Technology news and Jobs 
Fuzzy Logic Touch Apple’s new iPod range – but beware the screen
Fuzzy Logic Touch Apple’s new iPod range – but beware the screen | Touch Apple’s new iPod range – but beware the screen |
|
| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Monday, 17 September 2007 | |
|
Page 2 of 2 Reports say that Apple are either replacing iPod touch units with new ones, or are refunding customers money, with the theory that a bad batch of screens has somehow slipped through the Q&A net. More puzzling still are reports of some users reporting no problems with their screens, with serial numbers indicating they are part of the suspect batch. Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Some bloggers have suggested that Apple perhaps rushed the iPod touch to market, with the first models coming into some US stores last Thursday – more than two weeks before Steve Jobs said they’d be arriving into stores, and should have done better quality control checking. Hopefully this is a short term problem, for the iPod touch itself is a svelte media player, photo viewer and Internet browser that, like the iPhone before it, puts competitors to shame. No doubt, the iPod touch will be hacked as the iPhone has been, allowing a range of third party programs to be installed and run from the unit, transforming the iPod touch into a much more fully featured handheld computer, albeit without voice communications capabilities, not even through Skype or other VoIP software due to no microphone or Bluetooth being included in the iPod touch hardware. All of this still makes the iPhone itself even more desirable. Now that my iPhone is unlocked, and I’ve been able to install well over two dozen new homebrew third party apps, the iPhone is practically turning into an iParty in my iPocket! While some of the software is still in alpha or beta form, some are quite advanced already and show that the software future of the iPhone is bright, no matter whether Steve Jobs decides to make an official iPhone SDK (software development kit) available or not. And by extension, if much of the software for the iPhone can be made to work with the iPod touch, or can be easily modified, there’s plenty of software on the way for iPod touch owners, too. As for having full access to YouTube, SMS, voice calls, browsing and more over EDGE – you definitely notice how much slower EDGE is compared with Wi-Fi, or with other 3G phones, such as the 3.5G HSDPA Nokia N95 that I also own. Still – my iPhone now works as a fully fledged handheld computer with phone, organizer, music player, video player, voice recorder, torch, Nintendo game player (through an emulator, a web browser, an email sender and receiver, a text messager, YouTube player, eBook reader, Etch-a-Sketch clone and much, much more. If you’ve got an iPhone and you haven’t tried iBrickr for PC owning iPhone users, or iFuntastic for Mac owning iPhone users, do yourself a favor and try these programs out – they let you change ringtones, graphics, load new programs, and more. A quick search on Google will find step-by-step guides what to do. Now that my iPhone really works as we all wanted it to (minus a 3G or even better 3.5G connection as yet, of course), especially with the emergence of real third party applications, it’s suddenly become even more useful than ever before. The only real issue now, after the launch of all the new iPods, is when Apple will launch the next iPhone. Rumors suggest that Apple’s confirmed launch next Tuesday the 18th of September will be to launch a 3G iPhone model for the UK and European markets. If Steve Jobs introduces a new 3G/3.5G iPhone, with 16GB of memory, whether at the same price as it was originally, or at the newly reduced price the current 2G iPhones, and does it next Tuesday as reported, this too will cause a backlash amongst users who’ve only just purchased an iPhone, or purchased one recently at the new lower price, many of whom will have wished they’d waited to see what will happen, or who purchased a 2G iPhone the day before the new model is decided and now want to swap it for the better model. What’s the bottom line here? Well, aside from some very obvious teething problems with the new iPod touch’s screen, a 3G or better iPhone must be coming soon, if not next Tuesday, then certainly in 2008. But whether a 3G iPhone really is coming on Tuesday or not, Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic and iPod nano are set to stay at the top of the charts this Christmas/shopping/end-of-year season. Perhaps when competitors make devices as funky, as easy to use, as compellingly designed and more, they’ll stand a chance of truly getting some market share from Apple. Until then, even a 2G iPhone is a heckuva lot of fun, and will be easily transferred to another family member once an unlocked 3G iPhone comes onto the market. We’ll just have to wait until Tuesday to see if Steve Jobs makes 2G iPhone obsolete less than 100 days from their introduction. There'll be quite a storm online with plenty of commentary and more if he does! |
Tags
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
