This post comes from Tom Rockwell. You can hear the audio version of this review in the latest episode of The MacCast.
Tom Rockwell’s iPod Touch Review
This is Tom Rockwell of the comedy rap group Sudden Death. Anyway, I got a new iPod Touch yesterday and I thought I’d pass on a little review of it.
The Touch comes hermetically sealed in a child proof, tamper proof, possibly bomb proof container that took me a while to figure out how to open. After poking and prodding the thing for about 20 minutes I finally spotted the little arrow at the bottom printed on a thin clear piece of plastic I had to peal back, which opened one end of the box. Then more plastic pealing and prying and I finally got my Touch free from its container.
Inside the box there’s the Touch, obviously, unless you’ve been ripped off by the store, the headphones, a USB cable, and a little plastic thing that I couldn’t figure out what to do with. It looks like it should be a stand and it has a hole in it that’s the size of the dock opening, but it doesn’t stand up and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I’m going to hang it from my rear view mirror in my car until I learn what I’m supposed to be doing with it.
System requirements for the Touch specify a USB 2 connection, which for most people is not a problem. However, my Mac is now 8 years old, which as you know is 56 in dog years, and 103 in computer years. It’s a G4 dual 450, although I upgraded the processor to a dual 1.6 GHz, so it’s still chugging along just fine. It does, however, pre-date USB 2 by a couple years, so I had to go out and get a USB 2 PCI card for my computer. Unfortunately I didn’t have any open slots left and I was wondering what I was going to do until my wife reminded me that I hadn’t used my SCSI card in about 6 years, so I ripped that out, stuck in the USB card, and I was in business. I have since learned that the old USB connections do work with the Touch. It’s just slow. It took several hours for my wife to sync her music library over her USB 1 connection.
Anticipating my impending purchase the other day I went ahead and installed iTunes 8 where I learned, thanks to the new Genius feature, that comedy music continues to get no respect from anyone. I turned on the Genius feature, went through the whole set up, yes to this, agree to that, yadda yadda yadda, and it failed. I forget what the actual error message said but it was something to the effect of “I have no idea what the heck you’re listening to and I’ve given up trying to figure it out. You’re on your own.” Apparently even the Genius doesn’t want to hear anything funny unless it’s from Weird Al Yankovic, but I digress.
The screen is gorgeous. It’s bright, clear, and easy to see and interact with. Safari works great, the apps are fantastic, but this is nothing new over the old one. The only differences here are the curved metal back, the external volume controls, and the external speaker. The volume controls, uh… they work. They, uh, definitely control the volume. The speaker is surprisingly clear and sufficiently loud considering it’s hidden inside the headphone jack at the bottom of the device.
But I think the most important new feature of the new iPod Touch is one that nobody seems to have mentioned yet. That is the fun house mirror they’ve added to the back of the device. I’ve gotten hours of entertainment holding it up and looking at my reflection in the back of the Touch and moving it around seeing how gets all warped and distorted. It’s great!
Anyway, that’s about it. My one complaint is that I think they could have done a little better on the price. I know it did come down and I know these aren’t subsidized by AT&T but I think they could have dropped another 50 bucks off the price, or maybe added a camera to it. That would have been cool. And browsing through 750+ games in the App Store is a little tedious. I’ve rubbed a substantial bit of skin off my finger flipping through that category. They could really use sub-categories, and I would love to be able to sort by publisher and price.
Overall I love this thing. I’ve wasted quite a bit of time at work using it, and I can finally surf the web while I’m sitting on the toilet. Life is good.
You can catch me at SuddenDeath.org, and for all your readers in the Cincinnati area I’ll be performing at the MidPoint Music Festival on the 25th. All the info’s on my web site. Talk to you later. Bye!
Thanks to Tom for permission to reprint his hilarious and in-depth review.
Rusty Red Wagon’s iFireworks is the original fireworks simulation for the iPhone and certainly features some nice features. Just load the app and pick a background from around the globe and you’re ready for a spectacular display. The included cityscapes are bright and colorful and global locations include Seattle, Walt Disney World, Sydney, San Francisco, and standbys like Paris, London, and New York. A blank screen is also available and in all cases the fireworks are presented in landscape orientation. 
Matt Stroker should really be ashamed of himself. Through his software shingle of Pixio software, he has created Fireworks, which is similar to iFireworks but better in nearly every way.
