From audio journal episode: AJE-2010-02-05-15-52.
In the last episode (click here to see that), I unpacked the iPod Touch, charged it a little, plugged it into the computer, and started syncing some of my playlists to it.
Now, while this iPod Touch is syncing, I’m going to talk about what I found in the box it came in. In my box, I retrieved the following items:
- A small start-up guide.
- Some Apple logo stickers.
- A product information guide, which sports extremely small print. It looks quite meaty, as it comprises several pages of this single-point-looking lettering.
- The iPod Touch itself along with its plastic stand-off holder.
- A set of ear buds that have the built-in microphone and volume UP (+) and DOWN (-) controls. Their jack has four conductors (three rings and a tip) instead of the three that I’m used to seeing with a stereo 3.5mm connector. Hmmm, I wonder if more traditional ear buds work on the iPod Touch (the ones that employ just two rings on their jacks)?
- A white USB data and charge cable, a few feet in length, for connecting the iPod Touch to a computer or charger. I have several of these now, but can always use more, as these contain rather proprietary iPod-style docking connector.
- A white slotted plastic piece (perhaps a dock or a clip). I don’t know what this is for.
Now, I’m off to read the documentation for a bit. So stand by.
Well, the documentation does provide a web site that offers a guided tour for the Touch, along with an online users guide, that appears very nice and complete, along with instructions and safety information. They also supply warnings to listen responsibly; in other words, don’t play it so loud that you destroy your hearing, or cannot hear what’s going on around you.
You can buy games for this handy device, directly from the iTunes store via the iPod Touch itself as long as you’re connected to the Internet via WiFi. I’ll look into how to establish a WiFi connection once my syncing finishes.
The iPod Touch supports email, through communication with POP3 and IMAP mail servers. For all the bigger this thing is, it really packs quite a bit of functionality.
My synchronizations are finished. Now to the WiFi setup.
Okay, getting the WiFi going was pretty intuitive. There’s an iTunes icon on the iPod Touch’s main screen, which brings up the iTunes store. Upon pressing that, it found my WiFi network, and then asked if I wanted to join that network. When I said yes, it asked me for the password, and then displayed a virtual, touch-triggered keyboard on the screen for me to enter the code.
Once connected, I browsed around the store, and then pressed the HOME button (this is one of the few controls on this unit that’s not virtual; you actually press a real button). You exit the current application with the HOME button, and doing so takes you back to the desktop.
Now, I’m playing the built-in music app (this came pre-installed) to listen to AC DC’s TNT song. So far, getting this iPod Touch up and running has been quite easy, intuitive, and straight forward. Apple has done an excellent job on developing a simple-to-understand yet very powerful user interface; you can access almost the entire array of the Touch’s built-in capabilities with just a few button presses or screen touches, and I’m highly impressed. WiFi on the iPod Touch was far less complicated to set up than it was on the IRIS WiFi Internet WebRadio I purchased last month.
The Touch also comes bundled with the Apple Safari web browser; I just pulled up Google on that.
I just downloaded the user’s guide, onto the Touch itself for future, offline reference, which I am referencing with excitement right now.
At the moment, I’m reading about VoiceOver; setting that up on the iPod Touch. The manual says that if you’re visually impaired, VoiceOver (available only on the fall, 2009 iPods or later, having 3GB or more of memory) can be used to configure the iPod Touch without sighted assistance. So now, I’ll read that.
I just used the Safari browser to pull up this, the Tom’s Diary blog on this iPod Touch. The post text is quite small, but you can enlarge it by tapping the screen (if you’ve previously enabled the zoom feature).
I then figured out how to activate VoiceOver. You can do this either in iTunes or on the Touch itself. When turned on, VoiceOver speaks through the ear buds things on the screen when you touch them. So if you tap an area of the screen where text is displaying, the Samantha voice (in my configuration) reads that text.
I played with the screen lock feature. You can set up a pass code that the Touch prompts for, when anyone attempts to gain access to any screen-based feature. It took a little time to get used to the very small keys on that virtual keyboard. So I had a little trouble entering the correct password to get back into the iPod Touch once I’d locked it. No doubt, it’ll just take a little practice to become proficient at entering data on this thing.
Okay, I figured out how to get back in. When in VoiceOver mode, you must press each key on the virtual keyboard twice (once to select that key, and the second time to actuate it). So if you want to enter pass code 1234, you actually must key in 11223344. However, this is not the case when VoiceOver is off. When VoiceOver is deactivated, the virtual keyboard requires just one press to, both select and registers a key; just like a traditional physical keyboard would. So to get a single tap, the VoiceOver gesture is a double tap. The documentation reveals numerous other gestures as well, that appear to make all the iPod Touch functions accessible to the physically handicapped. It takes practice to learn them to second nature. But I applaud Apple for making the effort to provide a learnable, accessible interface for its flagship player. Because of that, accessibility should only get better over time so long as Apple and other portable player vendors remain committed to improving it.
More later.
Tom Hesley
Related Posts
