Touched by the iPod touch

Last time I came to Ann Arbor I bought a new iPod, a 30GB model and I am a very happy iPod user.

When I visited the Apple Store in Ann Arbor today I was touched the by iPod touch and it was hard to resist buying one right away.

This is the type of device that reassures me that Apple knows how to build great devices. Not only is it incredible slim, but the touch interface really is awesome.

In the few minutes that I had to play with the iPod Touch I really didn’t get to feel comfortable with the virtual keyboard, but was amazed at the quality of everything else.

The iPod function seem outstanding. I have heard how people said that they are missing the tactile feeling and I guess I can understand that. Even for adjusting the volume you need to look at the screen – not something I usually do when adjusting volume, or just skip a track.

But Apple could easily alleviate that pain by offering an in-line remote control, similar to the one that used to be available for the iPod Mini. That would give everyone an opportunity to have both the tactile feeling they like, plus this outstandingly beautiful touch interface.

I looked at the YouTube integration and at a video I had uploaded to YouTube. It looked outstanding – I mean nowhere near perfect as YouTube had questionable quality, but it definitely looked just as good as on my computer screen, maybe even a bit better.

I had a look at Safari and my own web-page and I was amazed at how easily Safari rendered that page and how easy it was to navigate around. The pinch (or double tab) to zoom, just ingenious. Especially, if I consider the pain my treo puts me through, or compare to the Nokia that my colleagues in the UK use, this is just a dream come true.

Looking at Photos made me jealous and that was the point where I had to put it down to stop myself from buying one.

I admit I really want one, but it just isn’t in my budget, despite the fact that the exchange rate is outstanding.

I bought a copy of iWork and a $25 iTunes gift card – total $108.74 (incl. Sales Tax). When converting that to Euros that’s only €76.24 and thus considerably cheaper than buying iWork from Apple in Germany.

You might wonder whether a US iTunes gift card will work on a German iTunes account and the answer is “no”, it won’t. But there are ways around that