At Last: iPod Touch / iPhone

My reasoning for choosing the iPod Touch over the iPhone is that I am assuming that for all intents and purposes, the iPod Touch and the iPhone are identical.

The iPhone has the cell phone and 3G thing added on. It has a camera. To me, these were things I didn't need to check.

But that isn't entirely true. For example, iPhone friends definitely do complain about dropped calls, as do those who call them. But let's put that on AT&T and not the iPhone.

In addition, I don't drag the iPod Touch everywhere like I do the DROID. So certain aspects of 3G connectivity and jumping quickly to and from various wifi networks don't get as stressed on the iPod.

But basically, we are talking about roughly equivalent experiences for all the non-voice aspects.

First of all, packaging for the iPod Touch lives up to the Apple standard. Fabulous, right down to the small details. For example, the headset (with mic) for the 32 GB iPod Touch is both white (more expensive due to volume) and has a sweet little flexible clip that holds the two ear phones wires together. These are small things but just so nice.

The instructions inside - like all instructions these days - are very minimalistic. They do a good job of explaining that you need to install iTunes on your computer.

What they don't explain is that you have to enable / authorize that computer to be the one that is allowed to update / save all those apps.

That led to some seriously unhappy moments.

Because I was convinced that Apple had thunk this thru, I persisted in diving into a number of Google searches and figured this out (once again: remember where that application bar is!).

And later I was reminded that you can only assign one of 5 devices at a time to do this. Which is to say that you can download iTunes and charge your iPod / iPhone using a USB with that device / laptop but only one (out of 5 for your account) is allowed to manage / backup / update your iPod.

This is a busines model that is very interesting and we'll come back to this.

Do I like the iPod Touch / iPhone?

In case it's not clear: I do very much. I think of it as a micro laptop / computing device and it more than meets my expectations. I can definitely see why combining that with mobility (cell phone calling and G3) would be incredibly compelling.

In general, I have not found any apps that I personally would like on the DROID that I don't have on the iPhone aside from Kindle, but that's probably a reflection of my demographic to some extent.

There is no doubt that Apple has control of the overall experience that is impressive but subtle at this point. In the future, this model presents very interesting alternatives.