I spent about 20 minutes playing with an iPod Touch in the
Kingston upon Thames Apple store. They had plenty on
display but I didn't ask if they had stock to sell.
A few thoughts.
Multitouch works very well, I already knew about the double
taps, pinches, and the home button, I found it very intuitive
to use, it's really a unique product in that respect. In time I
expect to see this sort of interface on a lot of other hardware
Typing is a total pain in the arse, and the corrections it suggested
might work for emails but were useless for the URLs I was trying
to type, but I can sort of see how it would get better with time.
Viewing photos was very nice, easily the best photo viewer I've
ever seen. It would be fantastic with a larger screen, I'm convinced
that an Apple MID/UMPC/PDA makes sense for that alone.
Also
expect clued-up camera manufacturers to copy it ASAP.
Video playback looked good I couldn't see any problems with it,
though I'd assume Apple would pull defective iPods and not shove
a load of dark video on them for demos.
I didn't plug in any phones so I don't know about music.
Safari works well, it really is just like using a proper browser but
with a piddly screen. It absolutely slaughters the browsers of any
hardware of a similar size. Zooming works. If you haven't got a big
screen the free zooming ought to be mandatory. I could size the
screen just right with ease.
A couple of things didn't work well; rotation seemed very fiddly,
I had to hold the iPod vertically and then rotate to get it to work.
Wifi wasn't working at all well, the iPod claimed to have a strong
signal but it was slow and quite a few sites failed to load. Hopefully
that's just down to the Wifi in that store.
Anyway I managed to resist, I don't need a new iPod as I barely
use the one I've got. Very nice technology though, an iNewton
with Menlow or Moorestown in it would be fantastic.
)
Apple Store online is reporting 7-10 days.
