Traveling Thoughts

Think back to when you were a kid…actually, you may not have to think that far back…think back to the last time something was cooked, a treat if you will, and you were told “don’t touch it, it’s for later” or “don’t touch, it’s for [insert name here]”. With the holidays just past us, Thanksgiving and Christmas you’ve probably heard it a lot. “Don’t touch” I used to hear it a lot as a kid, we’d be going to the store, “Remember kids, don’t touch anything, you look with your eyes, not with your hands” or we’d go to someone’s house and we’d hear the same thing “don’t touch”. Everywhere you go, it was don’t touch, don’t touch, don’t touch. *rolls eyes*

But now, there’s something that just begs us to touch it, the new iPod touch, aka, iTouch. This little bugger is all about the touch and all the touch is done on the screen. With the iTouch, we’ve lost the click wheel that once made the iPod’s famous, while this is a cool feature, I find that it’s also a bit of a downside (more on this later).

I’ve gone and done a quick run through of a few of the features of the iTouch. Personally, my favorites are the ability to surf the interwebs from the itouch and the video capabilities. It was very nice of Apple to put the YouTube player on there as default.

The iTouch encompasses so many cool things, things that Apple has created nice clean demonstrations for. Apple has videos of all the iTouch features on their website. The one feature that I didn’t mention anything about was the video feature, but it works the same as though you combined the music and youtube features. You could browse your videos as you did the music and then when you were watching your videos it would be like the youtube video I showed. The video feature is very nice and as I mentioned, one of my favorites.

I did skip over the photos feature as well, I said if I had photos we could view them, I don’t have photos on my iTouch because I don’t feel as though they’re what I need to be wasting space on. My iTouch does have 8gb and it will take me a while to fill those 8 gigs because I’m picky about what I load onto my iPods but photos aren’t one of the things that I need on my iPod. But that’s me personally. I will say this, from watching the photos demo on the Apple website, there are some cool features, like the ability to resize the photo and set it as the background on the iTouch. Me, I’m simple, and thus, my background is plain black.

I did find, and this isn’t a complaint because it could be a user issue, that the touch screen was a bit, touchy…it didn’t always work as I expected it to, as you can kindof see in the video, there’s a few times where I’m forced to “touch” something several times before it works. But, it could be me. As time has progressed with my iTouch’s and mines relationship, I’m finding that less often am I having problems and more often is it behaving as it should be.

There’s only one downside to the iTouch that I can think of, and it’s really only a downside when I’m out there cycling, and it’s only really extremely bothersome when I’m not attached to my stationary trainer.

I just can’t change songs or turn up the volume on the iTouch when I’m riding, I have to make sure all the songs on there are ones I like, and the volume has to be preset to perfection before I take off. If I make sure of those 2 things before I begin my ride, then I’m good to go, if one or both of those things is off, I’m likely to cause a wreck, ruin my bike, break a couple bones, maybe get some cuts that require stitches, but it’s really not so bad in comparison to all the good we get with the iTouch. Besides that, in any official ride that I participate in, I’m not supposed to be listening to music, so, really, the one thing that I deem as a flaw in the iTouch, in my case, isn’t a flaw at all *shrugs* …thus, we have a winner with the iTouch. It’s golden, or silver rather, silver backed at least, or chrome, I have a tendency to call stuff silver if it looks silver, but it could be chrome, *sigh* I digress.

Oh, I mustant forget to tell you about all that comes with the iTouch (or what was lacking and thus we had to accessorize).

The iTouch comes with of course, the iTouch, the classic Apple earbuds, a cute little stand for the iTouch to sit in (not that it would ever sit in the stand as theoretically it’d be in a pocket or in the armband, or in a backpack, but if you want to sit at your desk and watch a movie I suppose the stand would be helpful), and a USB sync cable, which also happens to work as the charger. Stickers, cause stickers are cool. And a little clothe with which you can free the iTouch from all finger prints and smudges left on it but at the same time open it up for more.

Now, I had to accessorize, not much, but some was necessary. I had to get a USB Power Adapter. I normally wouldn’t need one because I’m often near a computer and so charging the iTouch from my computer would have been no problem, but lately, I’ve been traveling a bit and the laptop doesn’t always go with me. For such occasions, I bought an off brand power adapter.

Another accessory that’s a necessary, but that I didn’t have to buy this time around is the iHome. I had bought one a year ago or so for my iPod Mini and so using it for my iTouch was no question. I did question whether or not my iTouch would work in the iHome simply because the iHome was put out before the iPods were fandangled with features. I am happy to report that the iTouch does work in the iHome. (My most favorite feature of the iHome, since I know you were wondering, the remote from which I can point and click to turn off the alarm in the morning.)

And finally, because I needed to wear it while cycling (even if I’m not supposed to), a sports band was necessary. Just remember that if you need your hands on the handle bars and your eyes on the road that only songs you will enjoy for the duration of the ride should be loaded and volume should be preset to a level of satisfaction.

And thus, we have a review of the Apple iPod Touch. If you’re in the market for an mp3 player, I’d recommend the iTouch. I’ve had a good time with it and wouldn’t trade it for the world.