The iPod Touch (199$ 8 GB/299$ 32 GB/399$ 64 GB)

In the never ending race of becoming the “Numero Uno” of PMP’s (Personal Media Player) the iPod Touch has a special place, but does it has what it takes to be #1?  Let see.  There are hundreds of new PMP models made every year but a few of them make the headlines or reach the public awareness trying to get a better position in the market place race, and at the end there are always the same guys that make the cut, and we are talking about Archos, Sony, Cowon, Microsof, Samsung, Creative, Sansa, Iriver and of course… Apple.

Talking about public awareness I will dare to say that most of the time in media you don’t talk about  the iPod Touch without mentioning first the iPhone and since they live in the same ecosystem  whatever happens to the iPhone it will concern the iPod Touch and media awareness for the iPhone is not an issue.  Agree or not the iPhone revolutionized the smart phone industry in many ways bringing by the hand the iPod Touch which by deduction should have revolutionized the PMP industry.  We often hear the expression “iPhone killer” making reference to a better Smart Phone than the iPhone but what about the iPod Touch? Everything depends in how much you can do with it and how well will it do every task taking in consideration the price factor.

For 10$ you could have an MP3 player that plays music, record voice and maybe play FM radio and that is good enough for a lot of people but how much will I get for a 200$ PMP? To be the best PMP you’ll need to do a lot better. Playing video, surfing the net, checking your email, are basics functions of the high end PMP’s now days but still this is not enough for the price.

Let face it, we are living in the communication era, the era of Google, Face book, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, The Web just to mention a few of the tools that we use today to have a presence online and to get instant access to any information we need. To do more than the basics functions a PMP needs to be part of a ecosystem, it will need access to an application store. With more than 100.000 application and counting  the Apple application store is the biggest one there is today, and even if only 30% of all those applications are worth it this will be enough to beat any other app store out there. Most PMPs have access to a very few or not at all to applications and this is why today we see that many of this companies are trying to follow the Apple’s example and start building their own app stores but it took more than two years for Apple to reach those  number and it is in the consumer interest that one day they will catch up but for now it seems to be that only one company is getting a little closer to reach this goal.

Google’s Android platform have reach the 13.000 applications mark and like Apple’s half of them are worth it, this looks insignificant comparing with Apple’s numbers but with more companies adopting Android’s platform soon we will see that it is not only in the best interest of Google but in its partners to fast develops more and better applications. It is not only cheaper but easier for most of this companies to adopt the Android ecosystem and this is exactly what Archos, Creative, Samsung  and a bunch of others PMP and Cellphones manufacturers are doing this days. In the other hand there are some of them that refuse to join forces with Google due to a conflict of interest like Microsoft, Sony and a very few others that already had in place their own platform.

Microsoft Zune HD (220$ 16 GB/289$ 32 GB) and  Sony Walkman X series (299$ 16 GB/ 399$ 32 GB)

Microsoft Zune HD have a beautiful UI (User Interface) that also includes one of the best OLED screen in the PMP market but have an extremely limited number of applications (less than 100 to date) and this confines it for now to do a little more than just the basic functions.  The Sony Walkman NWZ-X1050 has a great sound quality but a bigger problem than the Zune HD … it has no applications at all and its browser is almost unusable.

There are only two alternatives in today’s PMP 200$ range and is to improve their communication capabilities or to drastically cut theirs prices and with an entering price tag of 199$ for an iPod Touch with 8 GB not only the PMPs mentioned above are in danger of disappearing but also the rest of  iPod’s line.

For 30$ more you can buy an iPod Touch 8GB instead of an iPod Nano 8GB and with the increase in the SSD (Solid State Drive) memory in every new generation of the iPod touch who really need an iPod Classic? Maybe soon we will see a 2.5″ screen iPod Nano Touch coming to the rescue.

Most cellphone’s “owners”… or should I say users don’t realize that they are being rip off month after month by theirs service providers, attached to contracts that last for 2 to 3 years ending up paying a ridiculous amount of money and with a crippled obsolete piece of gadget hidden in the deepest corners of ours night stands drawers. Enduringly we accept this situation, after all this is the way it has been since the first cell phone that we owned…or should I say rented?

