Apple iPod Touch Review

Yes ladies and gentlemen it’s that time again, the time when Apple introduces another breakthrough product in the form of the iPod Touch (and definitely not the iTouch as had been rumoured). It’s a touch-sensitive media player that owes its sexy slim design, and much else beside, to the iPhone -the big difference of course, is that it’s an iPod, without the phone.

The first surprise is just how shockingly thin it is at 8mm. This has partly been achieved by the use of Flash memory rather than hard drive, but the trade-off is that you can only get a maximum of 16GB (there’s also an 8GB version). But although packing in that much Flash memory is a technical marvel, the fact is that it’s way, way short of the amount of space you can get on an iPod Classic (80GB and counting) and when you consider that the Touch is being touted as a video-viewing device, that 16GB isn’t going to go very far.

But the big difference (and main selling point) of the Touch is that 3.5in multi-touch screen. It is every bit as sensitive as you may have heard, and able to accept touch information from several sources at once. This allows you to pinch the screen with finger and thumb to zoom or shrink the on-screen image and by touching and holding a web or YouTube address a little magnifying glass and a keyboard pops up to help you edit the text. Very nice indeed, though the keyboard isn’t perhaps as easy to use as some. The zoom mode however makes browsing on a screen this size a breeze, allowing you scan pages then snap into the content you want to view. The beta version of Opera’s new ‘Dimension’ browser for mobile phones can do much the same thing – but there aren’t any screens that will let you do it with your fingers!

Apple has also been clever about how it uses this innovation. So instead of the usual static interface you get on the standard iPod you now have Cover Flow, where your album covers are displayed as if they are in a rack, and you can flick through them with your finger. Very intuitive, and it has to be said, much better looking than a click wheel.

Screen clarity and resolution are also very impressive, and we found it even showed up well in sunny conditions – though taking it out on the street tended to attract more attention from strangers than we’d normally be keen on. Handily, a touch on the power button will switch off the screen to save power.

The home screen features a stack of buttons, looking similar to the pics you’ll have seen of the iPhone. At the bottom you’ve got your Music, Videos, Photos and iTunes, while at the top you’ve got your Safari, YouTube, Calendar, Contacts, Clock, Calculator, and Settings buttons – all nice and intuitive.

The settings button allows you to customise the four main applications (Music, Videos, Photos, iTunes) plus Safari, Contacts, Wi-Fi, Brightness and General settings. So let’s say you want to do a bit of web browsing or watch YouTube, you touch the Wi-Fi tab then move the little slider that appears to the right and the iTouch will immediately start looking for new 802.11 b or g Wi-Fi networks. Once you’ve found one you hit the Safari or YouTube button and you’re off and running.

The collaboration with YouTube is inspired – virtually any music video you can think of, available for free, without even the data charges you’d normally be subject to with, say, a smartphone. So long as you can access a Wi-Fi network free of charge of course. And even if the video quality isn’t terrific, and makes little use of the screen’s resolving capabilities, it’s an addictive way to watch music on the move. The iTunes button is likely to get a lot of use too, since it takes you to the iTunes store where you can audition and buy content online, which proved to be a painless process.

The video quality is very good indeed, I put on my favourite Star Wars movie (IV of course) purely to check out the picture quality and ended up watching the whole thing. With a decent pair of headphones the Touch has the strange effect of seeming much larger than life and really pulls you into the action. The built-in accelerometer is very cool too – it senses when you tilt the Touch and switches between portrait and widescreen automatically.

Surprisingly, despite all of Apple’s cool new innovations, it’s the music player, the very heart of the iPod Touch, that comes up wanting. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not terrible, but it’s just not as good as my trusty old 60GB fifth gen iPod. Why should this be? I played the same track on both iPods and found the bottom end was a little bit tighter and more focused on the older iPod, and the same could be said of the mid frequencies. After listening to some vocal-heavy tracks it was easy to hear were the iTouch was losing out – it just didn’t have the same amount of depth, and the more I listened to the two iPods in sequence, the more marked the effect! It seems bizarre that Apple may have tinkered with what is probably now the most successful music playing engine on the planet, and they’re probably not about to tell us if they have, but that’s what my ears are telling me. I’ll say it again, it’s not terrible, but it’s noticeable, and something that shouldn’t have happened.

Other problems are perhaps more obvious, if not quite as essential. Not everyone is going to use their iPod’s Diary function to plan their day, but I do, and this one is a failure, simply because it won’t allow you to edit entries once you’ve made them. What were they thinking of? It’s like buying a radio only to find out they’ve removed the button that lets you change the stations. You’re required to make any changes in your Mac’s address book and then sync them with the Touch. This makes even less sense when you consider that you’re able to add to and edit your contacts list on your iTouch.

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We await an imminent software update for that one, though the fault is slightly made up for by the fact that you can transfer your Safari bookmarks from Mac to Touch and that any content you buy from the iTunes store while you’re on the move, will sync up with your desktop when you get home. Battery life incidentally is claimed to be 22 hours for audio and five for video, which it certainly came close to in our test, though leaving Wi-Fi on reduces this significantly.

he iPod Touch is a beautiful product, no question about it. Like trying to compare the invention of the electric light bulb to a candle, the Touch is so far ahead of the competition that it stands completely on its own. There are a few niggles, not least the relatively high price for just 16GB, and that bizarre drop in audio quality, but all its good points – the internet access, the slim form factor, that glorious screen mark it out as one of Apple’s best products to date by far.

Verdict 8/10

The iPhone, when it gets here, will basically add a phone, possibly for an extra couple of hundred quid, which some may like, but which I personally wouldn’t consider essential. It might be worth waiting for a higher capacity version in the near future, but if 16GB is enough, get yourself a slice of the future now.

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By Michael Fayne
AV Review