The iPod Touch Review. Part 2: The Touch is a Portable Media Player

Posted by: dgoldring on Aug 03 2008

It is a common misconception that Apple invented the portable media player a little over 10 years ago with the original iPod.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Digital music has been around much longer than that.  In fact, I still remember coveting the Rio Jukebox, a brick of a device which could hold a whopping 40 albums (if my memory serves me correctly).  Then again, even though Apple did not invent the portable media player, they certainly did advance the genre significantly.  What Apple gave us was an easy to use platform.  Before the iPod, transferring your music and syncing it to your media player was a chore, riddled with frustration.  Apple gave us a checkbox-based interface, which made it easy to sync the content on your computer with your iPod.  But, more on that, later.

Of course, through the years, the iPod continued to evolve and grow, as it developed a color screen, video capabilities, a touch screen, and more.  The ultimate culmination of these efforts (so far) is the iPod Touch/iPhone.  Despite  all of the advanced capabilities that the iPod now offers, however, its roots are forever bound to that original portable media player.  Unlike, which were developed as mini-computers that happen to play music and videos, therefore, the iPod is a portable media player, which has developed other features.  Because of these evolutionary origins of the iPod Touch, the portable media player seemed like the ideal place to start our look at the capabilities of this device.

Normally, at this time, I would start with a discussion of how easy or hard it is to get your media onto the device.  We are going to break from that pattern here.  Not because there is nothing worth discussing, but because there is so much worth discussing.  In a few weeks, I will be writing a separate article about iTunes.  In that article, I will talk about (among other things) syncing your media between your iPod and computer.  That leaves, essentially three things to talk about: Music, Video, and Photos.  I considered talking about eBooks here as well, but the iPod Touch and iTunes consider that to be an application, so we’ll discuss it next time as part of my article on the PDA functions. 

One of the things I really like is that the iPod Touch (and iPhone) stay true to their music/media roots in a lot of subtle ways.  One of the best examples of this is the way they separate the media player buttons from the rest of the rabble  on your device(ie: applications you may have downloaded.) By giving them their own space on the bottom of the screen (you can move them later if you want,) Apple has really stressed the important of the media player in its PDA.  In fact, the media player is such a core element of the device, that these four media player buttons (music, videos, photos, and itunes) will always remain completely static in the gray shaded area on the bottom of the screen.  This means that no matter which page of applications you scroll to, the four media player buttons will always appear at the bottom of every page (in the two pictures in this paragraph, you can see the media player buttons on two different pages of my iPod Home Screen.)  This means you can access your music, video, and photos from any page of the home screen on your iPod Touch.

Music: Let’s go ahead and start with the music button.  After all, that is really where it all began with the iPod.  And it remains its most prominent and attractive feature as a media player.   So, let’s find out what lies beneath that little orange button on your screen.

The main music page is really quite impressive, because it allows you to sort and search your music by virtually any variable you can imagine.

• If you have created playlists, then you will find these neatly listed under the playlists tab on the left hand side of the screen.  Simply select your playlist and you will be presented with a list of the songs contained therein.  Tap the song you want to play and you are off to the races.

• The next tab is your artist tab.  Here, you will find every artist with music stored on your iPod in alphabetical order.  Just flick the screen to start scrolling.  Or, if you are only at Abba and looking for ZZ Top, you can use that handy ribbon on the right hand side.  Just glide your finger down the ribbon until you find the first letter in the artist’s name.  You can take it from there with your finger scrolling.  One thing I really appreciated here, as that tapping on an artist does not just bring you to a list of songs.  Instead, you will find yourself at a list of albums containing songs by that artist.  Tap any album to get the playlist from that album.  Or, you will also be given the option of selecting All Songs to get an alphabetical list of all songs by that artist.

• The middle tab is labeled simply, “Songs”.  This is pretty self explanatory.  Here, you will find an alphabetical list of every song on your iPod.  Wow.  Just use that ribbon and your finger-flicking skills to find the song you want to play.  Or, you can do what I usually do and just tap Shuffle to hear everything in random order.  On a side note, I was pretty impressed by the shuffle feature on the iPod Touch.  Many media players shuffle in blocks.  What I mean by that is they will take the first 200 songs, shuffle them, and then play that list before moving on to the next 200 song block (200 being an arbitrary number I am using solely by way of example).  This method results in hearing at least the same artist, if not the same song, time and again.  The iPod Touch does not appear to use this method.  Instead, it is able to shuffle all of your music at once, meaning you will not be stuck in small blocks of shuffled music.  So, you can hear U2 followed immediately by ABBA, and then on to Yes. 

