If you are not already sporting one of those Hong Kong-sourced unlocked iPhones, then the recently launched iPod Touch serves best as an introduction to Apple’s futuristic new “multi-touch” user interface. This introduction will cost you Rs17,700 for an eight gigabyte (GB) model, or Rs23,600 for the 16GB version.
You may find personal media players that have more features, higher quality audio and video performance, as well as many more gigs of storage, but you won’t find any other product that will excite you as much as the iPod Touch interface. Remember Tom Cruise in Minority Report using a visual interface to flick, toss and drag files as if they were real world objects that have mass and inertia? Well, on the iPod Touch, you don’t even need two hands—zoom photos with a pinch of the finger or spin through your music collection in Cover Flow with a flick of a thumb or tap an artwork to flip it over and reveal the album playlist.
The iPod Touch interface (above and above right) has been modelled on the iPhone
On the iPod Touch, there are only two buttons—the one on the top powers on the device and the second one, below the display, takes you to the start-up “Home” screen from any application. Every other element of the iPod Touch is controlled by its multi-touch screen, and there is no remote control. A few intuitive gestures are all you need to manipulate the user interface: Touch an icon to launch an application. Touch to select a list item. Touch and slide a control. Touch a virtual keyboard, where you touch the keys with your fingertip to type. With a long list, or a series of photos, or a pile of Cover Flow albums, you can flick and toss the virtual objects. It simply makes any traditional portable music player user interface look clumsy and, hey, it is immediately addictive.
The iPod Touch has a glossy, black face, just like the iPhone, but it has a shiny, chrome back like the older classic iPods, and it feels as expensive as it looks. The only external interfaces are a standard iPod dock connector and a standard 3.5mm mini stereo plug. The iPod Touch provides a 480x320 pixel screen that makes photos and videos look sharp and good. Video format support is unaltered from the H.264/MP4 files playable on 5G iPods, as well as the third generation iPod Nano and the iPod Classic. The standard iPod variety of audio formats is supported, and iTunes handles transfers from your Mac/PC. In fact, the iPod Touch is nothing but a shiny paperweight until it’s connected to iTunes 7.4, or later, and taken through an initialization process that requires your electronic acceptance of Apple’s legal terms.