8 Pros and Cons of iPod Touch

Today I'd like to sum up the pros and cons about the iPod Touch. I've been using Touch for about one year so I would like to write a list of pros and cons based on my own experience. Let's start with the Pros.

Design and construction

Everybody knows that Apple is known for its well designed products. It's also said that the design is the first and also last thing Apple is good in, but I will get to it in the article later. Let's go back to the design of iPod Touch, it doesn't stand out of the others and I can honestly say I really like the sleeky design, who doesn't, right? It's only 8.5mm thick (0.33 inch) and weights 125 grams which appreciates everyone who carries often the iPod in a pocket. At this point I should also mention the 3.5 inch display which is made of some super duper material. After about one year of using the iPod I don't have even 1 scratch on the display which is amazing and I'm glad for that.
Another thing is that the construction seems to be very solid. I have to admit that Touch sometimes falls out of my pocket while changing the clothes, but fortunately it still lives :p

User interface

Next thing I'd like to talk about is the user interface. The system acts really intuitively and it's easy for everyone to control it. Touch doesn't have the hardware keyboard but you can easily make do with the software keyboard. It detects when you put your funger out of the display so you can choose the letter you want even the ground is shaking, for instance in car, bus, train or while walking.
What really rocks is the multi-touch function. You can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, zoom in and out on a section of a web page, and control game elements precisely.
Of course I can't forget the accelerometer which is perfect specially for gaming. When you rotate from portrait to landscape you for instance rotate your photo, get a larger keyboard or invoke the Cover Flow if you are in Music.



The wifi connectivity

iPod Touch automatically locates nearby wireless networks and connects to them if you allow it. I appreciate this function because I have a wifi network both at school and at home. And sometime it's quite useful to be able to access Internet at school :p

Loads of apps

I suppose I should also mention that App Store offers tons of apps for both iPhone and iPod nowadays. It's not true when someone says that there are no applications for iPod. App Store divides the applications into categories so you can easily pick or search between them. Even directly from the Touch/iPhone thanks to the same named application called 'App Store', which also indicates updates for apps installed on your device.

So those were the Pros, now I should write some Cons, which isn't easy for me, but still, there are some :p

Battery life

I know, iPod is a small device so it's not supposed to go for weeks without recharging. But on the other hand when I have 100% battery in the morning and I use the iPod a lot during the day, it's usually totally discharged at evening. With regular using, which means some web browsing, listening to music, playing games or writing notes, it's able to go for 2 or 3 days without recharging.

Linux

Unfortunatelly iTunes can be only used in Mac or Win. So there is no way to connect the Touch/iPhone to a computer with Linux, because Touch requires iTunes for its connectivity and synchronisation. Another disadvantage which is connected with this issue is that Touch doesn't act as an external disk. The only way how to get 'into' Touch is using iTunes (or via SSH for expert users).

Reproductor

I wasn't sure about moving this into pros or cons, but I guess it's a disadvantage for most of people. You may ask why, but it's simply 'cause I don't need the reproductor. My old mp3 player had a reproductor, but the contact between the headphone jack and the mp3 wasn't as reliable as I thought. Sometimes happened that I inadvertently shared listening to music with other people because the mp3 thought there are no headphones so it started playing to the reproductor laudly. Generally speaking I don't see it as an disadvantage.

The video format

First I should say that watching movies on a 3.5 inch display with 480x320px resolution is possible :p But you have to convert the movie first. As far as I know, Touch can handle only .mpg format and only in the correct resolution. There are programs for the converting, I especially like the MediaCoder. You can download MediaCoder iPhone edition from this link.

That's all for now, I hope this list was useful for you, cya later.