Just a week or so ago Apple released an update to their iPod Touch. Unfortunately it came at a cost of $20US (thats $25 for us aussies) which has made a lot of customers unhappy, but i figured i’d get it anyway to check it out. I have only recently converted to an iPod as in the past i had an iRiver which was great, and even customizable as i learnt from the great community over at MisticRiver.net.
Anyway, back to the new update to the iPod Touch. They have added 5 new applications:
- Mail - Probably the most significant, you can now read and send emails (when in Wifi area of course)
- Maps - Google maps, again only really useful when in a Wifi area. Can give you directions and everything else google maps does.
- Weather - A simple widget app that gives you a weather forecast.
- Notes - A simple widget app that allows you to take notes, unfortunately does not sync with iCal, however you can email the note to yourself.
- Stocks - Another simple widget app that shows you a graph of your stocks, pretty neat (if only i had stocks)
Just to answer a question i had and couldn’t find a solution for without purchasing the upgrade, Mail does not sync with your Mac computer. It does however sync your email account details, so you don’t need to set them up on your iPod as well. But emails will be downloaded separately to your iPod which means you will need to mark it as read on both your computer and iPod.
Three other features that have come along with this update are the ability to create your own web clips, which is basically like grabbing a website and saving it to your home screen for easy access. You can also now customize your home screen layout, moving the icons around into the order that you prefer. Finally there is no support for song lyrics. If your song has lyrics in iTunes when you tap the screen while in Now Playing mode (when you can see the album art) you will see the lyrics of the currently playing song.
Overall i think the new features are great, not sure whether its worth the money or not, i suppose that depends on if you think you will use these new features or not. However i think they have improved the iPod Touch even more by introducing these new features (which by the way will be included free on newer iPods i believe!) The only problem i really have is the need for Wifi access for so many of these functions to work, Australia isn’t exactly providing free Wifi on every corner so its hard to reap all the reqards of this great device.
