on watching during a certain span of time. I'd like the larger display and the wifi and web browsing would be cool.
Unfortunately most of that I can do on my Windows Mobile phone (that's not blasphamy referencing MS and Apple in the same post is it? ), so I'm having trouble justifying that too. But the browser on the iPod is so much better. Anyway, just looking for any opinions on if I should get one now, maybe wait for the next model with larger storage.

[ZIPPER]

maybe wait for the next model with larger storage.

This is a flash memory model and may not get any bigger for awhile. I would have thought that if it was going to get an up size on the drive it would have been announced today (Macworld '08 ).

[miftah]

After re-encoding the entire eight episodes of the Star Wars saga (two volumes of animated clone wars) for my Windows Mobile Blackjack, I realized that I don't really have time to watch videos on the go. Maybe if I were flying regularly I would feel differently. But after all my waiting for the widescreen formatted ipod, I went in the other direction. I'm purple on high-def now, with an HD-DVD player and a used 60GB PS3 for Blu-Ray. Additionally, I'm getting ready to upgrade my LCD in the next couple of weeks as well, and I am mighty excited.

I got sick of mp3s and over-compressed video. Its probably my looking at hi-def LCDs for the past five years of my life. I just cant take the blurryness of 480p DVDs anymore (I shudder when I think of VHS). So now I rip to Apple Lossless format for audio and I'm slowly replacing the important DVDs with the next-gen media.

Ironically enough at Macworld today they announced Hi-Def rental support for Apple TV, as well as the idea that also starting today, many Fox DVDs for sale will come pre-packed with an ipod-encoded video file on the disc itself. I'm just happy I don't have to rely on my local video stores to rent hi-def. At $5 though, its gotta be something I'm really sure I don't want to just buy used later.

[miftah]

Sorry, but re-reading your post, I think there's a very good chance there will be a higher capacity ipod, and probably in Sept.

They had the chance to do the refresh today and didn't. But what they did do is launch a new laptop that features an optional 64GB solid state drive. I want the drive and the LED backlit display more than any of the other features.

Anyway, they might even drop an ~30GB before, but definitely expect to see higher capacity before school starts in the fall. I want one mind you, but its more fetish than function, and I can wait.

[eddiecanuck]

Thanks, this definitely would be a purchase of luxury. My Windows Mobile phone does all the web browsing I need, and as you have found, while being able to watch movies on my iPod, I don't really do it a lot. So I think for now I'll stick with the current iPod, and if some great new version of the Touch comes out with gobs of space I'll think about it.

Besides, I suppose with kids on the way I better invest my money in other stuff eh?

[ZIPPER]

They had the chance to do the refresh today and didn't. But what they did do is launch a new laptop that features an optional 64GB solid state drive. I want the drive and the LED backlit display more than any of the other features.

Why wait when you can have even smaller now?

[miftah]

Turns out, higher capacity isn't an improbable at all.

[ironpants]

I've never really figured out the whole Ipod/Iphone excitement. I'm guessing that's more lifestyle than anything. I work from home here in Spokane, but my company is in Bellevue so my phone is totally my life. I've gone though a few in the past couple of years, my current "brain" is an HTC TyTN II. It doesn't have a hell of a lot of storage, but it does have MicroSDII so I can drop 4gb cards in it. I've also set up my truck with a bluetooth compatable head unit and put a VIA based pc under the passenger seat w/ 500gb worth of storage so I can pile the music in to the car.

The nicest thing about having the HTC phones (this is my third) is it runs on an MS OS and I'm a programmer, so if it doesn't do something I want, I can just fire up Visual Studio and take care of that. To kind of give you an idea, it's my phone, my music player, my remote for my tv and MythTV system, and just because I was bored, it can control my natural gas fireplace, never mind that I can troubleshoot the entire web farm at a large .com and integrate w/ my exchange email.

The list of features goes on for quite a while and gets longer the more I think I want it to do, but I'd definitely think about it before investing big money in a device that just does media.

