Thread: iPod Touch (threads merged)
View Single Post
ragnar is offline ragnar
2007-09-06 , 14:38
Posts: 631 | Thanked: 1,123 times | Joined on Sep 2005 @ Helsinki
#104
Originally Posted by Roc Ingersol View Post
I was initially excited for the Touch - then turned off because it junked the camera and bluetooth and didn't have the Classic's HDD. But the more I think about it, the more I'm not interested.

We know the thing's locked down. So there's no expandable memory. No hope for googleGears or even Firefox. No hope for mososo. No hope for internet apps that Apple doesn't care about: VNC, IRC, ssh, UPnP media streaming (kinda necessary with only a few gig of storage), hell: chat is still up in the air. No hope for generic data sharing. No hope for sync'ing media files however-the-hell-i-want. No hope for expanding media format support. No hope for games; aside from what Apple wants to sell.

Honestly, all Nokia needs to do - is get a better camera, better default media player and better UI performance. (GPS wouldn't hurt) Goosed-up overall horsepower would be nice -- I know that's a contentious issue around here, but it's imperative that the UI get faster. The true strength of the touch UI is merely its responsiveness (and the proximity-weighted spelling correction. we seriously need that).
There's been a lot of interesting discussion in this thread certainly, I think Roc has a very interesting post.

There's kind of two things.

1. What can I do with the device? Does it do the things that I want it to do?
2. How is the UI for doing the things that I want?

Well, actually three things.

3. Bang for buck. How much does it cost? Is a great UI worth so and so much more in cash.

(I'm a Nokia employee, just to state again, this is now my personal opinion.)

I think the iPod Touch is great in the department 2., but I'm not too sure about 1. Or 3. I've been playing around with the iPhone now for some time. The UI isn't perfect, but then again nothing is. It delivers a very nice user experience in nearly all the critical fronts. Kudos to Apple.

Well, but then the iPod. I carry my current 30gb iPod around, and use it to listen to music. It's a focused device. Remember everyone praising Apple for creating focused devices? I guess it also does photos and games and something else, but I never use those features. The scrollwheel is quite nice UI for my iPod. It's "good enough".

The Touch isn't really a focused device so much anymore. It's a media device / web device.

But as a web device it's not really a Great web device. There's no email support, no proper chat support, no voip support, no Flash support etc. The browser has a great UI, but its functionality is limited.

As a media device... Well, do I really need to flip and pan the lists with a touchscreen? It doesn't really improve my music listening experience all that much. It has less capacity for a higher price than just the iPod. For videos it has a bigger screen, but "nobody is watching" videos with that size anyway. (Although the Youtube experience is very nice, yes.)

What is between a focused device and a general multipurpose device? A semi-purpose device?

It's increasingly hard to hit the sweet spot of consumers between giving A Couple Of good features in a competitive package. Especially with a closed solution. With an open solution, and with multiple solutions available, the users can make that choice. With the iPod Touch Apple is making that choice for the users. You want to have the browser, photos, videos, contact book (with no email), calculator, clock... and that's it.

The question can be also phrased in this way: why wouldn't I get the iPod classic, or then the iPhone?