Customer Reviews:
 Amazing piece of technology; I love it! April 5, 2008
I have the IPod tough 16gb for about a month, and I love it. It's an amazing piece of technology. I love the email and web applications; both are easy to use, and fast. The IPod tough picks up a wi-fi signal easily in our house or really anywhere that has a wi-fi connection. Safari runs quickly and efficiently. The email application is smartly designed: easy to set up, intuitively configured, and I can even open attachments. I can't say enough about what I think is one of the best pieces of technology I have put my hands on.
Perfect companion with a lot of memory April 5, 2008
I really like this companion.
everything is great!
the application, which you can download through wifi from installer are perfect.
the only one thing I would like to have in this player is loudspeeker.
with it would be awesome. sometimes you need to listen something without uncomfortable headphones.
The best Apple product I've bought April 5, 2008
I bought this product two weeks ago and ship it to Bolivia (South America), so I had to wait longer than usual (one week and a half for arrival), but believe me, all of this waiting time is worth. What I received was a perfectly made box, then I open up the box, the quality is perfect, I love my iPod Touch display, is so big, also the touch screen is perfect. Finding music now is very easy, you can fast scroll to your artist's name alphabetically, when you twist the device you see the Cover Flow which is great. The Safari browser is so cool, so easy to browse the web, you pinch with your fingers and you zoom any page. The battery duration listening about 2-3 hours of music during the day is about 3-4 days, 8 GB it's fine for me as all my music and some music videos takes only 4 GB. I also converted some Simpsons episodes, I recommend to use Nero as I tried with other converters (Xilisoft) and Nero creates an almost-perfect video, very small and well synced image and sound. Everything is so well designed in this product, every little detail is so planned that you'll be amazed, I recommend you to buy the Griffin case, it looks great and comes with a free display-protector for scratches and dust. Well, I had the iPod nano 8GB but replaced it with this great product, and have no regrets at all, touch technology is so amazing and so sexy that all the people who sees it they don't believe that we've come so far, now I think touching is the technology revolution!!
 Very nice.. but misses in a few key areas. March 31, 2008
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
Actual score: 3.5
I'll start off by saying that I've always been a big iPod fan and that this is my 4th to purchase. I'll try to keep comparisons minimal, but coming from owning previous models, that might be a bit tough.
Last year I made the plunge and purchased an iPhone -- not really for the phone, but more to have the latest/greatest ipod and web browsing on the go. My biggest complaint with it was the low storage capacity (4GB or 8GB). The 16GB touch was tempting, but the 32GB model is what finally sold me. I might have been wrong, but I came in expecting a "32GB iphone.. without the phone."
We've all heard the positives, so I'd like to go a bit into the negatives that I experienced.
Right off the bat, I was a bit disappointed. While it does have some benefits (I prefer the black bezel on the front to the silver on the iphone, the headphone jack (now on the bottom opposed to the top) accepts standard headphones without an adapter, and the ipod touch is slightly thinner), there are a few drawbacks.
The first drawback I noticed was that Apple switched materials used for the back of the device (it was a soft, scratch-free, almost matte-like back on the iPhone while it's a glossy aluminum on the ipod touch and scratches VERY easily).
The next problem came in connecting it to a PC - my first try didn't go as planned as I received errors stating that the device driver could not be loaded (and therefore could not be recognized). This is a new higher-end PC purchased in February 2008, so to have this type of problem was upsetting (all other devices have run without problems). After troubleshooting, I ended up reformatting to solve the problem (which worked), so I won't deduct any points for that.
I have had some trouble with the device crashing while in coverflow - too often to call it "bad luck", and the trouble has forced me to go into text-view when searching for music on the device.
After loading the device, I finally get a chance to use it and immediately notice that something is "off" in the colors. Everything had a visible yellow tint to it (as if the color temperature was set incorrectly). This was very annoying as blacks appeared green, white appeared yellow, and people appeared gold. I tried to look past it, but compared to the iPhone screen (and even the 5G ipod), the difference was VERY noticeable and very distracting. I returned the iPod to amazon, only to experience the same issue. I took that one to the Apple Store and, again, same issue. I'm starting to believe that this is a problem with all 32GB models (as the 8 and 16GB ones I tested, looked fine). My 3.5 star review is assuming that this gets fixed in a future update (either by adjusting the temperature, or offering a way for the end-user to do so - apparently this was the case with earlier 16GB models).
Next problem: Sorting
The iPod touch is obviously designed for video. Using it for an audio-only player seems to kind of defeat the purpose of that great screen. Why, then, does all content appear in a single list with no way to sort (Podcasts, Movies, Music Videos, TV Shows) or even jump to specific areas?
The way the Video application is designed is to provide one long list with Movies on top, TV shows next, followed by Music Videos and Video Podcasts at the bottom. The problem here is that I have 350 music videos that I have to scroll through each time to get to the Podcasts section. 2 more issues here are that (1) you must manually scroll down to the video of your choice - unlike Albums (and even "Contacts") that let you quick-jump to any letter by scrolling along the right side of the screen, and (2) there is no "Play All" option for videos - once one ends, it returns to the menu until you select another video. While this isn't a big deal for most situations, I use it for watching music videos and sometimes you'd like to just put it down and go through a playlist of videos.
