I spent the day playing with the iPod touch and I’m… disturbed by what I’ve discovered.
In the comments of the previous post I point out that I noticed that the iPod touch is not an iPhone with no phone functions – it’s an iPod with the UI of an iPhone. Subtile distinction to some, but the truth is that the iPhone is a PDA with a phone while the touch is, well, a proper iPod.
And that’s what is disturbing me: I bought an iPod. True, with a visual, touch-based UI, I should have expected that driving with the thing would be more difficult than the original design… change tracks required an unlock swipe and then a few taps. I’m OK with that, but the two things that are missing simply left me slack jawed… you can only Shuffle all of the songs of a collection or playlist: you cannot Shuffle by Album! This is a de-facto error. A sin. A huge feature is missing – it’s the reason why I use iTunes on my PC and what was a deal breaker on the Zune. The other thing is that there’s no option for cross-fading between songs… and that’s something Gen 2 or Gen 3 had…
Deal breaker? Not yet, but I expect to find more missing things rather than “surprisingly neat things” with this device – the original iPod has spoiled me.
Well that and I fully expect to get updates to the firmware over time – these are things that can and should be added with updates…
Update: while the UI is very, very shiny, I don’t think I like it for my PMP. The UI request visual attention – there’s no way to use it without looking at it. Case in point: I was driving down the road the other day – decided to change the track. Before I used to pick up the iPod [classic], and click the right edge of the wheel. Now, if I want to do the same thing, I have to pick up the touch, press the home button, slide the slider, and tap next. If I don’t have the screen auto-lock, the screen stays on! Talk about a battery killer… oh, and here’s the worst part: if you want to change the volume at any time… yep: it has to be unlocked. So if you stumble onto a track with uber loud volume, you’d better pull the head phones because you won’t be able to lower it fast enough… even if it’s locked the slider control is less accurate than the wheel… simply just not that impressed with it (and again, the iPhone has physical buttons for volume – I might end up with the iPhone for video playback after all.)
Update 2: TUAW points out a less than obvious feature… is this a deal saver?
I’m with you on the hard to control without looking point. I’m really hoping that someone comes out with a hack to allow for new touch gestures. Something like…make a cirlce movement and the volume goes up and down like the old iPod. Or do a flick to the right and you get next track.
Quick hint I discovered…
If you “double click” on the round button there is on the iPod touch, you’ll be offered a way to pause/stop/next/prev and volume without unlocking it (and therefore, without having to use the slider).
Maybe shall we all RTFM?
Thanks for the tip.
However, in response to your RTFM, how about you RTFPost? In particular the Update #2, which links to the TUAW post about this very thing… besides, the iPod touch doesn’t even ship with a manual.