iPod touch new application software

An interesting new release by Apple this month were the new applications for iPod touch, once again early adopters have been screwed by the corporate, as all new iPod touch shipped from February 08 will have the software pre-installed. I am also willing to bet that within six months the new applications will become part of a standard download. Maybe I will be proved wrong?

As a like my gadgets I thought it would foolish not to pay for the software, £12.99 through itunes, this in itself meant I had to download the itunes 7.6 update and ipod touch software 1.1.3 update, which took a bit of faffing around. Not too sure what the 7.6 update did, but 1.1.3 update to the iPod touch made a few tweeks:-

• Added a grey background to the bottom four application icons (more about this later)
• Changed the layout of the features within safari

The safari update has made it a bit easier to navigate and the grey background has been introduced as a “home bar” indicator for those of us that upgrade the software.

Less of the boring geek stuff and on to the software. It has the following additions:-

Mail – allows you to use an iPod touch enabled mail client or POP mail, rather than having to login via the web browser, this should come in pretty handy as Yahoo mail can be a little bit awkward to use within safari. Also Yahoo mail is one of the supported mail clients. This will probably get the most use from me.

Maps – allows you to use Google maps to obtain directions and strangely enough, maps of cities and towns. Apparently it will cache the map you need, so you can download where you are going, then refer to your iPod for a map. This should be pretty handy too.

Weather – again, nothing amazing about this, but it does save you going into one of the various weather websites to obtain your latest forecast and as all the British are obsessed by the weather, it should get some good use from myself and some of the population.

Stocks – Useful if you have shares as it details all your favourite companies and markets. As I don’t have shares it may not get much use. Maybe something for the future.

Notes – A bit like electronic post-it-notes so helpful if you forget everything, like I do. I will have to see how much use this one gets as I prefer to write things down.

Home screen – This allows you to edit which icons you have on your screen and in which order they are in, you can also have the top four applications located in the grey bar at the bottom. You are also able to create multiple home screen pages so when the screen is too full you can scroll right to obtain more applications. In addition you can make quick links to your favourite web sites, again reducing the time it takes to boot up safari and find your favourite site from the bookmarks. The fun thing about this is the editing, as when you hold your finger over an icon it makes all the icons wobble, allowing you to move them around the screen, a nice bit of functionality.

The software also allows you to view lyrics of the song you are listening too, not too sure how useful this is and how it obtains the information, I hope I don’t have to type it out??

Conclusion
+ I am pretty happy with what I have got for the money, the mail, weather and maps applications will get the most use from me, with mail being the main reason I decided to part with my hard earned cash.
+ Reduces the need to jailbreak your iPod
+ Makes your iPod touch as close to an iPhone as you can get.

- The only downsides are that all iPod touch shipped in February 08 will have the software for free, but in the grand scheme of things this is no big deal. This becoming a free download in six months time would make me more angry!
- Also why are us Brits charged £12.99, when in the US it is $20.00, going off current exchange rates we are paying just under £3.00 more, rip off Britain all over again.