On September 1 Apple announced their new lineup of iPods. After waiting for many years, I figured this would be the year for me to get an iPod Touch to replace my Palm TX and iPod Nano. Unfortunately, on the day of the announcement I was driving around southern Utah and couldn’t get internet reception and the hotel in Bryce Canyon National Park didn’t even have television. So that night I texted Jeb “No wifi or tv need new ipod info” realizing it was pretty late in Atlanta. But I got a text back right away: “What? Did you get my email?” Knowing he was awake, I just called him and told him I had no internet. He asked “Didn’t you go to work?” He had forgotten I was in the desert, even though he had just lent me his hat for the trip a few days earlier. He said the Touch was basically an iPhone 4 without the phone, which is what I was hoping for. So it had front and back cameras and the high resolution screen. Then after we stopped talking he kept sending me more details: prices, battery life, facetime video calls, and iTunes 10’s new Ping service.
So I figured once I was back in civilization I would probably get one and maybe it could be on the way to me before I got home. After Steve Jobs reality distortion field faded, people realized that the Touch isn’t quite the same as an iPhone: the rear camera doesn’t have nearly the resolution of the iPhone, there is half as much processor memory (256MB instead of 512MB), and there still isn’t GPS. Still it was worth getting so I had to decide between the 32GB version or the 64GB version and decided 32GB just wasn’t going to be enough since I have almost 30GB of music, leaving too little room for video and apps.
So on Friday, back in Salt Lake, I ordered a 64GB Touch, but they said it wouldn’t ship for a week, even though Apple usually has iPods ready to ship the day of the announcement (I think this was for everyone, but I also got mine engraved which takes an extra day; the new iPods were in Apple stores earlier this week though). So today it is a week and I got a notice this morning that it had shipped from Kunshan, a whole different place than Shenzen where my Nanos were built.
I just experienced an iPhone4 for the first time. Guy at work has one and was showing me some home videos. The high-resolution Retina Display with HD video is amazing. It’s like you’re holding a small window to the world in your hand. I think you will experience that with the Touch. You should join Facebook so you can start posting videos on the fly!
It made it to Anchorage today after spending a day or two making it from Kunshan to Shanghai. The delivery estimate is the 16th, but it seems like it could easily be here by the 14th and maybe even on Monday if it makes it to Memphis tomorrow.
Today the Touch was on my doorstep when I got home after I left a release form on the door (too bad, anyone could have had a free iPod).
I spent some time getting my MP3 library updated and neatened up for the big fix and translated some of my TV shows I have ready to watch on the Palm to mp4 format so I can watch them on the iPod. It is loading now. I have also gone ahead and gotten the Wikipedia app and will try to do a 3.5GB download which on my slow DSL line will take about 12 hours.