Philip Morton

iPhone apps are coming

Anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch is sitting very comfortably after today’s announcements. Apple revealed its software developer kit (SDK) and showed off demos of enterprise software and videogames which had been built in only two weeks. There are two sides to this - the developers’ and the users’ - but both perspectives look extremely rosy.

I’ve never made an application for the Mac, but I was extremely impressed by the tools that they’re offering with the SDK. They’ve made it incredibly easy to build programs and then test them right away. People are going to want to make applications for the iPhone and iPod regardless of how easy it is, but I never anticipated them making it this accessible.

As a consumer, the announcements are also of great interest. The easy and speed with which programs can be developed means that all of the applications that we’d like will likely be up and running very quickly. By the time the software update comes in June, you can bet that many of the ‘wanted list’ will be ready. Games also featured heavily in the presentation and you can bet that this is one area that’ll really take off.

I bought a 32GB iPod Touch a few weeks ago and although it cost a lot of money, I thought it would be worth it in the long run. Now I know for sure.

Published in Software, Tech, tagged iPhone, iPod Touch on 6th March 2008. One comment.

A week with an iPod Touch 32GB

As you may know, I’m quite an Apple fan and my interest in the Californian company began a few years ago when I got a second generation 10GB iPod. I then replaced this with a 60GB iPod Photo and added a MacBook Pro to my collection 18 months ago to complete ‘the switch’. When the iPod Touch originally came out, it was a tempting proposition, but it was lacking in a couple of departments; capacity and features. With the January upgrade and 32GB of memory, the new version was enough to get me to open my wallet and order one. So one week later, how does it live up to expectations?

Even though I got to play with the iPhone just after it came out in the US, I was again surprised by the iPod Touch’s size and weight. Simply put, it’s an engineering marvel. It’s thinner and slightly lighter than my relatively new Nokia phone, and much slimmer than my last iPod. The form factor is ideal and it fits in your pocket like a hand in a glove.

The first negative thing to note is the device’s startup time, which comes in at about 15 seconds. Once it’s up and running, it’s extremely quick because of the flash memory, but you can’t expect to switch it on and off at will. Aside from that, I have few other complaints. Each application works as expected, with Safari and Maps particularly worthy of note.

The built in browser is well tailored for use with a touchscreen, allowing you to surf the Web effortlessly. It doesn’t support Flash yet, but otherwise it’s exactly like using another computer. Maps is extremely cool and will no doubt prove extremely useful when I travel next. Having the ability to search locally in a strange city is priceless.

As a music player, the Touch excels. I’ve always been a huge fan of the click wheel interface and was slightly saddened to see it go, but its replacement is more than worthy. Finding artists in long lists is now a lot easier and although Coverflow can’t be used on a per-artist or per-playlist basis, it’s a useful novelty.

A couple things take some getting used to; multi-touch and the text input screen. Typing on a screen with no physical feedback is odd at first, but as the week’s gone on, I’ve found that I’ve quickly adapted to a new way of typing. It’ll never be as fast as using a proper keyboard, but it’s a well designed alternative.

Covering the entire device would take forever, so I’ll wrap up the review here. Even though I’m an Apple fan and am bound to be biased having paid so much money for it, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the iPod Touch. Its design is superb, both physically and in terms of the software on it. If you weren’t impressed by the Touch’s capacity and features when it first came out, but were somewhat curious, then this is well worth a look.

Published in Design, Tech, tagged iPod Touch on 20th February 2008. One comment.