But there is hope! I believe that in the near future we will see a super iPod Touch with camera, integrated microphone, capable of having multiple applications opened at the same time (maybe VOIP/SIP) and since the announcement of a future Google Phone this iPod Touch will need to be able to connect not only to WiFi but  to a wider area wireless network (3G, 4G, WiMAX) only hoping in the miracle that when the time comes a not too dirty monopolized telecom give us all an only data pay as you go service.   Will this be the real iPhone killer?…

There is so many amazing things that you can do for free with your iPod Touch. One of those things is Conference Calls, just make a list of 5 people including yourself , set the time of the conference and press GO! For more details go to our Communication Tools page.

Ifbyphone

Do you want to send recorded phone messages to one or multiple recipients immediately or at a future scheduled time? Now you can do so for free with Ifbyphone! Here is how it works….

Take a look around this site, you never know what you’ll find around the corner…

Our communication tools page is getting better every day!

Do you want to get Short Message Service (SMS) in your iPod Touch for free?

Please do NOT run. There is enough for everybody over……………………..here!

The Mario’s way.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine (Mario) traded a brand new iPod video 80 gigs for an older iPod video 30 gigs. When I asked him why he wanted to do that? he replied : It’s not the iPod what’s matters but it’s content. He wanted to load his iPod with video concerts but he just didn’t know how so my  ”other friend” asked him which concerts he wanted so Mario gave him a list of his favorites ones and this  ”other friend”  filled his own old 30 gigs with Mario’s favorites concerts and the next day went to Mario’s place to finish the horrifying transaction. Hate me for this but this “other friend” was me. Today we have the iPod Touch and the story could be not so different. So the next time you see your friend making and receiving calls and text with his 2nd generation 8 gigs iPod Touch take control of yourself and don’t trade your brand new 64 gigs 3th generation for his. But if you can’t resist to the temptation I still have an old 8 gigs 2nd generation loaded with content ;^). Sorry Mario.

Learn how to do it yourself in our Communication Tool page .

Take a look at our new wallpaper page here to spice up your iPod Touch/iPhone.

Did you know that…..

While pressing and holding the home button press the sleep button and release both at the same time. This will take a picture of your screen (screenshot) that will be saved in Photos. You can do this anywhere. Try to email your score of Tap Tap Revenge to a friend. Pause a YouTube video, take a screenshot and email those magic moments to the world.

See more tips like this in our Tips & Tricks section here.

iPod Touch or iPhone?

We know the iPhone is for many people the “ultimate gadget” or “the best cellphone ever made”. As most of this is true there is one important thing to keep in mind. With the iPhone you have to get  a contract with a cellphone carrier for a period of at least 2 years and in some cases even 3 (Canada),  and this monthly payments varies in between $60 to $100. That is a lot of  dineros at the end of  a contract. It is here where the iPhone’s little brother comes in handy. If you download the right applications you could have the telephone functionality in your iPod Touch for a fraction of that money  and sometimes even for free.

The wi-fi Choice

Even nowadays most of the people still have regular telephone service at home, and this also apply for internet service at home, work or school. There are some application in the apps store that offers VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) like skype which gives you a telephone number, voice mail and unlimited calls in Canada & U.S.A for less than 8$ monthly. For text messages you could get a free application in the apps store. One of my favorites is Free Texting  SMS and only cost 0.99 cents. If you need to call overseas you can consider downloading Tuitalk is an add base application which gives you 3 four minutes calls a day to more than 40 countries for free!

Calling for free on your iPod Touch is possible with iCall. This application gives you unlimited calls to Canada & U.S.A each call last 5 minutes but you can call back. With iCall you will not receive calls since it doesn’t gives you a telephone number where to call you back.

With Nimbuzz or Fring you can call for free to all your contacts in MSN, google talk, Skype,Yahoo! messenger or directly from the app call telephone numbers using the voip provider of your choice.

We don’t have to forget the native Mail and Voice Memos apps that allows you to send and receive text and voice memos almost in real time.

So if you are someone that have access to a wi-fi connection most of the day and wants to put some money in your pocket at the end of the month the wi-fi choice is there to consider…… seriously!

How many of you can call phone numbers with your iPod Touch and how you do it?