Well Apple pulled another fast one on consumers.
They initially announced that the new iPods wouldn't be available
until the end of the month....well they lied...at least here in
MD/DC/VA they did.
So how is it?
Well for one...it's SKIIIIINNY...almost 1/2 the size width wise of
the ipod video so it fits pretty well into your pocket. It comes in
a nice package which this time around does NOT include an iTunes
installation disk. I guess Steve Jobs figues that most people who are getting this are already either iPod saavy and have iTunes or PC saavy and know how to find and download iTunes. I think that small thing right there may be a wrong move regardless if you have
millions already using your previous iPod
incarnations...never
assume that new customers are saavy enough to get things working.
That being said...how well does it work?
VERY well....the touch screen really gives a feeling of going thru
your collection and you can use it either in the regular mode or for
better results, turn it on its side to thumb thru your music. If you
are familiar with iPods, you will have no trouble using this one.
The video on here is pretty cool but this is where it loses cool
points. The problem on here is altho the resolution is pretty cool
w/o noticable loss of framerates, in dark scenes, they look pretty
dark and almost to the point that some scenes reflect back looking
like a photo negative. The short term solution is to try to adjust
the brightness screen to compensate and hopefully Apple may come up
with a fix for that
The Wifi? Pretty darned cool...one of the biggest features they
held over from the iPhone will be a big draw for a lot of people and
will set the bar up high for the next PMPs coming out. This is not a
watered down browser, it's a full working version of Safari. You can even migrate bookmarks from your IE or Safari for usage.
There is much one can do. And since iPod has introduced the ability
to pinch and stretch screens, it makes it somewhat fun to navigate.
Sometimes a page may load and clutters some of the objects up on the
screen but otherwise, this is one the best ways to surf w/o having
to resort to a laptop.
I tried the YouTube function and it ran with no problems.
The only other smalll complaint I have right now is for everything
it has, it still looks like a delicate product, like it's one good
drop away from being broken. I have a few thousand songs and a ton
of video on mine and thankfully it's backed up but think of how
pissed one would be to get one of these and it breaks within a few
days because of an accidental drop. Altho Apple has released these
already, they still haven't released any accessories to adequately
protect these devices from a good drop, so if you have one, be
careful....
Also, if you are a bit anal like me and want to keep up the gloss on
it,
t would hurt to buy a plastic screen protector, because altho
the surface doesn't look like it will scratch easily, because of all
the constant touching, the protector and a good cleaner will go a
long way to keeping up this investment.
My last wish for this would have been if Apple had added on an FM
Tuner.
That was one of the big ups that Microsoft's Zune had. A built in FM
Tuner would really sell this but, with all the FM add ons they have
for iPods now, my guess is that Apple didn't want thier 3rd party
folks to lose money on that either.
To sum it all up, if you want something cutting edge, I would say
that this a great device, 16 GB is a start, I wish there was more
but hey, it's a flash device so what can you do? Some are asking
are you afraid of getting burned like early iPhone adapters did? All
I can do is hope that I don't but I think these will move because
altho they got them in early, many places are selling out as soon as
they get them; even some of the store workers don't have any relying on us for feedback.On a scale of 1 to 5 I give it 4.
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