My Review of the IPod Touch

When I first went looking for something new to replace my antique CD/MP3 player combo, I first considered several different MP3 players that were currently on the market including the Creative Zen, the SanDisk Sansa View, iPods, and the Zune. I quickly narrowed my search down to the iPod market simply because although I'm a PC user, I love the fresh look and modern design that Apple products offer. Because I was at first considering the iPod Nano, I was also very impressed with the teeny tiny size of the music player.

With my results narrowed to the iPod Nano or the iPod Touch, I quickly bought the Nano after realizing that nowhere on Earth seemed to have the Touch in stock. It was around Christmastime and the Touch was a hot-selling item. I had the Nano for several weeks before deciding that I really did want an upgrade and decided to go back on the hunt for a Touch. After still several weeks of searching (several music-less weeks I might add, as I had already returned the Nano,) I finally found an iPod Touch. Now the only question was how many gigabytes did I want on it?

The iPod Touch comes with options of 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB. While I really wanted the 16GB, although it was a bit more expensive, when I could only find the 8GB at first I was tempted to just purchase it and be happy I had found that. The salesperson however actually warned me against it. His exact words were, "If you want a 16-gig, you're not going to be happy with an 8-gig. Trust me, I have an 8-gig and I hate it.' So far, the object of my desire wasn't sounding so promising. But trusting his word, I left the store. Imagine how happy I was when I walked to the electronics store right next door to the one I was in and there in the shiny display case sat my new 16-gigabyte iPod Touch. All I had to do was ask for it! And that I did. After filling out the warranty information and completing my purchase, I quickly hopped in my car so I could get home and find out if it was really worth all the hype!

The very first thing you must do before you can start enjoying your iPod Touch is to charge it. This is easily done with a USB cord that comes included with the Touch and will allow you to hook it up to your computer. The iPod Touch, much like the iPod Nano, doesn't take very long to charge. After approximately 45 minutes for the first charge, it was fully charged. For further charges, it should only take about 30 minutes and you don't need to charge it fully before using it, which is a big advantage! Once it's all charged and ready to use, the Touch will automatically take you to the main screen, which features many different icons on a user-friendly interface. This main menu is where you can access all of the features on the Touch. If you download an App from the App Store, it will appear in this interface. Certain icons such as Music, Videos, and Podcasts, are also permanent icons on the Touch that will let you quickly access everything within your Touch.

The interface works by simply directing the user to whichever icon they touch on the screen. Touching the 'Music' icon will take you to your music library where you will see all of your playlists and touching an App icon will allow you to play games, prepare spreadsheets, or do whatever else you want to do with your Touch! There are so many features of the iPod Touch that you could really talk about each App and each icon individually but to narrow them down, here are a few of the main features the iPod Touch boasts:

Wireless capabilities. The iPod touch has wireless capabilities which means that as long as you are in an Internet 'hot spot', you can go online to browse using Safari, check your email, and even use applications such as YouTube and Facebook! This makes the iPod Touch like your own little netbook that you can browse the Internet with at any time.

The App Store. Like the iPhone, many of the features of the iPod Touch lie within the different apps that you can use. Using apps you can do just about anything including turning your Touch into a flashlight, play just about any kind of game you can imagine, create spreadsheets, read books, and get recipes, all using the interface screen of the iPod Touch!

iTunes. If you're not an iTunes user before you get your iPod, you will quickly become one! iTunes is the source of communication between you and your iPod and if you want to add or delete something off of your mp3 player, you will have to do using iTunes. Within iTunes you can create playlists, add music from your computer to your iPod Touch library, burn CDs, add Podcasts, and upload videos to your iPod Touch. iTunes is very easy to use and is laid out in a way so that the user can quickly see what is on their iPod and how to easily add and delete items. Once your iTunes library looks exactly how you want your iPod Touch to look, you simply use the Sync feature. This feature will duplicate your iTunes library onto your iPod Touch .

Genuis. Genius is a feature all unto itself within iTunes. This feature will draw on the music in your iTunes library to create unique playlists using similar types of music. So if you have many soundtrack songs on your Touch, Genius may put these into one playlist and your rock songs on another. Genius really is like having your own personal DJ at all times and can make listening to that same old music a whole new experience!

Music. How much music the iPod Touch can hold depends on the model of the Touch. The 8 GB will hold approximately 1,000 songs while the 16 GB holds approximately 2,000 and obviously the 32 GB holds twice that at 4,000 songs - that's a ton of music! You won't have to worry though about sorting through thousands of songs to find the one you want because you organize your music in many different ways on your Touch. Sort them creating your own playlists or use the features on the Touch that automatically sorts them into Artist, Song, or Album. Knowing what you are looking for makes uses the alphabetized system easy and you can quickly scan through them by either flicking the screen with your fingertip or by simply touching the first letter in the title that you are looking for! Another great feature of the iPod Touch is that when you're listening to music, the album cover of the song that you are listening to on the screen will be displayed on the screen and you can even use these album covers to flip through your albums and find a song that you want!

Volume Control. The volume control is another great feature of the iPod Touch. To turn the volume up or down you can simply tap the screen and the volume control will appear. Simply slide the cursor up or down to increase the volume. You can also adjust the volume by using the two buttons on the side of the Touch that also work as volume control.

Built-in Speaker. The built-in speaker is another one of the features that make the iPod Touch the Gadget of the Century! With this feature Apple has single-handedly separated themselves from other mp3 manufacturers because you can listen to your music, watch TV shows or movies, all without the use of headphones! Simply take the headphones out and your Touch will loudly and clearly transmit whatever you're listening to! This means that you have a mini-television or stereo wherever you go!

Battery Life. The battery life of the iPod Touch is approximately 2.5-3 hours, depending on what you are using the Touch for. Although this is not terribly impressive, it's about the same battery life as a laptop and with all the other features provided, it's certainly no reason to overlook the Touch!

I definitely am one of those people that only uses their gadgets for one thing. In this instance, I needed my iPod Touch to play lots of music for me and be easy for me to do that. I really never thought I would use it for anything else. But now that I have it and have found out just how much it can do and how easy it is to do all of it, browsing through the App store and playing games on my iPod Touch are some of my favourite things to do!