BTW, if there's anyone out ther w/ a WM5/6 phone and you want it to do something it doesn't, let me know. I might be pursueded to do it

IP

[eddiecanuck]

BTW, if there's anyone out ther w/ a WM5/6 phone and you want it to do something it doesn't, let me know. I might be pursueded to do it

IP

I'll keep that in mind. I just got the Titan (Mogul, XV6800, whatever), but I've installed a ton of 3rd party apps. I'm just waiting now for HTC/Verizon to actually switch on the GPS chip that's in it (and for my damn company to upgrade to Exchange 2007 so I can use HTML email). I'd have loved to get the TytnII, but I'm stuck with Verizon.

As for the iPod, for me it's that it is so portable. When I do workout or whatever I can just take it with me. I have it setup in my truck to play over FM, not the greatest thing but it works when I'm sick of the radio. And while I like the video feature, I just don't use it much. I guess that's the biggest reason I'm going to stick with what I have.

[miftah]

Eddie, smart move in waiting. Fall's going to be even more interesting than higher capacities.

[eddiecanuck]

Hmm, sounds like it. Not sure about more WiFi devices though. I don't like paying to use the internet , and it seems most places (Starbucks, hotels, etc) are charging for WiFi. But still a good idea, and as you said, interesting things to come.

[ironpants]

This is the part I can't quite figure out.

"Whereas the iPod classic simply enables users to listen to audio and watch video (with some remedial calendar and contacts applications), we believe that Internet connectivity opens the iPod to an entirely new set of possibilities," he wrote. "For starters, as we have seen with the iPod touch and the iPhone, email, full-featured web browsing, a mobile iTunes Store, YouTube, and Google Maps are all possible on an iPod."

All of these future developments are available already on the phone Eddie already owns. The few things the IPod has that his phone doesn't are a larger display, bigger storage and possibly a more aesthetically pleasing interface. For about $120, you can put an 8gb microsd card in the HTC phone and close the gap dramatically on storage.

[miftah]

I think the feature that you're missing here is the ease-of-use that comes with it. Engineers and techs can operate WM platforms with ease, but the average user has some trouble. Hell... I have trouble. I have 8 different devices that play mp3s, but the only one I even bother with is my ipod, and its nothing to do with the exterior look of the device. To take it further, I even have a PSP and trying to encode video for it (a simple process for ipod) is a massive headache, which is to say nothing of its ugly and cumbersome file browsing interface. But its all the same files, right? The experience shouldn't matter on paper, but it just does.

The other thing that locks them as a purchase is reliability (which might be part of the first thing). Itunes and the media functionality runs without a problem on Touch. If a file won't run on the ipod you can't put it on the unit. Now, I haven't yet upgraded my blackjack to WM6, but under WM5, it stutters on even tiny video files when the directory structure doesn't stupify it altogether (which happens more often than I care to admit). I hate Windows Media Player, on all incarnations of Windows. Its a crap product that only gets worse the more complicated they try to make it. There's a reason why Bio still swears by winamp.

Now when you take this same engineering approach and you begin to bring the same reliability to other applications, it opens it up to real user-friendly possibilities. Corporations see it as a way to guide/program the consumer experience (hence Starbucks). Apple's been trumpeting the same things said in this article without getting into specifics... I'm willing to wager they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. And while anything is still possible with the Windows platform, that doesn't make it any more enjoyable interacting with it.

[ironpants]

hmm, definitely different perspective, but the BlackJack is a very different device than the TyTan (I or II). First, it's running WM for smartphones, the TyTans run WM for handhelds. While their similar code bases, there's a heck of a lot more ui punch in WM for handhelds. I had an HTC620 that ran the smartphone interface, I hated it. With the touchscreen, media player's buttons are big enough I can just mash them with my thumb. Another issue is the difference between wm5 and wm6. It would appear MS did quite a bit of work on efficiency with wm6. On the same hardware, it's a night and day difference, so I'd suggest upgrading if it's available for your phone.

All that said, I simply can't wait for the Linux stack for phones to mature a bit. The idea of running Rhytmbox instead of media player on my phone makes me grin

[miftah]

32 GB: available now.