I want an iPod touch
For some reason I keep periodically visiting http://apple.com/ipodtouch just to stare. One of the exciting things about the iPod touch (now that the software has been updated to actually have an E-mail client and a text editor, which the iPhone has had from day one) is that it’s Apple’s first viable PDA since the Newton was killed off. It’s even better than most of the competition (at the same price, of course, since there are plenty of cheaper PDAs).
I’ve used PDAs for several years now. When I was in high school I bought a Handspring Visor with wages from my first job. I loved being able to take it out and keep my schedule and addresses in it. My desktop PC at that time (which was an old Packard Bell I’d scavenged and loaded with Linux and GNOME 1.4 — serious geek cred) didn’t even have USB ports, so I was entering all my info directly onto the PDA and backing up with Springboard backup module.
The Handspring lasted until my sophomore year of college, when I dropped it and cracked the screen. I went out and bought a Palm Zire 21, which was just about the same but smaller and running a newer version of the Palm OS. I used that until the battery ran down and no longer held a charge. Since Palm was no longer supporting the Mac OS, and since Windows Mobile definitely would not, I switched to a paper planner and hoped something would change.
Which, obviously, has happened. I want an iPod touch — which is silly, since I already have a nano with a microphone attachment that I actually use for work-related journalism things, rather than just as a music-playing toy. But I could check my email with an iPod touch! And surf the internet! I guess I just have a hard time justifying to myself that an iPod touch would be useful, instead than cool. I’d rather check my E-mail on a full-size PC that I can actually type on, for example.
At least the Nokia N810 — which is the same price — has a real keyboard. Doesn’t connect to iTunes, though. Sigh. Palm, which used to be the PDA big daddy, offers the TX at the same price point with a woefully inferior feature list: less memory by several orders of magnitude, awkward interface, nonstandard Web browser. Now the N800, TX, and Windows Mobile PDAs have the advantages of Bluetooth, real keyboards (built-in or snap-on), and catalogs of third party software. The latter advantage will disappear in a few months when Apple releases an iPod touch development kit. Hopefully Apple (or a third party) will also do something about that keyboard.
In the meantime, I find myself irrationally wanting one.
