Ok, in case you live under a rock take a look at the new stuff out friends at Apple have released. Apple has released a device that I have hoped for since they announced the iPhone itself back in January. They are calling it the iPod Touch, picture and iPhone sans the phone. It’s all the goodness without any of the superfluous AT&T crap. This I will own, for two reasons.
Reason one: It’s awesome looking and I have to have it. Like a raccoon I am drawn to the shiny device and must have it in my grubby hands. I will willingly admit that my current 1st gen iPod nano is flawless and still fits my needs for music and podcasts on the go.
Reason Two: It’s the coolest and most useful, for me, PDA I have ever seen. Gone will be the days of working to sync together a Palm PDA or similar (I hope). I’ll be able to sync my calendar right to my iPod touch and view and edit it on the go. As of today my Treo 750 (yeah, it’s AT&T… what?) handles these functions for my job but it’s inability to handle multiple calendars leaves me uncomfortable adding my personal items to that phone. I am able to do my email totally separate from my work email and with that I’m comfortable but keeping my personal appointments on our corporate servers and in my work Outlook I cannot do in good conscience. I don’t want that kind of crossover… Oh how I wish Windows Mobile 5 would support the ical specification… (Take a look at the Calendar Swamp blog, great for info about calendar interoperability)
I will admit that I am lazy, this should by obvious by the URL of this site. What may not be obvious is that I am very very busy, too busy some say. It’s crucial to me that I know where I am supposed to be and when. Right now.. I do not. I have missed three appointments in as many weeks, much to my own personal embarrassment. Codec11b can vouch for this, I received a very awkward call while he and I were hanging our just this past weekend.
With this device I should be able to keep tabs on my life with a bit more simplicity. It’s hard to miss all of my Macs yelling at me about an appointment I’ve made but when I’m on the go and my laptop is sleeping I have no idea what is happening.
I’m also assuming that, in time at least, the rest of the apps from the iPhone will work their way over to the iPod touch. I will assume Apple will not do this for us but I’m sure it will happen none the less. That will be excellent. Being able to get even just Mail.app on the phone would be a game changer as far as I’m concerned. That is how you take a relatively cheap device and make it an ultra-portable computer. Forget all of those Nokia devices and it’s competitors. The iPod touch, if it’s anything like the iPhone, will work better and be miles easier to use, not to mention being truly small enough to tuck into your pocket.
Not that I’m that excited…. Apple said in January that this would be a big year for them. I had no idea it was going to cost me so much money š
Topslakr
[UPDATE: It seems I’m not alone with these thoughts, 9to5mac.com have posted a similar article]