Hans Across The Interwebs

So I recently went into an Apple Store to buy the 160Gb iPod Classic. I’ve been waiting for an iPod to replace my old 60Gb Photo with some significant storage upgrade. !60Gb fits the bill. But once inside the store I went into one of those ’show me pretty’ consumer drone modes. I heard myself saying ‘can I just look at the iPod Touch for a second…I’ve heard so much about it.’ The rest is history. I came home the somewhat surprised owner of an iPod Touch. A beautiful, shiny, big-screened wonderful iPod Touch.

But the honeymoon didn’t last long. In fact, even as I was buying it I knew: this thing is totally impractical for me. I still had to have it though…show..me..pretty…After a couple of days, I walked into another store and bought the iPod Classic 160Gb as I’d originally planned to do. Now I have both gadgets and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. So let me tell you about them.

1. Storage
First, and mostly stupidly on my part, I shouldn’t have bought any 16 Gig machine. I’m a really audiophile, and I really needed something with MORE storage space, not less. But a little rant by Merlin Mann on MacBreak Weekly about smart playlists wouldn’t get out of my head. So I though I’d play with that. Make it work. I made some smart lists, also rearranged my star ratings. Made sure I had my best music on the machine.

But it really doesn’t work at all. Not if you’re an audiophile anyways. Plus: look at that screen! It needs video. Which eats up more memory. Nope, 16gigs wasn’t going to work. So I had to get the 160 gigs too.

Once I’d had my storage however, I felt more free to take of more music and put on more video. It really is a great device for playing video, though I’m hard pressed to find places where I can’t just use my MacBook pro instead. My two favorite places so far: on the training bike, and in bed.

2. Blind Operation
Boy, the iPod Touch is beautiful. So looking at it is never bad: you just admire the beautiful interface while you do the minimum of 3 actions required to lower the volume. Here’s the kicker though: you have to look at it while you do them or it’ll never work. This pretty much kills any chance of me using the Touch in my 2 favorite places for iPod usage: 1. In the Car and 2. In bed trying to get to sleep. You really need those one touch pauses and one touch volume changes.

3. Cover Flow
Turn the iPod Touch on its side and it automatically goes to Cover Flow mode. Beautiful, except…when you yourself are actually lying on your side and you just want to turn the volume down. You can’t.

Then again, even with the latest 1.0.2 update, coverflow is just a slow dog on my Classic. I just left it out of my standard menu and don’t use it. It’s just impractical eyecany anyways.

4. The screen
The screen on the Touch is like nothing you’ve ever seen. Nothing. Absolutely Beautiful.

5. The calendar app etc
The calendar app on the classic completely sucks; on the Touch it’s actually quite nice. Hopefully the ability to add appointments will be added soon so I can start using this thing as a beautiful PDA!

6. Sound Quality
The Touch is actually a bit hissy, the Classic is pretty clean.

Conclusion
If you use your iPod primarly in the car, lying down in bed, or any other place you’d like to be able to operate it without looking at it - don’t get the touch. However if you’re a frequent train or plane traveller, get it now!

If you’re an audiophile who needs all his music with him at all times, don’t be taken in by the pretty interface. You’ll end up regretting it.