Product Description

IPOD TOUCH 16GB UK

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16488 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Apple
• Model: MA627ZO/A
• Released on: 2007-09-13
• Dimensions: 43.31" h x 24.41" w x 3.15" l, .26 pounds
• Display size: 3.5

Manufacturer's Description

Touch Comes to iPod.

Music, video, photos, and websites in 8GB and 16GB models

 

 

Multi-touch

iPod touch features the same revolutionary interface as iPhone. Built to take full advantage of the large 3.5-inch display, the multi-touch interface lets you control everything using only your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web page. And iPod touch features a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard perfect for browsing the web in Safari, searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, entering calendar events, or adding new contacts.

Ambient Light Sensor

The iPod touch display has an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness to suit the ambient light in your surroundings. The result? A better experience for you and battery-saving efficiency for iPod touch.

 

Accelerometer

An accelerometer detects when you rotate iPod touch from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page, your music in Cover Flow, or a photo in its proper aspect ratio.

 

Touchscreen iPod

Music

If a picture says a thousand words, think of what all the album art in your collection might say. With Cover Flow on iPod touch, you can flick through your music to find the album you want to hear. And when you do, a quick tap of the cover flips it over to display a track list. Another tap starts the music.

 

Video

The 3.5-inch display gives you video like nothing you’ve seen before on a portable device. Watch your favorite movie. Catch up on television shows, anywhere. Enjoy video podcasts. Play music videos. All using multi-touch technology that lets you bring up onscreen controls and go widescreen (or back to full screen) with a tap.

Photos

iPod touch holds up to 20,000 photos you sync via iTunes. Flick to scroll through thumbnails. Tap to view full screen. Rotate for landscape format. Or perform some sleight of hand by opening two fingers to zoom in. You can even play slideshows, complete with music and transitions. Set any photo as your wallpaper to personalize your iPod touch...with a touch.

 

Wi-Fi Web Browser

Safari

With Apple’s Safari browser built in, iPod touch is the only iPod that gives you wireless access to the web, everywhere you go. See websites the way they were designed to be seen. Sync your bookmarks or add a few as you go. Search the web using the touchscreen keyboard. Zoom in and out by tapping the multi-touch display.

YouTube

Got a bit of a YouTube addiction? iPod touch feeds it from anywhere with a special YouTube player built right in. Watch featured videos, check out the most viewed, search for something specific, then bookmark your favorites for future reference. It’s all the fun of YouTube — pocket-size.

iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store

With iPod touch, you can discover new music anywhere. Built-in wireless capability gives you access to the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, where you can buy songs with a tap. Browse New Releases, What’s Hot, and Just Added lists. Or find exactly what you’re looking for with a quick search. Tap a song to preview it or tap Buy to purchase it. From anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Box Contents

• iPod touch
• Earphones
• USB 2.0 cable
• Dock adapter
• Polishing cloth
• Stand
• Quick Start guide

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Customer Reviews

Truly Amazing!
"Wow!" was the first thought that entered my head as I unwrapped my new toy - even the packaging is fantastic!

This really is a marvellous piece of kit, *doffs hat to Steve Jobs for another amazing innovative product*

Okay so it's only 16GB and, as with all methods of storage, you don't get exactly what it says on the tin due to system files and the like. That said, and despite what others have droned on about, this is as good as it gets for publicly available flash drive technology at the moment.

Obviously there'll be storage improvements further down the line, perhaps even switching to the hard drive technology that's in the previous iPods and the Classic. However, I did read a review that the cover flow function on the classic absolutely kills the battery so it could be a case of waiting until the flash drive technology improves, which it undoubtedly will.

Anyway storage aside I can't find any fault with this little gem. The touch screen is incredibly responsive which, after using the Sony DSC-T50, is quite remarkable. The pop up keyboard for internet surfing and WiFi configuration is a bit fiddly so you wouldn't want to use it for writing large emails but that's a very minor thing imo.

Cover flow is seamless which is probably, in part, due to the flash drive. YouTube and Safari apps are a nice touch - I can't see myself using it as a web browser that much, but watching YouTube videos I certainly will. Contacts and calendar all look very pretty. Only quibble here is that, if you're using the Vista contacts and calendar apps, the contacts will sync (including photos!) but the calendar isn't recognised at the moment - still, that's easily fixed with a software upgrade. Outlook users (on any platform) won't have any issue with this. Video playback is absolutely fantastic. It also handles videos that are in playlists better than my previous iPod - previously I would get pauses every 50 or so seconds, but on the Touch it's just like a normal track!

So to summarise, it's a great piece of kit that not only looks the business but works as good as it looks.

Finally, I should also give props to Amazon - cheaper than retail even including the next day 1pm express delivery.

