TromboneAl
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2006
- Messages
- 12,880
Here are my first impressions of the iPod touch (8 Gig, bought used for $135).
1. It could be larger and still fit in a pocket. The increase in size would make typing a lot easier.
2. The apple logo that comes up first
makes it look like you have a scratch in your screen. That's what I thought.
3. The screen is very nice and bright, great colors. Makes my laptop seem dim.
4. There's no help or tooltips (that I've found). So on a screen like this:
if I want to know what the icons at the bottom do, I have to look through the manual (and I can't search for a symbol).
5. Typing doesn't work that well yet; I'm sure I'll get better at it. The "keys" are just too small.
My index finger is 2.2 keys wide and my thumb is three keys wide. My long passwords, which include lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols, require the use of three separate "keyboards." Time will tell whether this will be as fast as graffiti was on my Palm.
6. The wifi works great. I was able to pick up the signal from a neighboring restaurant the other day.
7. The google calendar, gmail, and iGoogle web sites do a great job of adapting to the small screen.
8. Not all apps can switch to landscape. The home page is an example.
9. The Kindle reader works great. I could easily read an entire book this way.
10. iTunes -- Yuck. This is extreme bloatware. The setup app was 93 Megabytes, and took longer than any other setup I've used. The iTunes Program Files folder contains 1,999 files and 1,563 folders.
If an English car company makes a car for the USA, it puts the wheel on the left. If Apple makes an app for Windows, it should look and act like a windows app. Here's an example of how this can be a problem:
If you go to select the iTunes window, you'll end up selecting Firefox. This happens regularly.
Clicking acts differently. If the iTunes window doesn't have focus, then clicking in it doesn't activate what you clicked, it only activates the window, and you need another click to do what you intended. Since that's not how Windows apps work, your thoughts are interrupted each time you do this.
Often selecting a button will make the cursor disappear when it should be displaying an hourglass cursor. The buttons aren't intuitive, at least for a Windows user.
iTunes isn't designed to be easy to use, it's designed to make you buy stuff. You put in your credit card ahead of time, so if you click on an app by mistake, there's no confirmation screen, and no way to cancel. You can't even set an option to require confirmation (that I've found). Amazon's one-click ordering is great, but it allows you to cancel an order.
You can't say "show me only the free apps" or sort by price.
The interface with the iPod is crippled by iTunes. Instead of simply dragging and dropping photos, for example, you have to go through iTunes' rigmarole.
I will be working on bypassing iTunes as soon as possible.
11. Great apps -- what a lot to choose from.
12. Lack of standardization makes it messy to get contact info to/from my desktop app.
12. The interface on the iPod is very nice. Unfortunately, scrolling down on the iPod involves dragging your finger up, and scrolling down on the laptop involves dragging your finger down (on the edge of the touchpad), but I think I can adapt to this.
-------------------
Despite my gripes, I'm glad I bought the iPod touch. I expect to use it when setting up gig dates when on a gig, being able to read something in idle moments, being able to check stuff online when in town, and listen to my songs while running.
1. It could be larger and still fit in a pocket. The increase in size would make typing a lot easier.
2. The apple logo that comes up first
makes it look like you have a scratch in your screen. That's what I thought.
3. The screen is very nice and bright, great colors. Makes my laptop seem dim.
4. There's no help or tooltips (that I've found). So on a screen like this:
if I want to know what the icons at the bottom do, I have to look through the manual (and I can't search for a symbol).
5. Typing doesn't work that well yet; I'm sure I'll get better at it. The "keys" are just too small.
My index finger is 2.2 keys wide and my thumb is three keys wide. My long passwords, which include lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols, require the use of three separate "keyboards." Time will tell whether this will be as fast as graffiti was on my Palm.
6. The wifi works great. I was able to pick up the signal from a neighboring restaurant the other day.
7. The google calendar, gmail, and iGoogle web sites do a great job of adapting to the small screen.
8. Not all apps can switch to landscape. The home page is an example.
9. The Kindle reader works great. I could easily read an entire book this way.
10. iTunes -- Yuck. This is extreme bloatware. The setup app was 93 Megabytes, and took longer than any other setup I've used. The iTunes Program Files folder contains 1,999 files and 1,563 folders.
If an English car company makes a car for the USA, it puts the wheel on the left. If Apple makes an app for Windows, it should look and act like a windows app. Here's an example of how this can be a problem:
If you go to select the iTunes window, you'll end up selecting Firefox. This happens regularly.
Clicking acts differently. If the iTunes window doesn't have focus, then clicking in it doesn't activate what you clicked, it only activates the window, and you need another click to do what you intended. Since that's not how Windows apps work, your thoughts are interrupted each time you do this.
Often selecting a button will make the cursor disappear when it should be displaying an hourglass cursor. The buttons aren't intuitive, at least for a Windows user.
iTunes isn't designed to be easy to use, it's designed to make you buy stuff. You put in your credit card ahead of time, so if you click on an app by mistake, there's no confirmation screen, and no way to cancel. You can't even set an option to require confirmation (that I've found). Amazon's one-click ordering is great, but it allows you to cancel an order.
You can't say "show me only the free apps" or sort by price.
The interface with the iPod is crippled by iTunes. Instead of simply dragging and dropping photos, for example, you have to go through iTunes' rigmarole.
I will be working on bypassing iTunes as soon as possible.
11. Great apps -- what a lot to choose from.
12. Lack of standardization makes it messy to get contact info to/from my desktop app.
12. The interface on the iPod is very nice. Unfortunately, scrolling down on the iPod involves dragging your finger up, and scrolling down on the laptop involves dragging your finger down (on the edge of the touchpad), but I think I can adapt to this.
-------------------
Despite my gripes, I'm glad I bought the iPod touch. I expect to use it when setting up gig dates when on a gig, being able to read something in idle moments, being able to check stuff online when in town, and listen to my songs while running.