This was £249 from Apple online, using a £20 off voucher code.
As you may know, an iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone parts. But as the first generation iPhone misses several facilities I expect to have on a modern phone, I wasn’t willing to go down the total convergence route just yet.
Instead, the device that my iPod primarily replaced was my PSP. Obviously the PSP was better for games, but it more often justified space in my bag for the other features - photo viewer, video player, and most important of all the wifi web browser. All these are bettered by the iPod touch.
My absolute favourite feature of the Touch has to be the Mobile Safari browser. It is the main reason I bought one. I was totally in the market for a handheld web tablet. I was considering the Sony Ericsson P1 for wifi web browsing. Then I saw Steve Jobs introduce the iPod touch. I was sold.
A beautiful large screen that can be held portrait or landscape, displaying web pages that can be scrolled, zoomed and navigated by touching the screen? That renders websites properly with the only significant omission being Flash? In a lovely thin black device that could fit in your shirt pocket? That isn’t Windows? How could I not be sold on this?
I was not disappointed. Browsing the web is a joy. Although the browser makes it easy to read any size of website by allowing single tap zooming to a particular column or section, a number of websites have developed versions tailored for the iPhone/touch interface making things even more joyous. Apple’s devices just seem to have got more people motivated to great work than the longer established Windows Mobile devices. Perhaps it’s easier to convince bosses that the time is well spent if the target device is all over the news. Perhaps it’s just easier to develop for Mobile Safari. Perhaps more web developers own iPhones and iPod touches themselves. Whatever the reasons, the net result is that I can check Facebook and Google Reader in bed - and link through to “normal” websites if needbe.
The more traditional iPod features were a secondary consideration, but it quickly became my preferred mobile music source. I’m not entirely happy with the shuffle or the emphasis on albums, but syncing podcasts and throwing music at via iTunes is better than I’d feared. The lack of buttons makes changing track whilst on the move a matter of getting it out of the protective sock and sliding various things around with my finger - a problem solved by buying a headphone remote with play/pause, back/next, volume up/down buttons.
Indeed, I have almost got to the stage where the accessories are worth more than the iPod itself. iSocks, chargers, TV cable, protective film, speakers, remote, The Cloud subscription… And still there’s more to tempt me. In a few years I’ll probably have an iPod dock of some sort in every room. I remember being mildly amazed when first put my iPod touch in my mother’s dock that it just worked. Of course, it would be better if everything shared a connector that was more universal and open, but the reality is the ubiquity of iPods and iPod compatible devices offers a significant advantage over other music players.
Even taking into account the “total cost of ownership”, it’s still one of the greatest things I have ever purchased. Being without it is not unlike someone from Lyra’s world being separated from their daemon. Like the daemon of a child, it is constantly changing form. Third-party applications officially become available in the next few months. I already have my device “jailbroken” to allow such things now, making the device ever more useful and entertaining. For the benefit of my iPhone and iPod touch owning friends and readers I will be highlighting the best of these in 2008. For now, as I look back there is no doubt that the iPod touch is the best object I’ve bought in 2007 - if not my entire life.
Tomorrow - best overnight hotel stay of the year.
