[Macworld]

Post your comments for 32GB iPod touch here

[Be3G]

I have a question: I've read that the 32GB iPod touch uses a different type of flash memory to the 8/16GB models, which results in faster data read/write times - most noticeably, when synching the iPod touch to the computer and transferring one's music/video library across to it. Have you noticed if this rumour is true at all?

[KevNJ]

Hi,

I notice the iPod touch doesn't have Bluetooth while the iPhone does. What happens if you connect the iPod cable to a USB keyboard?

Will it work?

Thanks,
kevin

[TinyElvis]

26 hours! Did you stay up all night to test that?

[trip1ex]

Another thing better on the iPhone is the speaker which the Touch (of course) doesn't even have. I used the speaker alot on the iPHone to share music and video with the family. ...like hey listen to this song or check out this movie scene.

[jackaxe]

Well, it has some kind of speaker, because my friend was trying out the alarms while I was in his office.
<]=)

[LMgrafix]

When the iPod Touch debuted to Mac magazine reviews that were less than stellar, I was aggravated. How could this incredible piece of hardware garner such a lukewarm response. After all, it was capable of great looking video, slide shows of photos with transitions, reading back books from Audible.com, podcasts, world wide clocks, syncs with your calendar and address book, syncs with all your music or selected songs, and for the first time the ability to get on the Internet with a browser we are all used to...Safari. It even had direct access to You Tube, which up until then I hadn't explored much. To my surprise, I was able to find videos from established artists as well as home grown. The reviews kept comparing it to the iPhone - Why? If I had wanted a phone with a $60. a month contract, I would have bought one. Instead I chose an incredible piece of engineering hardware that you would be crazy not to love. Enough with comparing the video screens! Enough with calling it a stripped down iPhone! Enough with critizing and nitpicking without comparing it with like hardware, NOT phones! It seems that once your magazine came out with a review, they all followed suit without taking into account updates, the differences in early manufacturing vs. current, and the ability to continually update firmware and software. I recently compared video with an iPhone and my screen was significantly brighter and clearer. So please, lets be fair. And by the way, I'm sure adding more memory didn't increase it's ability to be a better internet tool..."Now, not only is it a solid and attractive portable media player, but, finally, a darned fine Internet communications device as well."

[Chris Breen]

The reviews compared it to the iPhone because, at heart, the iPod touch is an iPhone without the calling functionality. Same operating system, same touch screen interface, many of the same components. Other than the phone stuff, there was nothing keeping it from offering everything the iPhone did (again, without phone stuff, including Bluetooth) except Apple's willingness to make that happen.

The fact that Apple finally did make that happens only underscores the original concerns that the touch's feature set was unnecessarily limited. It seems Apple came around to that way of thinking as well.

And of course adding more memory doesn't make it a better Internet tool. It's all about the apps. Who said it did?

[bigpics]

For those of us who like to have all or most of our large media collections with us and/or to be able to record CD-quality sound anywhere and/or have a copy of many files on one portable device with us and/or to be able to keep a bootable copy of OS X in a pocket -- the iPTouch version 1A is a device with enviable new capabilities, but won't drive us (well me) to plunk down $500 for less than half the storage and the loss of those functions.
The iPT thus represents both "device convergence" (music video internet + GPS-like capability) and "device divergence" by giving up those other things to achieve compliance with Apple's new gospel where "you can't be too thin" trumps every other design decision. As if the latest Classics were massive, ungainly devices!! I'm still happy with my iPod Photo which is twice as thick and doesn't significantly strain my bad back.
The other tenet of this gospel seems to be "thou shall have no physical controls on thy iDevice other than on/off, which is elegant but entirely removes one's very useful sense of kinesthesis as a human tool for interacting with devices. You literally have to quit looking at everything else and look at your Pod to do ANYTHING like changing volume. This is not an advance in the human/digital interface -- and makes DWP -- driving (or even walking) while podding -- inherently more dangerous.
Maybe an HDD touch that would still have all the capablities of the Classic and the Touch would have less than 26 hours of battery life. I'd settle for 8-12 to get the rest, especially as my Pod is typically being powered by my car or wall plug while playing through a home theatre/stereo or in said or a friend's car -- and I see no other technical reason other than a perceived need to create tiny fetish objects that Apple's segregated us into two iPod worlds.

Clearly NAND powered devices are the near future, but it feels like
Apple customers are paying the freight of the evolution from here to
there through the memory limitations/prices of the current offerings.

So I will sadly forgo paying for the net in my pocket to keep other already paid for things there, hoping enough people amortize SSD's so I can buy a 128 GB Touch in 2-3 years combining the two feature lists (plus whatever Apple and ISV's add by then) for about the price of today's iPT.

However, I wonder if some of my fave features will simply be discontinued by Apple -- since they could have been included already, albeit with limited storage space. Any insights, anyone? Are we who want to do more than listen, watch and surf on the Pod platform too narrow a demographic for Apple to produce for in the long run??

[trumiester]

I agree with several of the folks who point out that Mr. Breen seems bent on comparing the Touch to the iPhone. On the surface that seems smart, after all they look almost exactly the same.
But under the surface the two are quite different and Breen needs to recognize that. The real issue isn't the look, it is what market a product plays in. And in terms of user need, competitors, market segment, and cost, the Touch has no connection to the iPhone at all.
The iPhone competes against other smart phones. The Touch isn't a phone and no one who wants a phone would buy one. It competes most closely against devices like the Zune or the iPod Classic. Like those devices, it's used to play music, show images, and play videos. And the person who wants one of those devices would also consider the Touch.
Unlike the Zune, it also handles mail and Web. So it is also moving into a new market segment but with the same basic price point as the Zune. Breen should have based his review on those kinds of feature/benefits. -- not try and review this as if it were a crippled iPhone.

[Albireo386]

How about a "turning gesture" (using 2 fingers, similar to that of turning a classic volume knob) to increase/decrease the volume instead of external controls? Such a gesture is difficult to do without trying to, so it could be set in such a way that you don't need to reactivate the iPod touch. This way, we could control the volume with just one gesture.

[aesthete]

That's a good idea. To extend that line of thought, apple could have all kinds of gestures for use with the iPT, like swiping your fingers across the screen to the right twice to skip a song, (or to the left to to to a previous track), and dragging a finger to the right to fast forward (or to the left to rewind), and perhaps tapping the screen twice to pause the current song. IF apple included such features, I'd buy the touch in a heartbeat.

[trip1ex]

Well the iPhone can be pretty much be used as a Touch if you know how to get around the contract signup part at activation.
Yes it's $100 more for a comparably-sized iPhone, but you get a dock and usb power adapter for that $100.
LIke I said above I like the included speaker thang which I don't believe the Touch has, but I could be wrong about that. Also the iPhone has volume controls on the side which I don't think the Touch has. And you get a headset with a mute control on it.
On top of it you have that capability to always use it as a phone down the line.
The Touch's advantage thusly is really only that it's thinner and you can get 32gb if you want.

[digitalmonkey]

I'm loving the new apps that were just released for the iPod but I'm still waiting for the most important one to come out, Adobe Flash!!!!
Its the only thing so far thats really missing from the iPod Touch to make it a true portable internet device. I wasn't happy about paying an additional $20 dollars for the new apps but compared to what the iPhone people pay in phone charges each month, I can't complain to much.