From audio journal episode: AJE-2010-02-05-15-52.
Good afternoon. The snow is falling; started an hour or two ago, and will winter’s fury rages outside, I thought I’d write a little piece about my new iPod Touch that I purchased from Best Buy. I’m holding it in my left hand, and it cost me $423 approximately. It comes in the traditional Apple-style plastic case round-corned iPod case. However this case is somewhat larger than the ones in which the iPod Nanos are shipped; no doubt because the iPod touch is significantly bigger than the Nano.
So, I’m going to open it up here, take a look, and describe what I find. Stand by while I get into position…
This is the 64 GB Touch; it says this right on the case. So I’m assured that I got what I wanted to get.
The case door (the top) is fastened to the bottom on two sides (the narrow ends of the enclosure) with a piece of glorified plastic tape. I just took the tape off of one of the ends, leaving the piece on the other end to serve as a sort of hinge. The case opened with ease with this first piece of tape removed. I’m delving into it now…
The iPod Touch itself is mounted on a little flexible plastic stand-off, which suspends the unit within the case; presumably to prevent the iPod from colliding with the sides of the case during shipping; no Styrofoam here for that purpose. I’ve released the Touch by gently lifting out this stand-off and gently bending it from the back to unclamp the iPod from it.
I’ve released the iPod and set aside the plastic stand-off. There’s a flexible tab protruding from the top front of the Touch, that is attached to a screen overlay, which bears an image of what a typical iPod screen would look like when the Touch is activated. It shows different application icons that you might see when you turn it on for real. I pulled off this protective screen cover. Hmmm, I’ll have to get a clear screen protector; this thing does appear very delicate. I’ll save the one with the pictures for God knows what. But with something this expensive, I get nervous over throwing out any piece that came with it. It’s easy enough to save though, as it fits inside the original case. I’ll just put it there in case I’d want to sell it down the road; you get more money for items when you can offer them in the original packaging with all pieces included.
I’ve just removed the iPod and connected it to my stock iPod charger, sold separately, which I purchased in 2008 with another iPod (used).
Once it charged a few minutes, I turned the Touch on and saw an Apple logo appear along with the word: iTunes. But a message soon displayed, instructing me to plug the iPod into my computer the first time I use it; it must require iTunes on the computer to establish initial settings and to accomplish product registration. So I’ll take it to the computer and connect it there. Stand by…
Okay, so I’m here now at my main computer in the office, and I’m going to plug the iPod Touch in, as soon as I locate the correct cable; I already have an iPod docking cable connected to my USB hub to facilitate quick population of all my iPods. I have four of these now. Unfortunately, there’s a rather tangled mess here… Okay, I found the docking connector (that’s the end that plugs into the Touch). So I’m plugging this in, and we’ll see what happens.
The computer just recognized the iPod; it did that little boom-BOOM noise, and a balloon just popped up, indicating that new hardware was just found; Apple mobile device. At the same time, the Apple logo appeared on the Touch’s screen, and the invitation to connect it to the computer appeared momentarily. After ten to fifteen seconds, another balloon appeared on the computer screen, saying that this device is now ready to use. The balloon messages are the only changes that occurred on the computer screen. However, iTunes is now starting up. As I recently installed the latest version of iTunes, it’s prompting me to agree to the license agreement. So I did that. Now, iTunes just came up, and it’s accessing the iTunes store now according to the status area near the top of the iTunes window.
The new iPod Touch just appeared in the sources tree view (left side of the iTunes window), and it shows that the battery is approximately one third the way charged. I notice that touching the iPod’s touch screen at this point does nothing.
Now, back to the iTunes window, it’s welcoming me to my new iPod, and it’s also doing some Genius work right now. I believe I can still work around that, as it seems to be happening in the background. Now, it’s asking me to get started by 1) registering my iPod, 2) setting up my iTunes store account (I already have one of these established). So all I really need to do is register the iPod Touch. So I’m pressing the Continue button. This triggers the iPod software license agreement to display. I agree, as I’ve read and agreed to it before.
