Wednesday, September 26, 2007
iTouch: iMiss!
I stopped by the local Apple store to check out the new iTouch. Probably everyone knows that the iTouch is one of the recently released iPod units from Apple. Initially the iTouch was thought to be basically a iPhone without the phone capabilities.
A lot of reviews have highlighted some of the major differences between the iPhone and the iTouch. These included not including cellular capability (obviously), no bluetooth in iTouch, and lack of some applications on the iTouch, and possibly screen differences.
The iTouch has a very nice form factor in being slightly smaller than the iPhone as well as thinner. The look and feel is very similar to the iPhone with the same touch screen and finger gestures.
One significant comment I have read on the internet is how the iPhone (as well as iTouch) is really closing in on being the ideal personal digital assistant (PDA). This is the world the Palm handhelds held superiority for many years. Palm lead diminished drastically with the convergence of cell phones and handhelds. More importantly I believe that Palm severely mismanaged their market lead over the past many years. But that is a subject for another post.
Imagine my surprise when I find out that the the calendar application on the new iTouch is read-only. Entries can only be made on your Mac or PC and later synchronized. To me this alone invalidates the iTouch as a PDA. By the way, the calendar application on the iPhone allows entry of new items. One can only imagine why Apple chose to have this limitation on the iTouch.
A reason for my visiting the Apple store was to validate whether the iTouch would be one of my purchases when I upgrade PowerBooks when the newest Mac operating system version, Leopard, is eventually released. I am lukewarm on the iPhone because of the requirement of cellular service with ATT. With my findings I am sure that an iTouch will not be on my shopping list. Too bad.
A lot of reviews have highlighted some of the major differences between the iPhone and the iTouch. These included not including cellular capability (obviously), no bluetooth in iTouch, and lack of some applications on the iTouch, and possibly screen differences.
The iTouch has a very nice form factor in being slightly smaller than the iPhone as well as thinner. The look and feel is very similar to the iPhone with the same touch screen and finger gestures.
One significant comment I have read on the internet is how the iPhone (as well as iTouch) is really closing in on being the ideal personal digital assistant (PDA). This is the world the Palm handhelds held superiority for many years. Palm lead diminished drastically with the convergence of cell phones and handhelds. More importantly I believe that Palm severely mismanaged their market lead over the past many years. But that is a subject for another post.
Imagine my surprise when I find out that the the calendar application on the new iTouch is read-only. Entries can only be made on your Mac or PC and later synchronized. To me this alone invalidates the iTouch as a PDA. By the way, the calendar application on the iPhone allows entry of new items. One can only imagine why Apple chose to have this limitation on the iTouch.
A reason for my visiting the Apple store was to validate whether the iTouch would be one of my purchases when I upgrade PowerBooks when the newest Mac operating system version, Leopard, is eventually released. I am lukewarm on the iPhone because of the requirement of cellular service with ATT. With my findings I am sure that an iTouch will not be on my shopping list. Too bad.
