Category: Technology
New Toy: iPod Touch
Music has long been a good friend, a sort of philharmonic companion through life. There is a song to go with just about any mood or occasion. For quite a few years I've owned an Apple iPod. It has faithfully supplied tunes time and time again, but a couple months ago it began locking up on what seemed to be random intervals. In the beginning I could live with it, but after a couple weeks the frustration really set in. Mind you, this is a 4th generation iPod with a brilliant monochrome screen we're talking about. In about mid-November the dreaded sad iPod icon began showing itself. This feels like the portable version of the BSoD. It wouldn't go away!
Luckily Christmas was just around the corner. As it is every year, my parents queried me for what gifts I'd like. Knowing that a new source of lyrical delight wasn't in the cards if I were to try to purchase it myself, I positioned it at the number 2 spot, right under a gift certificate for new computer parts from Newegg.com.
When Christmas morning came, I made the drive up to my parents' house. We shared warm greetings and I indulged in a cup of hot chocolate. When it came time to unwrap the gifts I found myself holding a small box and I knew just what was inside, or so I thought. When I opened it, I did find an iPod. It was an 80GB Classic. This would serve my creative side just fine, but my geekness wasn't as thrilled. Over the days that followed I debated over whether to return the Classic and buy up to a Touch or be happy with what I'd been given. The deal maker for me was the fact that my mom had gotten the BestBuy extended warranty. This is no fault of hers. I love my mom and she was looking out for me. I do, though, find it difficult to put into words how worthless their warranty plans are. My last iPod had an issue that was covered under the Apply warranty. The Apple store replaced the unit on the spot, no questions asked. This same iPod was also covered by BestBuy's Performance Service Plan (PSP). Later on down the road I had to call on BestBuy to own up on their PSP which meant two trips to the store, an hour and a half of waiting on the service associate and then ten days(!) waiting for my dear portable music player to return from repairs. It never really seemed to work 100%.
But I digress, I had made my choice. Between the retail price of the Classic and the cost of the PSP I could just barely afford the 8GB iPod Touch. Few stores had them, but one nearby pointed me to a store in Costa Mesa. I made the trip with my roommate and his brother, but when we arrived there were only 16GB models on the shelf (of course). Luckily I had pocketed a few of my BestBuy gift cards before leaving the house. This would be a worthy way to liquidate them. I walked out of that store with the 16GB Touch and no service plan.
So far the Touch has been working really well. With the help of HandBrake I was able to rip my DVDs to mp4 and take them with me. The interface is as pretty as it looks in the pictures. And boy is this thing thin compared to my old iPod! There is one little bug which I'm trying to track down; from time to time it senses a 'false touch' where it will select the calendar or contacts item without me even handling it. At first I blamed it on a screen protector I purchased, but now the protector is off so only time will tell. If the symptom doesn't subside, a restore session will be next.
All in all I'm happy with the purchase, especially since I was able to disconnect myself from the dreaded BestBuy PSP. A few days ago I invested in an AppleCare plan, just in case.
Rockin' out...