Apple iPod products
This is more of a note-to-self than anything else. I have an iPod touch and haven’t even checked to see if the 2.0 firmware upgrade is available for it as it is for iPhone 1.x users. Here’s a support item from Apple…
Updating and restoring iPhone and iPod touch software
I guess I should check to see if an upgrade is available for the touch now 🙂
Just for fun I decided to score my iPod touch, TyTn Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC, and Dash Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone on 10 features. The highest possible score is 3 and the lowest is 1. So, a higher total is theoretically better than a lower one.
If you look at the scores, you might guess that I carry the TyTn Pocket PC around most of the time. Unfortunately, that guess would be wrong. I always take my Dash Smartphone out with me if I am only carrying one device. And, if watched me wander around my home, you would probably see me using the iPod touch.
The reason is that the my unscientific scorecard did not place weights on the ranked features. When, I am running around town, the most important features to me around the voice phone, one-handed use, RSS reader, PIM, and Email. When I am at home the most important features are web browsing and reading (but not writing/responding to) email. Email is a tricky one because when outside of the home I want one device that I can use for both reading and writing email. On the other hand, when I am at home, I just need to be aware of email and can wander over to a desktop or notebook computer to actually compose a response.
The Pocket PC (touch screen) probably trumps the Smartphone (non-touchscreen) with its unweighted score when outside of the home. But, once weight is placed on one-handed use and (a feature I did not rank) durability, the non-touchscreen Smartphone wins. I hated using my phone in the rain when I used a Pocket PC Phone Edition device. I felt that the touch screen technology was just too fragile. The Smartphone, on the other hand, seems to be tough enough for most outdoor weather conditions.
The big problem with the iPod touch and iPhone for my personal use is that they don’t have a physical thumb keyboard. As, I’ve mentioned many times before here, I still can’t type comfortably on iPod touch’s screen keyboard. That is why I never use it to reply to email or tweet on Twitter.
There is no perfect mobile device for me yet. So, I’ll continue to use a couple of best-of-breed devices in different situations for now.
What? Another site only for the iPhone? This time Google announced Google Talk for the iPhone. Just head to…
…on your iPhone or iPod touch (my touch is in the photo above). If you have a Windows Mobile device, don’t bother. The talk link above just takes you to the normal Google Talk page that tells you to download the Windows XP/Vista client.
Yep, another major (large) website built something specifically for the iPhone. This time it is Friendfeed.com. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can visit…
…to see what it looks like. The photo above is the site on my iPod touch.
I’ve had my iPod touch since, hmm, last October. But, I only learned about this iPhone/iPod touch browser tip a week ago. One web page design convention for iPhones is to put a tabbed row at the top of a web page for navigation. This tab set disappears if you are reading a long page that scrolls down. If you tap the top of the screen, you are flung back to the top of the page and, therefore, back to the nav row. I really should read product documentation more 🙂
My first opinion of Apple’s MobileMe was: OK, so they renamed .Mac, it has more storage, it costs the same (US$99/year), and… wait… It is what I wishes Microsoft Live would give Windows Mobile users like me.
I used to sync my WiMo smartphone daily with my PC. But, that has become such a chore and a statistical probability rather than a sure thing that I don’t do that anymore. I still sync a couple of times a week to make sure I have a backup of my current calendar and contacts. But, it is a chore. I hope the Windows Mobile and Windows Live team can get together and provide similar functionality for WiMo smartphone users soon.
The one big iPhone issue for me is still the lack of a physical keyboard or a Bluetooth keyboard option. I still can’t type worth a darn on my iPod touch. So, I still can’t use it effectively use a email or data entry device.