Repost of a blog written in April of 2009. New-found relevancy with the launch of the iPad just days away… Cannot afford Apple’s new iPad? Well, Apple also has a lower-powered, pocketable, iPad Mini available for less than $200. If you thought an iPod Touch was just for music, its time you take another look at this wonderful little gadget who’s success in the marketplace most likely had a large role in the advent and production of Apple’s much-hyped iPad.

Here is the secret: The iPad is being hugely-hyped, the iPhone was massively-hyped, but the iPod Touch entered into the marketplace with little fanfare, and was largely seen as a device for kids—focused on music and games. Realistically, an iPod Touch is very much like a mini iPad, and the upcoming generation (4th) will most likely see the same, custom-made, ARM-based processor,  Apple’s A4—even if clocked at a lower speed than the iPad—which runs at 1Ghz.

The iPod touch is the perfect device for me: with all the advantages of a cutting-edge mobile OS and a wireless mobile device that is not dependent on a costly, long, cell-phone service plan to provide the one thing that I actually do not care about with this small, mobile, computing device–the telephone! I wanted a mobile smart device for many reasons, browsing the internet, email, music, pictures, voice recorder, general reading, a tiny bit of gaming and all the other mobile computing possibilities that are realized one new app at a time, but I did not want an awesome, modern computing device to talk on the phone. I have an “econo” pay-as-you-go cell phone that I try to use as little as possible and that I purposely wanted to remain a separate device with its single, only function (besides texting) of talking on the telephone. My home office, and its land-line telephone, function as my telephoning hub when I must have actual telephone conversations at all!

For me, an iPod touch is about getting “my foot in the door” with the iPhone OS, and the 8GB iTouch was the most affordable route in. One thing that is great about the iPod touch and the iPhone is that you can purchase them at Walmart. With Walmart you can receive instantaneous gadget gratification, even if the jones hits you at 10:45 in the evening! After getting the Ok from the chief accountant at DougitDesign (my wife, Angela), I was at the closest Walmart to my house, which is quite close, late in the evening on a Tuesday night–up front parking, no lines, no waiting, iPod touch in my shaking hands at 10:57pm. The first iTouch pulled out of the case I had to hand back because it had a visible blemish on one of the rounded corners of the unit. The second one to come out of the case and into my hands was perfect. I also grabbed a cheap silicon protector made by Griffin and was back at home to begin my adventure with the iPod touch, and, more importantly, the iPhone OS.

Too much talking, too little thinking…

I am not a “phone-person,” I am not particularly fond of conversing on a telephone. I prefer the written word for many types of communication. I love email! Email reinvented the act writing for a generation of people who had that skill-set removed from their toolbox by a number of factors, including rampant telephone use, even in situations where a written, and (back then snail) mailed, letter would have served better.

In the “olden days” everyone wrote to communicate with anyone outside their immediate area, from the 1950’s up until the mid 1990’s, most everyone chose to communicate with the traditional (land line) telephone and the spoken word. Then the era of email hit us–we learned, either by force or willingly, how to type and how to communicate with the written word once again! During the later 1990’s and early 2000’s, when we were all using typical computers with full-sized displays and standard keyboards (even if portable), the act of letter-writing among common, averagely-educated people once again flourished. That era did not last long.

With today’s small smart-devices, which are almost always also cell phones, and their small screens and their tiny keyboards that you use two thumbs to type with (if you are lucky enough), the art of prosaic, long-winded, complete communiqués with your pals has taken a back seat to a new form of written communication: say as much as possible (or as little as possible) in as absolutely few characters as humanly possible. Not as few words, no, we break it down even further to as few characters, or pieces of words, as possible. (Cue image of Homer Simson in kitchen screaming: “Isn’t there anything faster than a microwave, Arg!!). Mobile phones have also brought us full-circle back to our complete obsession with the act of talking on the phone. One thing I can be optimistic about: As the mobile internet devices and smart phones of the world gain in sophistication, and emerge as the true computing devices that they are–with their apps, their wireless connectivity to the WWW, their new-founded processing and video display power and their sophisticated software operating systems–that the average user will use that power to do more than say, “Where you at?” and watch videos of hot chicks/dudes.

