Apple's brilliance

I was at my mom’s home over the Christmas break and saw a little desktop gadget that showed current plus forecasted weather for the next 3 days. The gadget gets the radio signal over the air and constantly updates current temperature with highs and lows for the area, and I thought this was a brilliant idea but it seemed over priced at $80 for a little plastic gadget with black and white LCD reading.

Another gadget she had was a desktop clock that showed multi-time zones around the world. This is actually something I bought for her years ago because she always wondered about the time before calling friends and relatives living all over the places including overseas. I, too, have friends and relatives scattered around the world and thought about getting a similar clock at $120 because my PDA shows only two time zones.

Okay I am getting to iPod in a minute... but I need to first tell you that I recently spent $80 for a 2GB MP3 player to download podcasts.

Now the iPod Touch... My rational to spend $299 for an iPod Touch was its all-in-one value combining MP3 player ($80), weather forecaster ($80), and world clock ($120) which equals to $280. I further justified for the remaining $19 shortage on the additional 6GB storage of an iPod Touch which has 8GB. The Touch executes all of these three functions extremely well. Touch the screen for the weather, and the current temperature is displayed with 5 day forecast just like you see on an internet weather site. Touch the screen for the world clock, and it instantly displays all the cities you entered with their times. And yes, it plays music with CD quality.

My desire for a Touch started when the iPhone was first introduced. But the first generation Touch did not come with all the applications that iPhone had. And I could not rationalize getting one when I already had an internet tablet, Nokia N770, which could do everything a Touch could do and a lot more. As soon as Apple announced in January 2008 about adding five very useful applications to the Touch, I bought one. Needless to say, the Touch is a lot more than just an MP-3 player with weather forecaster and world clock mentioned above.

With these five new software built in, now it can send and receive email, check stocks, view Google maps, check weather, and write memos in addition to its original functions of playing music & video, view photos, surf web, check calendar, contacts, instant access to YouTube, and a basic calculator.

It does everything flawlessly. Execution is typical “Apple like” fun and functional. The screen is crisp clear as good as or better than HD. One of many worth mentioning is its Google map function which is just like the web. It can somehow detect your current approximate location, and provide directions to your destination. If you live in a major city, it also can show current traffic conditions right on the map just like the web page does. The weather page has a small Yahoo icon at the lower corner of the screen and tapping it takes you to the city information including the upcoming events for the city, theatre times, and so on. Yes, you can do all these through internet, but not as conveniently. Lots of times, I would not know where to find information on the web without spending several minutes of trial and error. The makers of Touch thought about all these, and made everything so easy and convenient. It’s like wearing a wrist watch when you could easily find time on your cell phone in your pocket these days; there’s nothing on the Touch that cannot be found elsewhere if time is no object. The Touch makes it so much more fun and easy.

As for the customizing, it allows you to put a few icons on the screen to connect you to your favorite website with one touch. I added a site that tells me local gas prices. Now I have one-touch information on gas prices very handy.

The Touch is like buying a radio and the car comes as an extra. Its extra stuff is much more than any average person could imagine. So, going back to its intended function of playing music, I must say it sounds great. It has a direct hot button to its music store, iTune. You can sample music before you click to buy. You can select top ten list, featured list, most viewed list, or search the music yourself. And it plays 20 or 30 seconds of high quality music almost instantly. I find myself amused for hours browsing through sample musics.

There is one catch. In order for a Touch to have its full capability, it must be within a Wi-Fi range. Matter of fact, you cannot even use it until it is first connected to iTune website and finished setting up. So, if you don’t have a computer, you are doomed. I recon it is because Apple wants to set up music accounts with all iPod owners. Finding a local Wi-Fi hot spot is not difficult as most coffee shops and hotels have one, but it is so much more useful to have a Wi-Fi set up at home especially when you want to check the weather and traffic quickly in the morning before heading out to work.

Email set up is simple if you already have an account with any one of Google, Yahoo, Mac, or AOL email. Typing on the on-screen keyboard needs some practice but it works.

Supposedly, it could synchronize with Microsoft Outlook calendar and contacts through iTune site, but I was not successful. I heard from others that you must re-create calendar and contact lists if you want to use these on a Touch. That’s about only complaint I have other than the gorgeous unit attracts fingerprints too easily. Also I wish I could drag and drop files to it without going through iTune site. Any addition or deletion of music is done at iTune and the Touch simply synchronize with the latest change each time hard connection is made via USB port. Even with these minor complaints, I’d give Apple A+++ for the job well done.

As much as I want a consolidated do-it-all unit replacing every function on my PDA, the Touch is not intended to replace a PDA. Unlike a PDA which is supposed to increase productivity, a Touch’s main purpose might be to kill time (or to utilize idle time wisely). I keep reminding myself the Touch is a top of the line MP-3 player with extras...lots of extras.

Oh, one last thing. If you order it directly from the Apple on-line store, you can also have it laser engraved on the back of the unit.