RandyRants: Falling Off The Wagon

The rants, and occasional raves, from a guy trapped in today's world.

Falling Off The Wagon

digital pity: Friday, September 14, 2007 at 01:13 PM by Randy

This is what falling off the wagon looks like:

What does this mean? It means I own a 16GB iPod touch. Do I like it? I dunno, it's still in it's box. Will I be getting an iPhone? I have one - still sealed - in my trunk, right now. Did I change employers? Heavens no!

Long and short of it... I've been interested in the iPod touch since I saw the iPhone. My problem with the iPhone is three fold: I don't much care for touchscreen phones, there's no voice dialing on the thing, and I can't easily get work email pushed to it. That gripes list is shorter than it used to be now that it's cheaper than it was, has custom ring tones available, and you can sorta unlock it.

Given the shrinking list of gripes (and the lack of work email possibly being a blessing) I thought I'd take a shot with it. A nice unbiased look at it. Went to at&t and picked up an 8GB. While checking out, I noticed the guy scanning the bag as part of the order. Like the "carry this phone outside" bag. The rational is that by scanning the bag you agree to the terms and conditions of the iPhone. That's pretty slick, honestly... and I was OK with it, even the 14 days return policy (instead of the federally mandated 30) until I noticed the last line on the bag: All open boxes subject to a 10% restocking fee.

Hm. At a minimum, I'll be paying $40 to rent a phone if I decide I don't like it.

I still took it.

Got home and looked for unlocking instructions. When I've unlocked other phones, I've sent a site/human my IMEI number - they return to me an unlock code that I enter when I put in a new SIM. With the iPhone there's a whole long list of things that you need to do... shell commands, hacked up steps, scripts to run... to be blunt, it scares me. Not from a complexity thing but because the unlock is all being done with OSX software. With most phones there's the OS portion of the phone, the radio stack for telephony, and the SIM section which has all of the SIM based hardware locks. With most phones, there's nothing you can do to the OS portion that can lock or unlock the phone. Once a phone is unlocked, it's unlocked - it's pretty simple. Given that, I was pretty certain that once an iPhone was unlocked it would stay unlocked no matter how many patches there were... having seen the unlock, I'm not too sure now. And while the ingenious iPhone fanbase would probably get new phone firmware unlocked, do I want to spend $400 and depend on that?

No... no I don't.

Add to that the news that the iPod touch has been showing up rather unexpectedly in Apple stores... I called the four in WA last night: one had a couple but they were on hold and eveyone else was sold out. I went online and ordered one... figured they wouldn't get any shipments until the "official" release date later this month. No way, right? Oh hai, Bellevue has about a dozen in stock. 45 minutes later, I snap the above photo with a T-Mobile Dash and have plans to stop by the local at&t store to make a return, especially since the iPhone package is still sealed.

What does this mean if there's a new model of the Zune and it fits my needs for portable media? ...that's what eBay is for.

Comments: (4)

(latest)

Posted on: September 14, 2007 at 08:20 PM by steve

told ya you'd get one.

Posted on: September 14, 2007 at 09:38 PM by Randy

Yeah yeah yeah.

Just got all three iPod's sync'd - now the question is which one do I unload? Or do I even need to? I'm sentamentally attached to the 4GB nano (and it has Radio for the gym). The touch doesn't do Radio (it says "this accessory isn't supported"). The classic 30GB holds *all* of my music - the touch still has 3GB free with a 1.6GB iTunes movie and I'm saving the rest for more video.

We'll see - either way the PSP is getting sold off tomorrow :)

Posted on: September 14, 2007 at 09:51 PM by Josh Bancroft

Good god, man! You have an iPod touch AND and iPhone in your possession, and you haven't used them? You haven't held them in your hand, and experienced the sensuous sensations and marvelous visuals?

What kind of willpower do you have, anyway?!

Seriously. Open one. Use it. Browse on it. Ignore the fact that it's a phone or a media player, and use it as a web tablet. Because THAT's where it shines. I've used literally every device out there in that class, from UMPCs to Windows Mobile to Blackberries to Nokia Internet Tablets, and the iPhone and iPod touch blow them all away. By a long shot.

So now, the only REAL question is, which one do you keep? ;-)

Posted on: September 15, 2007 at 11:42 AM by Randy

Eep! No I don't have both - I returned the iPhone straight up... I have no reason for both, but there is definintely a trade off:

iPhone: has a camera, extra apps, internal speakers, best screen, matte finished back, included dock. Bad points include: recessed phono jack, 8GB memory, heftier size for the new iPod line.

iPod touch: very thin design, 16GB, non-recessed photo jack, compatible with most of existing accessories, small little stand, universal dock insert. Bad points include: no extra apps, no camera, slightly worse screen, no speakers, crippled calendar, remarkable fingerprint magnet, slightly rough edges, no tactile volume buttons, no accessories (yet).

So there's some subtle but real trade offs at the current price point: more than I expected. You are certainly getting a lot more stuff for the same price in going with the iPhone even if you never use it as a phone but you lose 1/2 the storage straight up. Since I feel limited by the 16GB size of the touch, the 8GB was simply not an option... if I could have gotten a 16GB iPhone at this price point, I would have over the 16GB touch: the speakers and the dock would have made it a bonus.

Long story short, even though they share a lot of features, one is very much a PDA and the other is very much a PMP. Which makes sense but I really thing people expect the touch to be an iPhone with no phone and that's just not the case.

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