iPod touch 4G beyond the hype

The iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without the phone, and with a rather poor still camera. Memory configurations are 8GB, 32GB and 64GB, if you decide to buy an iPod buy one with the most memory you can afford, Apple does not make it a simple matter to just increase your memory, there is no slot for an SD card.

Connectivity and iPod touch Wireless iPod touch requires a Wi-Fi or wireless network in order to unlock the many features, in a place where no Wi-Fi is available you may still be able to connect by Bluetooth to a Smartphone and use the phone as a network provider.

iPod touch 4G supports:

• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
• Bluetooth^® 2.1 + EDR
• Maps-location based service (this service depends on WiFi network connections, not GPS and is not accurate for an exact location)
• Nike + iPod support built in

Web Browsing

Your iPod Touch will come with a Safari browser already built in and there are at least 12 aftermarket browsers for you to download and work with. Opera, Vanilla Surf, Oceanus, Secret, and others are available at the App store for download. Sorry to the Firefox fans, but so far there is no Firefox browser for iPod, there is a Firefox homepage that will give you access to your desktop history, bookmarks and open.

Email

iPod touch supports HTML email, so images and photos appear alongside text. Rotate, zoom, and pan in more than a dozen standard file and image formats, including PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and iWork. Keep in touch with all of the major players in email, AOL, Gmail, Yahoo mail, Microsoft Exchange, almost any IMAP and POP mail accounts and even HotMail is now able to be used on your iPod.

Need a hard copy? AirPrint lets you print from your iPod touch to any AirPrint connected printer on your wireless network. AirPrint printers are made by HP, here’s the list:

• HP Envy e-All-in-One series (D410a)
• HP Photosmart Plus e-AiO (B210a)
• HP Photosmart Premium e-AiO (C310a)
• HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-AiO (C410a)
• HP Photosmart e-AiO (D110)
• HP Photosmart eStation (C510)
• HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf Multifunction Printer
• HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fn Color Multifunction Printer
• HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fnw Color Multifunction Printer
• HP LaserJet Pro CP1525n Color Printer
• HP LaserJet Pro CP1525nw Color Printer
• HP Officejet 6500A e-AiO
• HP Officejet 6500A Plus e-AiO
• HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-AiO
• HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-AiO
• HP Officejet Pro 8500A Premium e-AiO
• HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus e-AiO

Tunes and Videos

Apple and iPod made their reputation with iTunes. You can shop for new tunes and videos anytime you have a Wi-Fi connection.

Battery Life
Apple rates the battery life of the fourth-generation iPod touch at 40 hours of audio playback or 7 hours of video, which is an improvement over the previous generation's estimates of 30 hours of audio playback and 6 hours of video. Here is no way for the end user to replace the battery. It is soldered in place.

Retina Display

Apple has developed pixels 78 micrometers wide, packing four times the number of pixels into the same size screen found on earlier iPod touch models. 326 pixels per inch make graphics and text look smooth and continuous at any size. The display includes LED backlighting and an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen to save battery.

FaceTime
Right out of the box FaceTime and your iPod touch 4G make it possible to talk with anyone on an iPad 2, iPhone 4, iPod touch, or Mac. As with much of the iPod touch 4G to use FaceTime you have to be on a Wi-Fi network. With the back facing camera on your iPod touch, video phone calls are easy and the front facing camera lets you share what you see over FaceTime.

FM Radio
There is no built in FM radio but whenever you have a Wi-Fi connection you can use a radio app like Pandora or Slacker, there are both free and paid subscriptions to these and other radio apps. There are also some radio tuning dongles you can purchase to have FM capability.

Apple A4 chip.
The Apple A4 chip is behind, the iPod touch. The Apple A4 is a Samsung chip based on the ARM processor architecture, this is the same type of chip currently in use in almost all mobile phones, popular with manufacturers because of low power needs and low cost. With it, iPod touch brags they can perform complex jobs such as multitasking, editing video, and placing FaceTime calls. All while maximizing battery life. The A4 chip is the same chip used on the iPhone 4 but in the iPod touch there is only 256 Mb of RAM compared to 512 Mb found in the iPhone 4.

Gyro & Accelerometer.
The latest iPod touch now includes a built-in three-axis gyroscope plus the accelerometer, the gyro makes iPod touch capable of advanced motion sensing for a better gaming experience.

HD video recording and editing
With iPod touch, you’ll always have an HD video camera with you capable of recording high-definition 720p video. There is an illumination sensor built into the back side to help you record video under low light. Apps are available at the Apple App store to buy at extra cost that will help you edit your videos

The Camera
Apple’s specifications page for the Touch lists a resolution of 960-by-720 pixels for the rear camera, which is roughly one megapixel.

The Gaming Center
With the gaming center, a few dollars for games at the App store and a Wi-Fi connection, you can connect with other gamers, not just your friends, but people from around the world are online and gaming waiting for you!

The Apps
Apple maintains a stranglehold on their Apps with a review process that until recently has been hidden from developers. An account with the iTunes store is needed to get full functionality from your iPod touch and you have to have an Apple ID and a credit card on file with the store to be able to use iTunes, regardless whether you want to buy from them or not. There is a work-around here.

The iPod touch 4G is about as advanced as a music player can get at the moment and you can have it without a monthly charge, but there are two big drawbacks. You have to be on a Wi-Fi network to use all of the features and you have to give up control of what you put on your device. Steve Jobs and Apple choose what Apps you will be allowed to use and they try to control how you put tunes on your iPod. For someone with a current smartphone, be it an Android or iPhone, the iPod touch is just another piece of hardware to carry around which may only duplicate the functions of your phone, it may be better to update your phone to one with enough memory to hold all of your music and files.

Below is a list of the complaints which has been compiled from various user forums. Only those complaints that have been repeated several times have been included. The list has been edited for clarity and brevity but the opinions are from Apple customers.

· Without computer and Wi-Fi connectivity, I-Pod Touch is useless

· Over 200,000 people have reported issues with poor battery life

· Another 100,000 people reported issues with Wi-Fi

· The still camera is just 1 Megapixel, but the iPhone 4 has a 5-Mp camera.

· No flash for the camera

· No internal GPS.

· OS freezes and requires a reboot

· Gyroscope is waste of time, not many apps support gyro (so far).

· The interface between iTunes and Windows 7 is flawed.

· Apple has poor tech support and customer service.

· I-Pod Touch won’t work without I-Tunes for transferring files.

· There is no manual in the package, nothing to tell you how to operate.

· There is no "Cut and Paste" from CD music files to I-Pod Touch without using I-Tunes.

· Apple owned I-Tunes requires a personal ID and credit card number in order to activate

· Apple only allows you to buy apps from their store.

· There is a poor management of playlists in I-Pod Touch and I-Tunes.

· Transferring e-books to I-Pod Touch is very complex and frustrating

· Difficult to type correctly on I-Pod Touch if you have fat fingers.

· The screen does not change to a bigger size when the position is rotated.

· Can only download and sync from 1 computer.