Lets be honest here, most of the headaches of the iPhone have to do with the telephoning aspect of the device…

Some of the more common complaints about the iPhone (which is an iPod touch + a telephone, lol) include, dropped calls, bad reception, poor overall service from AT&T, expensive service, how the phone switches between the fast G3 network and the slower EDGE network, telephone contract that is too long a period of time, lack of choice of telephone service provider, etc. This is not to say there are not some non-telephone complaints about the iPhone/iPod touch. However, most of the non-telephone complaints about the device are eventually addressed with software updates. For example many have complained that typing with the touch screen keyboard while holding the device vertical is very difficult. Apple has addressed that issue with an upgrade in the mobile operating system to allow a horizontal keyboard in all its standard apps., this issue and many others including the ability to cut & paste will be addressed with its soon to be released iPhone OS 3.0, due sometime this Summer.

I love the wireless simplicity of only wifi on the iPod touch…

There are no contracts, no extra costs of any kind, just find a hotspot! Sure, if you have become dependent on your mobile phone and its virtually-everywhere cellular network, finding wifi hotspots would seem like a burden; but to me it is fun. Everybody has a phone, only select group of people have a powerful, hand-held, mobile, personal computing device!

I do a lot of reading on the internet. I have a keen interest in all types of subjects and am a voracious reader. The iPod touch has opened up an entire new way for me to read–completely untethered–free of device constraints in a way that even a very small notebook computer or a netbook could not satisfy. My eyesight is poor, and reading anything with small type over a distance more than just about 12 inches requires me to put my eyeglasses on or contact lenses in. Both laptop and desktop displays are too large and or too awkwardly positioned to comfortably read text off their screens at less than 12 inches away. So, until recently I always needed to wear my eyeglasses to do any sort of internet reading. With the iPod touch (and iPhone) I can comfortably hold the device about one foot away and, for the first time in a very long while, browse the internet and read other digital content with just my unaided eyes alone–no eyeglasses. This one benefit alone is worth the price of the iPod touch.

With my home WiFi network and my iPod Touch I can comfortably, wirelessly with 802.11g speeds, browse the internet or download and read a long text or book, and do it anywhere on my property–in the house or in the yard. If I am comfortably browsing the internet on the recliner in the great room and one of my children requires a snack, me and the tiny gadget can quickly hop up and trek into the kitchen. Set my mini device down on the counter next to the PB & J and keep reading while I am crafting a yummy snack–this would be hard to easily accomplish even with a netbook. Or, I am out in my backyard shed tooling away on the rear hub of my mountain bike. Having a feeling that I might have a technical question about said rear hub, I bring the iTouch out to my grungy, cramped bicycle workshop/shed, a place I would not even want to bring a cheap netbook to. But, my tiny silicone-sleeve-protected IPod touch could sit right on the shed’s windowsill, just about the only clear bit of space in the place!

Some of the less-informed out there say that the iPod touch is simply an iPhone without the phone (and camera). This is not true. When compared to the iPhone, the iPod Touch is smaller in size, lighter in weight, thinner, has a sleek, rounded, polished metal backing that gives the device a substantial feeling of quality (as opposed to plastic on the iPhone), yet has the same size screen and more processing power than the iPhone. Yes, the 2G iTouch is supposedly  more responsive in generalized use and apps launch much quicker on the iTouch, which runs its main chip at 532mhz vs the 412mhz CPU that all generations of the iPhone, including the current one, run at. (Current 3rd gen Touch and iPhone both run at 600mhz) I admit I miss having a camera on the iPod touch. However, I am not much of a snap-shot taker, and prefer to pull out my Nikon DSLR and attempt to create nice images, when I am in the mood, or need, to take photographs.

Again, the only thing missing on the iTouch, when compared to the iPhone, is the service I do not want–the phone. It is a win/win for me because I enjoy using Apple products, especially their OS’s but also the hardware, and virtually no one else makes a device like Apple’s iPod Touch: all the very latest smart phone functions as well as unique additional computing functions the Apple iPhone OS bring to this device–without the phone.