Next, it’s asking for my Apple Id. So I’m typing that in right now, along with my password. iTunes says correctly that I live in the United States. So I’m pressing Continue again. iTunes got a little slow at this point, as it began downloading the latest episodes of the podcasts to which I’m subscribed. That may take a little while as I’ve not run iTunes in at least two weeks. So numerous episodes are waiting to download, no doubt, and they’ll seize this opportunity right now.
It’s showing me my current mailing address, which is wrong. So I’ll update this now… Done.
Now, it’s showing the serial number for my new iPod Touch. I’m writing it down.
iTunes now wants to know what I do for a living. I’ll just select Retired here.
It wants to know my age range, which is 49 to 54.
Then, it makes a series of statements and wants me to choose the one that best describes the role that this new iPod will serve in my world. This iPod is in addition to others that I already own. Now, I’m pressing the Submit button.
Now, iTunes is inviting me to copy my email, calendar, and contacts, to the iPod Touch, and offering me a trial of Apple’s MobileMe system free for sixty days. So it appears that you can send and receive email, work with your calendar, set reminders, and copy photos and movies on to this little device. You can also locate a lost iPhone on a map, though I don’t know if the iPod Touch can be found in this way. So I’m just going to say, “Not now”. I’m going to use this to listen to Internet radio through my WiFi connection, and keep some of my music collection on it as well.
This is a four-fold increase in memory. The largest capacity iPod I possessed until today was the 16 GB 4th generation iPod Nano.
Alright. I’m skipping any automatic syncing options for now.
I’ll have to see what applications they have available for download to the iPod Touch. There is an app store that you can access on the Touch, via the iTunes web site. In fact, you can purchase and download music and applications right from the iPod Touch, to the iPod Touch. You no longer must first download your music purchases to the computer anymore and then sync them out to the iPod. With this technology, you can manage your purchases entirely on the iPod Touch; no intervening computer is necessary.
Let’s see. I’m going to synchronize a few things here. I’m naming this iPod “Tom’s iPod Touch”. This name appears on the sources tree view anytime you connect this iPod to the computer. Now, iTunes is displaying the summary screen for this iPod. It says that I have 207.1 MB of data on it right now. That must be some overhead required by the iPod operating system, for I’ve not put any music or apps on it yet. There are 59.21 GBs of free space.
So I’m unchecking the “Manually manage iPod” option.
Next, I’m choosing the Music tab (top part of iTunes window).
Now, I’m checking the “Selected playlists” option; my music library is too big to house in its entirety on even an iPod this big. So I’ve prepared a few best-of playlists, to reduce the amount of music actually transferred to this Touch. I think I’ll just put my walking2008, walking2009, and walking2010 lists on it for now. Also, I’m checking the “Include voice menus” option, so the Touch will speak menu items and songs as I navigate through them.
With all the above items checked and unchecked as stated, I’m now pressing the Apply button. Syncing has just started as a result. For these particular playlists, it takes nearly twelve minutes. The Touch’s screen lit up, saying that the sync is in progress.
In this time since I first plugged in the Touch, the battery has charged to two thirds of full charge. It charges quickly, at least during the early part of the recharge cycle that’s so. My music hard drive is now spinning up, as iTunes attempts to copy the music in the specified playlists to the iPod Touch.
This setup process was pretty straight forward; it works almost just like my other iPods with which I’m already familiar. So that’s pretty cool.
I’m looking on the bottom of the Touch now, and I see the headphone port. But I don’t find the lock button at first glance.
A warning message appeared in iTunes, advising that not all songs in the playlists were transferred due to incorrect path information. This happens when I reorganize entries into different folders on my music drive but forget to apply the corresponding updates to the playlists that reference those songs. I’ll fix those later.
The sync is progressing. I’ll allow this to finish, then play with it more and write more as well at that time.
Click here to see what happend next.
Tom Hesley
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