When my 18 year old son reported to me that my square IPod Nano was now his, I knew exactly which IPod to go and buy. The square IPod Nano is no longer available.
I bought the IPod Touch, 16 GB. I use IPod for exercise, and music. I hadn’t thought about the IPod Touch being much more. I got it home and charged it to the USB hub on my desktop. When turning the IPod touch on, it immediately found my internet, and was on wifi. This brings Ipods to a totally different dimension. At this point, Ipods become more than just MP3 players.
The booklet that comes with the IPod Touch is very little, with very microscopic print. My eyes are pretty good, but I couldn’t read the small print in the book. There is also a quickstart guide, not unlike what is packed with the IPod Nano. I don’t know when Apple will realize that IPod Touch needs more of a guide book, than this. Incidentally, I finally found the guide inside the IPod Touch a day later. It is under the little “book” icon on the browser.
This brings me to another point. iPod Touch uses the Safari browser,and the internet on the IPod Touch is alot improved over the internet available on my Blackberry. The iPod touch has the weather, stocks, Yahoo search, Safari browser, You Tube, and several other things. It also has preprogrammed email. I had problems configuring my regular gmail account to it,and finally made a new one. When the IPod found my gmail, and uploaded it, the text was microscopic, even with a finger tap. I don’t care, I may never use it for email.
The iPod Touch comes with the IPod ear phones, the usb charging cable. I bought a screen protector, and a clear plastic case. all of my Ipods have had the clear plastic case.
As for added applications, there’s hundreds of them, from free, to 39.99 and up. I added Bejeweled to it, it was 1.99, and the screen is amazing. I also added Myspace to it, which was free,and I added a nifty Medical abbreviations app, (for my work), which was 4.99,and very complete. For exercise, Nike has a partnership with IPod, and this machine can design workouts, and there’s an area to type in your weight, and it records your calories, number of reps, heart rate, and such. There is a sensor with the Nike + set that is separate from the IPod touch. If these get America moving, then Apple has done a great thing. I ordered the Nike set from Amazon.com. I think that is an awesome feature.
In the email or even note pad, there is a q-w-e-r-t-y keyboard that pops up on the touch screen. I have small hands, but sometimes the screen does not type correctly, and I hit the wrong key. The screen is very clear. As good as my desktop monitor.
The IPod holds a charge for about 4-6 hours. I have a wall charger for my cell phone and Ipod, that I use.
Except for the email text being too small,and the instruction booklet being too uninformative, this MP3 player is much much more than a music player. I do think Apple couple improve on it, and add a camera, (like in the Iphone), and a couple of other things. Apple are probably working on this now. For this reason,I give it a 9.

Rating: 9