Apple iPod touch 8 GB (1st Generation) OLD MODEL
by Apple Computer
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List Price: Our Price: $199.99 You Save: $99.01 (33%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $100.00 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple iPod touch 8 GB (1st Generation) OLD MODEL
Customer Review: The iPod Touch Soars Over the Skys
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a plane, it's a bird, no... it's the iPod touch? The iPod Touch soars high over all other gadgets that have come out in Singapore in the past few years. It is amazing how you can now view, listen and touch your music all at the same time. Along with that, you can even surf the web with the fastest internet browser available today, watch your favorite movies and videos with the stunning graphics on the 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen screen (http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/specs.html) from iTunes or even from You-Tube like no other iPod before. Another great feature is the Wi-Fi music store, where you can buy as much music as you want on the go. You can do all this on the 8-millimeter thin iPod touch. Apple says it is the best iPod they have ever made other than it's big brother the iPhone (not available in Singapore yet) and with what I have seen, there is no doubt about that. By looking at the ratings that people have given the iPod Touch on Amazon.com, it looks like at least 90% of the people who own this product agree with me by giving a 4 or 5 star rating. My favorite feature is the Safari web browser. It looks exactly like the same browser you have on your Mac. You can zoom in and out with just two fingers. Surfing the web on the iPod Touch is first class. You-Tube is great to have as one of your main applications. You can view nearly all videos at the touch of your fingers. When you watch it on the large screen the iPod has, be prepared to be amazed. Viewing your music is better than any iPod before. You can scroll through your music just like before, sorted by genre, song name, album, artist and so on. New in the music application is that if you turn your iPod to it's side, you are instantly able to view all your albums in cover flow, like on iTunes. If you hear a song you like and have your iPod handy, you can just easily tap the Wi-Fi music store and search for the song you want just like on the iTunes music store. To buy the song all you have to do is log in to your iTunes account and click "buy song". The only downside I find to the iPod Touch is that you can surf the web, buy songs on the Wi-Fi music store, and view videos on You-Tube only if you are in a Wi-Fi area. For videos you don't have to worry so much because you can still watch them if you have downloaded them on to your iPod earlier. Just like the past iPods you can still view your great photographs, but this time, you can view them in landscape or vertical mode by just simply turning your iPod sideways. I have now been using my iPod for over a month and there is nothing stopping me from saying that in my opinion, the iPod Touch is the best gadget ever made and sold in Singapore because of its sleek design and its truly amazing applications.
Customer Review: Nearly Perfect!
Summary: 5 Stars
I called this nearly perfect - but not because the device is flawed- The iPod Touch is exactly what the ads tell you it is. And it works as beautifully and easily as the ads tell you it does. It looks great! The glass face reveals beautifully colorful icons - touch one to launch its function. Music playback is crystal clear, and the software functions are great. I bought this as an upgrade to my older video iPod primarily for music and movies. What I didn't expect was that I'd use the other software functions more. I paid the extra bucks on iTunes for the additional software and now I check my email, type information into my address book, use the listing and notes functions almost constantly. I look for excuses to use the calculator - its gorgeous! I find that with just 8 gigs it actually makes my work easier - I pick fifteen or twenty albums everyday from iTunes, load them up, delete yesterday's listenings, add a TV show or two - it all takes only a few minutes out of my morning to do this, and its an enjoyable part of the day! For longer trips driving or flying I still have my older iPod - but this one is a lot more pleasant to use. I love browsing through albums in cover-flow - enjoy being able to open my video portfolio (I'm a graphic designer) at interviews- entertain my colleagues at work with family photos. The wide screen beats the heck out of wallet size pictures! As I mentioned earlier the "nearly" perfect refers not to the device itself, but rather to the availability of the internet. Here in the desert, there are a lot of places where I just can't access the web with my iPod (or for that matter my laptop.) Not Apple's fault! When there is signal, the iPod receives it. If there's an open network around, I can join it. I was at the airport the other day, suddenly was taken with the urge to listen to Bob Dylan's "Planet Waves". After a brief visit to the iTunes store I was happily listening to "On a Night Like This" and "Tough Mama" on the flight. I am hoping that one of the wifi providers (hey - ATT - can you offer wifi only - without phone service please?) to extend the range. For now I'll have to be bound to the hotspots in town. (Best in Sierra Vista? The Public Library!)
A few other plusses. I love that it syncs with my address book and calendar every time I drop it in the dock. I like the long battery life. I enjoy the look and feel of the thing. Apple does it again with another amazing product!
Customer Review: Exciting to explore - unrefined overall
Summary: 2 Stars
A friend gave me one for my birthday last year (!) and as an avid/budding interaction designer, I enjoyed exploring the brave new iWorld.
But other than for playing around, I would trade it for a similarly-priced Apple iPod classic 120 GB Black (6th Generation) without hesitation.