Audio lets you sort by:
Playlists / Artists / Songs / Albums / Audiobooks / Compilations / Composers / Genres / Podcasts
Why doesn't video let you even sort by Movie/Music Video/Podcasts/TV Shows?
The Photo app is very nice for showing off your photos, but another missing function here is the Camera. I think that the iPhone camera would've been great to have on here, and it isn't a phone-specific feature that would be useless for ipod users.
The Calendar function is useful - I don't have too much of a use for it so I didnt explore it much, but it is functional. The same goes for other apps like Weather, Stocks, etc..
Mail and Safari are by far my favorite apps, but since they require a wifi connection, I havent had much of a chance to use them (and instead use the iPhone on edge). If you have wifi access where you commonly travel, these are excellent programs. Youtube has gotten much better also (expanding the amount of videos available on the mobile version), maps is a perfect representation of Google Maps and the Calculator is just that. These applications are fantastic but also useless if you live in an area without many wifi hotspots. With that said, the mobile safari browser is the best mobile browser I've ever seen.
The notes function is one of my most used, however, it doesnt allow you to sync your notes to it (at least on a PC). Very disappointing! The Clock application lets you view world clocks, set a timer, alarm or use it as a stopwatch (which brings me in to my next disappointment). The iPhone speakers have been removed, so to listen to any audio you must use headphones (this is usually used with videos/youtube when you want to show video to others or to multiple people.. disappointing that you cannot do this without either passing earphones around or buying an external speaker set). The noises are now replaced by bleeps and bloops (like you'd get from an old-school 8-bit gaming system).
The design is very slick. However, I feel that they went for looks over functionality on this one. The touch has just 2 buttons: Power/Sleep and Home. This is nice for looks, but bad for ease of use. The iphone, while also minimal, at least had physical controls for volume on it.
This is very important when the device is out of view -- one big use for my ipods has always been as a radio/cdplayer replacement for my car. In the past I've always been able to adjust volume or tracks by touch (either with a touchwheel or physical buttons like the shuffle), with the ipod touch (and iphone) I'm unable to adjust tracks without double tapping home and then physically looking at the screen to locate the 'next track' buttons. This also affects you if the ipod is in your pocket and you wish to change tracks. This is probably some sort of plan to get us to shell out another $50 for a remote control once they release one, but then again I might just be paranoid ;)
On a serious note though, I am a bit disappointed in the AV cables for the iPod touch - they require all new cables (meaning 5G ones won't work here), cost $49.99 for either Component or Composite and max-out at 480i or 576i (not even progressive).
Going back to the positives, unlike the iPhone which came with a dock for holding the device vertical, the iPod comes with a very small piece of plastic which is actually a stand for holding it vertical or horizontal - very compact and well thought out.
The keyboard is great and the predictive text can be as well (although you will find some words that it INSISTS on changing to incorrect ones, which can really frustrate you), overall it's fantastic. My disappointment here comes from the fact that the device requires a physical touch (meaning no stylus or other devices), which then means massive fingerprints covering the screen.
As expected, the device requires all content be converted and transferred through itunes - great if you have your content in that format, but if you just want to add some video files, you must convert them to the specifications that it understands (hopefully they allow 3rd party codecs with the 2.0 release, but again it's expected so I won't knock any points for it).
The device has great file support, including office-type documents (through weblinks and email) but for whatever reason, does not like you transfer these documents to the device. Very disappointing here, and again a change I hope is made in 2.0.
I also don't like the idea of charging for what should be considered "free software updates" - Sony has added fantastic features to the PSP for years, yet apple charges $20 for a few extras that are included free with the iPhone? If this becomes a trend, I see them holding back content and selling it to you later on (much like recent downloadable content on the videogame consoles)
I know I seemed to go more into negatives in this review, but we've all read the positives (which I agree with, for the most part) and felt that some of these important negatives (important to me at least) should be mentioned.
Overall I am satisfied with the device, but for the high price and disappointments, I can't give it a score much higher. Fix the software problems and screen tint and it's a solid 4.5 from me.
 Beware of iPod Touch March 31, 2008
21 out of 48 found this review helpful
I purchased the 16GB iPod Touch for Christmas but unfortunately it stopped functioning after only 3 months of normal use. When I tried to return the product to an Apple store they 'reset' the iPod, which appeared to fix the problem. As soon as I got home it was clear that the iPod was still not functioning correctly. I went back to the store the next day but was told that they were too busy to help me. Apple then sent me to another store (30 minute drive away) where I was forced to wait for 3 hours before anyone would help me. When I finally got someone to help, it took about 5 minutes for them to realize that the iPod was defective at which point they replaced the device.
Three trips to two different Apple stores with over 5 hours of waiting. And to top it all off they refused to replace the plastic screen protector (which I had purchased from Apple).
Save yourself a headache and try another product. Or at least wait another year until they figure out how to make this product without defects.
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