My wife - who was never exactly Gadget Girl - fell in love with the Touch the moment my son showed us his model during the Thanksgiving break. So I bought one, and we've enjoyed it ever since. It latched onto our wireless home network without a hitch, and we use it every day to check weather forecasts and movie schedules, browse the Web, get directions and settle the usual disputes without resorting to a full-size computer.
In fact, we rarely use the iPod Touch to play music. We have other iPods for that. (Although I have a reputation as a PC guy and not a Mac guy, I have developed a weakness for iPods - we've bought six of them over the last few years, several of which survive).
Unfortunately, Apple thought it had to cripple the Touch in some way to keep it from cannibalizing sales of the iPhone, so it left out the iPhone's built-in e-mail program and its customized version of Google Maps.
These weren't fatal flaws - we could check our e-mail on the Web with the Touch's Safari browser, which also gave us access to Web-based mapping sites. But I always thought it was kind of chintzy to hold them back.
Apple has fixed that now - in an equally chintzy way, by charging $20 to download an upgrade. This is a touch of minor venality that even the hated Bill Gates wouldn't resort to - especially since buyers of new iPod Touch players get the new applications built in. But I guess Apple customers are used to it.
After a series of downloads that took about 90 minutes, including a new version of iTunes on my PC, the new applications were on my iPod desktop, along with smaller "widgets" from the iPhone library that display the latest weather forecast, fetch stock prices, and allow you to type and e-mail notes.
The e-mail program allowed us to set up multiple accounts to handle mail from our regular POP3 mail server, along with our Yahoo and Google mail.
The mapping program also has some new usability features (which iPhone users get free). One of them will do its best to find your current location, a neat trick in a gadget without a GPS chip. It found ours about half the time.
Then it was time to rent a movie - no sweat. I chose Live Free, Die Hard, the latest Bruce Willis shoot-'em-up. The only hassle was waiting for the download - the 1.5 gigabyte file took about 40 minutes to transfer. So renting one this way won't reproduce the instant gratification of Comcast's on-demand movies.
It took another 10 minutes to transfer to my iPod, whose screen is beautiful but still not big enough to be my choice of venues. Still, it will do fine on a car or plane trip.
With the 30-day window, I can see loading up a few flicks before leaving on vacation and watching them on the road when I get the urge - on a laptop or the iPod.
All told, a good week for Apple's gadget fans.
mike.himowitz@baltsun.com