I currently use a Blackberry Pearl 8100 Unlocked Phone -- International Version with No Warranty (Black with Silver) as my regular phone and other than its senility in old age, it's a great device. GMail, for example, works much better on the Pearl than the iPod Touch - I can navigate between messages and pages faster on the Pearl, the Blackberry GMail client pre-loads the messages so I'm not constantly waiting for them to download, and typing with real buttons is faster (even with the Pearl's funky multi-keyed button layout) than the Touch's virtual buttons.
GMail is just one application - more broadly, I'm frequently forced to click the home-button (which quits whatever application I'm running), go to Settings and reconnect to a wireless network, and then re-start whatever application I was trying to use in the first place. If there's a network available, why can't the iPod Touch automatically connect to it when the application makes a request? Otherwise, the (virtual) volume button on the Music application is squirrely and requires a fair amount of practice and patience - I'm baffled as to why the iPhone has a real/physical volume button and the iPod Touch does not. Another oddity with the volume slider is its side-to-side orientation, every other virtual and physical volume control in the world is oriented up-and-down.. "please turn the volume left a little"?
For all the usability bugs in this product, I am genuinely impressed by the speed, reliability and usability of the Safari web browser on such a tiny screen. My "flow state" moments with the iPod Touch have been using the web browser - it's amazing how well Apple worked this out - I wouldn't believe it without experiencing it myself.
I will get an iPhone when the next version comes out (because I'm building iPhone apps), but I'm nervous about switching based on my experience with the iPod Touch.
Customer Review: Forget the iPhone...
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, I must say that I only bought this because I have money to burn, but I truly was very pleasantly surprised. When the iPhone was being released, I said to myself, "If they had a version without the phone features and for about half the price, I would buy it." And sure enough, here we are. This is my first iPod, but I'm glad I started with this one. It's best to think of it as a 6th-gen iPod, not an iPhone without the phone, because the only things that sucked about the iPhone were the phone features. The one major thing I dont like about the iPod Touch is that it only has 8gb or 16gb of storage, when the Classics now have ten times that. I understand the Touch uses flash memory instead of a hard drive, but it makes it so that you have to choose what is on your iPod and constantly update it. However, this has not been too much of a hassle for me, and I even have to convert each of the videos before I can add them to iTunes. 8GB is a good amount of space to hold enough videos at one time that you have a good selection. It wouldn't be a good idea to get the 16gb version because it doesn't really change the fact that you have to constantly update it. So why pay $100 more for being able to hold 5 more movies that you might choose to watch that day? In a way, it was a good idea to have the choice of either very limited storage and practically infinite storage. I use my Creative MP3 player to hold my entire music library, and use the Touch to hold a couple albums and videos for me to watch on the train, in car rides, etc.
As far as the actual features and applications go, they are very well done. Music and audio sound great, and album art looks great, especially in cover flow. The Safari browser works well, but it doesn't have java or Flash, which is always disappointing. At least they have the YouTube app. I think they should have a GPS app for the iPod Touch, but you can use Mapquest just fine, so no biggy. Anyway, Video is definitely the best part. It never seems small, it always seems just big enough and very clear. I love watching recent TV shows that I missed on my break or at other moments when i have time. Overall, I am very impressed with the iPod touch and I don't think I will be very disappointed when they come out with another version in a few months because this one works perfectly fine.
Customer Review: Great device, intentionally crippled
Summary: 2 Stars
This is the first ipod I have owned (but not first mp3 player), so I didn't really know what to expect when I ordered it.
The touch has some very innovative features. The cover flow is a nice addition, the keyboard is surprisingly usable, and the built in wifi support is an incredibly useful thing to have.
However, those features cannot overcome the fact that Apple failed to include features that are a standard among every other MP3 player in the market, in some cases including their own products.
1) You cannot transfer songs, pictures, or any other form of media by using the mass storage (dragging and dropping through windows). This means that you cannot use this on any computer without itunes, and you can't use it on Linux or Solaris at all. This feature is present in literally all of the ipods competition.
2) Not only can you not transfer media, you can't use it to transfer files between computers at all. According to my brother, you can do this on even other ipods. I had planned on using this to transfer large projects between home and my school computer lab.
3) Software that came on the iphone was deliberately left out purely to separate it form the iphone. For example, notes is left out of the ipod. Why would you leave out Notes, But keep Calendar and Contacts? This is pure software, their is no reason Apple could not have put it on the ipod.
4) you can only sync with one computer. Since I own 2 computers that I use regularly, this is a serious problem.
5) You can't transfer mp3's between computers through itunes, but you can transfer itunes purchases. The only reason I can come up with for this is to cripple Amazons music service for use on ipods.
6) no hardware sound control. This means you cannot adjust the volume in your pocket. Instead you have to take the player out, turn on the screen, go through the unlock screen, then slide the volume bar.
So while the product is innovative and useful, it was also literally defective by design. And crippling a product for marketing and monopolistic abuse of market share is totally unacceptable.
To add insult to injury, the included headphones did not work in one ear.