Very Impressive, Safari Great, Some Bugs... 5 New Apps!
Just when their competitors were finally figuring out how to copy the iPod, Apple dropped this bomb on them. The iPod Touch is a very impressive piece of technology with a lot of promise for the future. It's much more than an MP3 player. It's really two thirds of an iPhone, and much more like a PDA than the previous iPods were. The multi-touch screen is radically different to a standard touch screen in that, it tracks your finger movement, allows two fingers to be used simultaneously, and knows the difference between a tap and a hold. Combined with Apple's cutting-edge animated interface, this provides a very fluid, elastic, slidey, zoomy user experience.

One of the previous reviewers criticised Apple for not supporting 3rd party applications. In October 2007 Apple announced that a software development kit (SDK) would be made available to third-party developers in February 2008. So, in just a couple of months, you can look forward to a lot of new Apps designed specifically for the iPod Touch. These Apps will further extend the capabilities of what the iPod Touch can do, but will (most interestingly) transform it into a respectable handheld games console!

Safari, for me, is the killer app of the iPod Touch. It lets you go on the real Internet, not the mobile Internet, and look at real web pages. You can log into Amazon.co.uk on the iPod Touch and add things to your Shopping Basket. You can check your gmail account, archive and compose new messages. You can read RSS feeds. You can view PDF files, MP3 files and Quicktime video files. You can use over 600 free web apps such as JiveTalk, which enables you to have IM chats with people on MSN Messenger and Google Talk. When you can do so much on such a small device, it makes you wonder if you even need a proper computer! Compare this to the abysmal experience of "surfing the net" on a Sony Ericsson 3G mobile phone and you'll soon realise, the iPod Touch is in a different league.

Despite the impressive technology, the iPod Touch actually lacks a lot of standard iPod features that even the £89 iPod Nano has! For example, It doesn't support Playlist folders. It doesn't have a Music search feature. It doesn't support any of the iPod Games on the iTunes Store. It doesn't support To dos from Mail or iCal. And then there are the bugs. For example, your music will quite often stop suddenly if you're surfing the Internet while listening to Music at the same time. Also, there's really no way of pausing your Music or adjusting the volume without getting out the iPod Touch and using the touch screen. This is unacceptable since Apple have already created special earphones for the iPhone, which have a play/pause and track advance button on their cord. Why not sell these for the iPod Touch to solve the problem?

**15 January 2008 Update** Existing owners of the iPod Touch can now buy a bundle of 5 iPhone Apps from the iTunes Store for £12.99. The 5 apps are: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes. The Mail app allows you to send and receive e-mail from your Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, .mac Mail or AOL Mail accounts. And the Maps app is an amazing implementation of Google Maps which automatically triangulates your current location, allows you to see maps of addresses in your Address Book, show your maps in Map, Satellite or Hybrid views, drop pins and plot Directions from A to B. It's all beautifully animated and super slick.

Very sexy, but a little buggy too...
OK, this is my first iPod, so I write this as a completely unbiased new user, previously used an iRiver Mp3 player with Sennheiser ear buds, so like my music to sound good. Not disappointed with the iTouch from this perspective, music is clear and crisp and many different Graphic Equaliser settings are available so you can tune to your taste.

I don't find the 16Gb to be a limitation either. I've got several hours of video on mine along with masses of music and I still have space left over. Maybe it's just a case of good housekeeping; once I've watched the TV/Video I've uploaded, I tend to remove it again, so 16Gb is never likely to be an issue for me.

Couple of things that I find a little annoying though. If want to listen to music and then browse the web for instance, I start the music player then hit the home key and open Safari, no problem. But, what I'm finding is that the music player will work for a while, but then stops for no apparent reason. I have to go back into the player, select and start the track again. It might work ok again for 10 minutes or so before doing the same again. So basically, multitasking with the iTouch seems to be a bit buggy right now.

Second problem, you can't add entries to the Calendar! So what's the point of having it then, if you can't add entries without syncing to a Mac? Sorry, lost me on this one, I know I could Jailbreak it, but I shouldn't have to do this just to make use of the calendar should I?

Next there's a weird problem if you save video as TV shows in iTunes. They seem to sync with the iTouch, but when you open the video player all I get is Movies, no way to see the TV shows. Consequently, I have to load all video files as movies to be able to browse them on the iTouch.

Finally it would have been nice to have a few more apps (like a To-Do list, which I hear is on the iPhone!), or at least the ability to add new ones without having to Jailbreak the device.

I'm guessing (hoping!) that some of these things will be fixed with firmware updates, and don't get me wrong, I definitely don't regret buying the iTouch, it really is a thing of beauty, but definitely version 1.1.1 right now. Oh, and do yourself a favour and get a case or it'll look tatty in no time at all.