Non-phone

[livingdeb]

Robin got a new 32GB iPod Touch to test as part of his job. It has everything he likes about the iPhone except the phone plus you don't have to get the expensive phone service contract. (I'm tempted to call it the non-phone, though it also doesn't have a camera or a microphone.) He's decided to get one, inspiring his co-workers to welcome him to the 21st century. He will use it for everything he used is Palm for and more.

I used to have an electronic device, too (a Revo). I used its databases for keeping track of loads of things like restaurants (including what we already tried and did or did not like), grocery store prices, and books and movies I want but don't already have. It was done in by a totally amazing thunderstorm, during which I actually gave up on the umbrella (not so useful with extremely high winds) and decided I would just get soaked, especially after having to cross a creek to get home from work. Meanwhile, water had seeped through the layers of things in my backpack until my Revo was no more.

They stopped making those. I replaced it once anyway with a used one. That also broke, though I no longer remember how. I got disgusted and went back to paper for some things and looking things up on the computer before leaving the house for other things.

Apple's website advertises the Touch as a pocket computer as well as an iPod and a game playing system. Here are the computer uses it touts:
* wi-fi - this didn't work at the hardware store where we were. And when we were looking at a map on the way to the restaurant, it kept covering it up with a message saying that it couldn't tell where we were, saying to press a button to get rid of the message, like 8 times within the last mile.
* Safari - web browsers are great, but they are less thrilling when you can't get on the internet as happened to us today.
* e-mail - again, less exciting without the connection.
* keyboard - they call it fast, but it's not fast like typing. It's two-finger typing all over again. Robin swears it's miraculous, and even with his man fingers, it always guesses the right letter. He admits that he is careful and does have to look at the keyboard while typing. For a device smaller than even my hand, that sounds great.
* maps - again with the networking
* social networking - deja vous

They don't actually mention things like word processors, databases, calendars, to do lists. You know, things where you input the information yourself. Robin has already found a calculator he loves for $2. He assures me that there are other great software programs out there super cheap or free. It may actually already have more available programs than any other sort of computer because of how they reward non-employees to write them.

The iPod Touch might be an excellent device to drag on vacations instead of my computer as something to load my pictures onto when I run out of room on my camera.

On the other hand, it is completely vulnerable to water.

To those of my readers with iPhones or iPod Touches, what are your favorite and least favorite uses?

Comments

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

iPhone here. I second the Kindle app -- I use that every single day. I play games on it (mostly bejeweled and sudoku -- both were on sale -- but I have about 10 games). I use the weather app, calendar, AIM, clock with alarm, text messaging, voice memo, Shazam (identifies songs wherever you are, from movies, tv, radio, whatever), facebook, MLB app (baseball is my life), TweetDeck for twitter, NY Times app, mail for all my email except work, etc. I have a lot more that I rarely use, but I use all of the ones I listed all the time. Honestly, I rarely move around without my iPhone in my pocket, so I use it just about constantly. Oddly I don't use it for music much, as my car stereo doesn't have an Aux In jack and my phone doesn't have a converter like my iPod does. So my music mostly still comes from my iPod.

When I had a Handspring Prism and after that a Treo, I used them a lot more for documents and databases. But with the internet a quick google search away, I rarely bother. I have a few docs (via DocsToGo) on my phone, mostly my coded list of passwords and a couple of lists of things I own (CDs and Books).

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Interesting. So you are able to access Google fairly regularly? I would love to have that capability, especially when I am in a store and want to look up reviews.

I'm realizing I spend a lot of time around desktop computers and maybe don't need an additional computer for when I'm between desktops.

Games! Dangerous! The alarm clock sounds good, though.