So I couldn't take it anymore. With the release of the 1.1.3 upgrade that gave the iPod Touch (I still call it the iTouch) Mail, Maps, Weather, Stocks, and Notes, I gave into temptation. Or better, my wife finally gave in and let me get it.
I've had about a half dozen Palm-based PDA's from the Handspring Visor to the Tapwave Zodiac. I've enjoyed each one, and still have my Zod which lets me watch movies, keep pics, and play NES games. I also have an SD WiFi card, but surfing is dreadfully slow. I have a bunch of medical apps that I use as well, so it's not just a toy. So why pay $400 for something that has almost no medical apps and has only lame web-based games? Simple: It's Apple Elegant.
From the way you turn it on, to the way you move icons around the home screen, this thing just makes me smile. And surfing the internet is way better than I thought it would be. It's slower than surfing with a real computer, but I don't need to lug a laptop around to surf. And the way you surf is very well thought out. Entering text on a page is easy, once you get used to the keyboard. And drop-down menus zoom in, so it's easy to scroll through them to get where you want to go.
The Mail app is very cool. I have a google account and a .mac account, and it'll show me on the home page how many emails I have, adding both accounts. And like I said, even moving the icons around is cool. You hold your finger on one until they all start jiggling like they're floating on jello, then you move 'em or even slide 'em to a new page. Maps is cool, too. It uses Skyhook WiFi location software to tell you where you are. It doesn't work in my home, but when I'm at the hospital, it knows. This will improve as more WiFi spots are registered. It's no substitute for GPS, but I'll trade that for its very slim form factor.
So far, dislikes include not being able to use Mail in landscape mode. With this view, the buttons are bigger and easier to use with 2 thumbs. By the way, web-based chatting using beejive is awesome on this thing.
-I wish it had a speaker. Showing videos of your kid dancing with Charlie Brown isn't the same without sound. Video, built-in YouTube and zooming in on pictures are very cool, I just wish you could hear without headphones.
-There's no cut/paste, so I couldn't write this post and add a picture with the iTouch. That feature is supposedly coming soon.
Which brings up another thing I like. It's new, and it's growing. The SDK will be released next month, and I think many cool apps will be released so I can fill up to its 16G max.
One last feature: It's also an iPod. It didn't cost much more than our first monochrome HD-based model, but it does a bit more.
