Apple iPod touch 16 GB (2nd Generation) NEWEST MODEL Immediately

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 by Smith | Posted in , , , , ,


First of all, Amazon got this to me right on time, and despite some pretty confusing tracking going on in the shipping process (my iPod seemed to travel backward in time and space several times, showing up in cities further away from me at earlier dates than had already passed) it showed up at my door right on time. I bought it refurbished, and the product quality was excellent; the screen was completely clear, with no visible markings. The back was a bit scuffed up, but who freakin' cares, I keep it in a speck case anyway, so it's not like I ever see the back.

Alright, it goes without saying that the iPod Touch is pretty cool. It's an iPhone without the phone. There's a whole lot of great things to say about it, and many great things have been said, so to avoid reiterating what you'll see everywhere else I'll just point out the few things that could have been done better.

I really don't understand why there aren't physical track control buttons on the side or top of the iPod somewhere. Apart from the hold/lock button, the volume controls and the large "back/home" button, there aren't any buttons on the iPod at all - which is kinda cool, but it's really rather a nuisance to have to take the iPod out of my pocket, unlock it and push the "next track" or "pause" button every time I want to skip a song or pause to, say, answer my phone or listen to my boss. I discovered after a while of using it that you can access a simplified music control panel while using any other application on the iPod by quickly pressing the "home" button twice, which is nice. It was a bit of a pain to have to close whatever I was working on (safari, whatever) and go to the music section to change tracks, but now I don't have to do that, so no complaints there.

The only other hardware gripe I really have about the iPod is that it doesn't come with a camera and microphone. I realize that these are iPhone features, but I see no reason why they should not be iPod features as well. I'd like to be able to use my iPod to record voice notes and take pictures, and there are all sorts of cool apps that use the camera and microphone that I just can't use. There's technically an ability to connect an external microphone or camera, but who the hell is ever going to do that? You can even see the spot on the back of the iPod where the camera goes on the iPhone. I want to be able to use the barcode scanning app, or the music identifying app, among others, but I can't because I don't have a camera or microphone. So you'd say "why not get an iPhone," but I don't have AT&T and I'm not going to switch services just to get an iPhone, especially when AT&T has crap service where I live. Besides, the phone kills the battery life, from what I've seen. My iPod has ungodly battery life - it will last for 2+ days of moderate use on a single charge, and my aftermarket car stereo (which I got on Amazon as well) charges my iPod every time I get in the car.

As far as software tweaks, there's a few things that bother me a little bit. First of all, I really wish there were a way to truly create and edit playlists from the iPod itself. This seems to be a feature lacking in every mp3 player I've ever used, and it's as annoying as ever. I really just don't see why I can get on the internet, watch movies, play games and watch stocks from my iPod, but I can't make a new playlist and save it or edit the playlists already on there. The "On-the-Go" playlist works, but that's just another confusing factor: the functionality is obviously available to edit playlists, so why can't I edit and make new ones? Weird. In sort of the same vein, the iPod (and iTunes as well) is lacking a "now playing" playlist or queue. Frequently, especially when I'm on long drives or using my iPod for party music, I'd like to be able to queue up songs to play "right after this one", or "at the end of the queue". Even just being able to add a song to the end of the "On-the-Go" playlist easily would be nice, but you have to go into it from the "playlist" menu, hit "edit" and find each song you want to add to it from that menu. I want to be able to do this while I'm scrolling through the big spinny album changer and something strikes my fancy, not from the playlist menu. In a lot of the other parts of the iPod software, namely Safari, you can bring up a list of alternate options by tapping and holding on an item. Why can't we do that with songs?

I also seem to have trouble downloading and saving images from the internet on my iPod. It's odd; I can go to a site that has a picture I'd like to use, say for the background, and you hold your finger down on it to bring up an options menu (as mentioned before - apple seems to slowly be understanding the concept of an easy-to-use "right click") and tap "save image", but even if I load the picture in full quality, it winds up being trash quality when I save it, making it impossible to zoom in to use a certain section of it as a background. It has no problems if I download said picture on my laptop and then send it over, but I can't seem to figure out how to save a picture in full-quality from the iPod itself. And on a semi-related subject, YouTube tends to load pretty poorly from WiFi as well. I'm not sure if this is due to the limitations of the iPod WiFi hardware or a software problem, but I usually have to let videos buffer if I want to play them smoothly.

Oh, and it would be really sweet if you could open up the back and add micro-SD flash memory cards to increase the size of the iPod, but knowing Apple and their "customers keep your dirty plebeian hands off our hardware" policy, that's a dream that will never be fulfilled. Oh well, 16 gigs is plenty for all the music I care to listen to and quite a few apps and movies. I have to keep some of my music off of it to make it fit, but it's mostly crap I got from friends and never listen to anyway, so I don't really care.

Right, so that's about it. No major complaints, just a few things that could be done better; the iPod Touch is far and away the coolest and funnest (is that a word now? I'm seeing it everywhere) mp3 player on the market. They've definitely come a long way since the hulking white bricks with the black-and-off-white LED screens and constant bugs and battery problems of the first generation. Definitely worth at least 4 stars, and hopefully the software issues will be fixed in future updates.

Oh, and as an afterthought, iTunes sucks. It's slow-loading, cumbersome and non-intuitive bloatware. I'd eschew it completely for MediaMonkey if I could load apps from it, but MediaMonkey doesn't do apps (and probably never will) and the current version (3.1.0.1256) doesn't sync with the 3.0 version of the iPod Touch/iPhone firmware yet. Oh well, sad story, but maybe someday iTunes will stop sucking. I can dream, right?Get more detail about Apple iPod touch 16 GB (2nd Generation) NEWEST MODEL.

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