Ramblings of a Geek

When I purchased my new iPod Touch in February it was love at first boot. From the moment I fired it up it became the device to have with me at all times. It held my songs, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks. There was no shortage of games to pass the time and other utilities that were most useful.

I hate to say it but the honeymoon is over. I now hate the damn thing. No, it’s not because it has become addictive (which it has). It’s not because I wish I had an iPhone (which I do but only a little bit). No, it’s because all it can sucessfully do any longer is crash. It crashes when syncing music, it crashes when playing games, and now it crashes when trying to factory reset the thing.

First of all, I define this crash as the device shuts off and you have to push and hold the home and powe/sleep button. Then you wait about five minutes and normally it comes back up. It has always crashed on occasion while playing games but not enough to make me concerned, though it was easily enough to make me annoyed when I was in the middle of a game or some other super important task.

Then in rapid succession I installed iPhone OS 3 and SimCity and it’s been a rapid decline into iPod Touch hell ever since. My once beloved device stopped being its normal useful and fun self. SimCity crashed with such regularity only procrastination along with me wanting to troubleshoot this out has kept me from requesting a refund. I figured that since I could almost guarantee a crash in SimCity it would be a good tool to see if whatever was causing the crashes was fixed by my troubleshooting.

I performed a full restore from factory settings, installed only SimCity and CRASH. When I tried to uninstall SimCity it didn’t help at all. in fact it started to crash regularily even during syncs. I figured, no problem, do another restore, and I’d be all set; except it started crashing during the restore process. I’m now stuck with an iPod that can’t even make it through a factory reset without crashing. So, I have a $300 paperweight for the moment and am not too happy about it. I resigned myself to making an appointment with the arrogantly named Genius bar.

My guess is that one of the memory modules is having a problem reading, writing or both. Let’s see if Apple lives up to their normally praise worthy support reviews. Ideally they’d just swap out a brand new 16gb iPod in the store but I won’t be holding my breath on this one.

At least I can borrow my wife’s pink Nano for a couple of days. I think I’m comfortable enough in my manhood for that.

********* Update 7/5 *********

Still crashes when I try to sync my music – every time. Podcasts synced okay but I will probably just use the pink nano for audio for a few days until my replacement comes in. Seems odd that it crashes when syncing. I’ve been able to load a few apps but nothing that will tax it’s little malfunctioning brain.

********* Update 7/5 *********

Just got back from the Apple Store and they were able to get the iPod back to a usable state but they’re going to replace it anyway because there’s dust between the screen and glass. I have a feeling that the guy at the GB didn’t think it was going to remain crash free. Just have to wait a couple of days now.

********* Update 7/7 **********

Replacement iPod received.  Seems to work fine.  Extensive testing to commence.

********* Update 8/1 **********

Replacement iPod still working fine, and I was impressed with Apple’s customer service.  Hopefully it doesn’t break again until I’m ready to buy a new one

I recently purchased a 16 gb iPod Touch to replace my failing iPod video that I’ve had for several years.  I picked the Touch because of it’s versatility.  I really liked the idea of having a full featured browser as well as a music/video device. 

The device is about as perfect as a mobile device as one could hope for.  It does pretty much everything I could ask for.  The browser is good, the app store is a fun diversion with many fun and interesting apps, the music plays great, and the video quality is second to none in a portable device this small. 

The Battery

I am yet to run the battery all the way down and I’ve used and used and used it.  I routinely listen to podcasts 5-6 hours per day and the battery barely moves.  I’ve watched a couple of hours of video and barely even had power drop to half way.  The closest I got to running the battery down was when I was on a weekend trip.  I listened to music for a couple of hours on the way up, watched a couple of hours of video, surfed the net and checked mail all day, and listened to music all the way home again.  After all that, the battery still had about 40% of juice left. 

The Screen

The screen is beautiful.  It’s amazing how such a small screen can look so nice. The touching isn’t as precise as using a stylus, but it’s a tradeoff that I’m willing to accept. 

The Keyboard

This is where I thought I would grumble extensively though I’ve been pretty pleasantly surprised.  I’ve been thumb typing for pushing 7 years now as I had one of the original Blackberry devices that was the pager style.  I’ve always preferred the tactile feedback. I still prefer the “real” keyboard but as far as a screen keyboard I don’t think I could find much better.  Because you’re tapping the screen with your fingers (or thumbs in my case) you will likely make a ton of mistakes.  The good thing is that for most obvious ones the iPod will fix on the fly.  I try not to write anything long-form on it though as it would get old REAL fast.

The Speaker

The built in speaker (new to the second generation touch’s) is a very welcome addition.  I have wanted a built in speaker for my iPod since my very first one.  While this speaker isn’t  the best it does exactly what I want it to do – play podcasts.  I don’t expect much from it music-wise but for listening to spoken audio it does a pretty decent job.  I listen to podcasts and audiobooks about 75-80% of the time.  It’s great being able to start the day with listening to The Best of Mike and Mike while getting dressed.  It’s also great when I’m working and don’t want to wear headphones.  It’s not going to fill a room with sound but it easily serves my requirements.

The other stuff (Wireless, Audio, etc)

I’m not going to spend much time on the audio over headphones as it’s excellent as always.  I’m not an audiophile and I find the standard iPod headphones to be just fine.

I’m having some wireless issues, though they appear to be just at home as I’ve not had issues while out and about.  Basically, what happens is that my iPod still stays connected to my wireless access point but it won’t pass traffic.  I have a ping utility that when I’m having issues I can’t ping by name or IP address.  It’s annoying, really annoying but I haven’t dug too deeply into it.  If I figure it out I’ll make a follow up post on the off chance anyone has a similar issue.

Gripes

Aside from my keyboard and wireless annoyances I do have a couple of things that bug me about the device.  The biggest thing that bugged me at first was that the headphone jack is on the bottom.  For most users it probably isn’t a big deal, but the mount I use in my car required me to drill a hole in order to get it to work in the mount.  Another car related item – with my old iPod I could easily pause it with just hitting the pause button.  With this iPod I have to hit the home button, slide my finger across the screen and then hit the pause area on the screen.  It requires three times the interaction to pause it.  Those are the main gripes – neither are show stoppers by any stretch.

Overall

I don’t think I could come up with a better portable device for surfing the web, listening to podcasts or music, watching videos and playing causal games on.  It does all very VERY well, and I certainly recommend anyone considering a portable music device to check this thing out.  The price tag could push a few away though – $229 for the 8gb, $299 for the 16gb, and an overpriced $399 for the 32gb.