• The fourth tab will sort your music by albums.  One of the nice things here is the use of album art in the list.  It really just rounds out the appeal of the interface when you glance down at the list and see full color album art. 

• Finally, you can use the more tab to find your audiobooks, compilations, composers, genres, and podcasts (although podcasts have become so popular, I really thought they deserved their own tab.) 

One of the really nice things about the iPod Touch is that the music is always the most prominent part of the device.  What does this mean?  Well, for one thing, music is the only item on the iPod Touch which can multitask.  Typically, pushing the close button will entirely close the program and return you to the home screen.  Not with music.  Although this button will return you to the home screen, the music will continue to play in the background (as long as you do not overload the memory of your device.)  This is a fantastic feature, and addresses one of my big complaints with Windows Mobile.  I rarely used my Windows Mobile device as a media player, because the memory was generally not sufficient to play music and open most other tasks simultaneously.  As soon as you opened another program on your device, the music tended to become unstable and crash.  Not in all cases, but frequently enough that I found myself getting annoyed by the Hobsian choice of playing music OR using my device.  I should be able to do both at once.  And the iPod Touch is the first device I have used to really handle that well (but as we will discuss next week, don’t get too used to those multitask capabilities.)

 

OK, let’s get back to your music.  Once you have selected a song, here is what you are going to find.  The controls are very nice, and all are based on the touch screen.  From here, you can adjust the volume, fast forward or rewind, or pause/play the song. 

The main part of the screen is taken up by a large rendition of the album art.  This looks fantastic, but I do have to admit to having a few problems here.  Although all of my music has album art stored on my computer, much of it was not accessible by iTunes.  Apparently, iTunes can only find album art if the title is sold in iTunes.  This is one area in which I felt Windows held a slight advantage.  Because they have access to numerous online music stores, the Windows Media Player was generally able to locate album art for most of my music.  iTunes, on the other hand, left me with hundreds of albums with no art. 

Fortunately, our own Thomas (Ragart) came to my rescue.  Just when I thought I would have to locate and enter all of this album art by hand, Thomas mentioned a program he had found called Tune Up Companion.  Not only does Tune Up Companion locate all of your album art and load it into iTunes, it can also search for problems in your library, fix your metadata, locate upcoming concerts from the musicians in your library, and much more.  But most importantly for me, it could locate lost or missing album art.  I downloaded the trial and used it for about 30 seconds before I ponied up the $20 to purchase the full version.  If you plan to use iTunes at all, then I highly recommend the Tune Up Companion to go with it.

This brings us to my favorite part of the music player, the animations.  There are two significant animations you will want to check out, and they both worked great.  The first is the song list.  Just tap the information button in the upper right corner and watch the album art spin around, revealing the album’s song list.  A blue arrow shows the currently playing song. 

Cool as that it, though, it pales in comparison to CoverFlow.  Just activating Coverflow is an exercise in what seems like Science Fiction.  Simply turn the iPod Touch on its side.  Let the motion sensors do the rest.  As soon as the iPod Touch senses that it has been rotated, the album art will rotate inward, revealing a jukebox-like arrangement of your albums.  Use your finger to scroll through these albums.  Tap on any one to see the song list, and select the next song to be played.  Coverflow is one of my favorite features of the iPod Touch.  It is fun to look at and, quite frankly, the combination of motion sensing and finger-flicking controls, make this feature seem more like something Mr. Spock might have used than anything else on the iPod.  Hello, Windows Mobile, are you listening? 

Finally, this brings us to the sound of the iPod Touch.  In the past, I have been criticized for not discussing how well an MP3 player sounds.  I defended this by noting that the sound quality largely depends upon such a wide degree of variables that it is difficult to determine whether changes in the sound are coming from the device, the recording, or even the headphones.  Heck, during my testing, I used three different pairs of headphones, and found three different sounds coming from my iPod Touch.  But, I digress. 

In order to test the sound of the iPod, I grabbed a second portable media player (which shall remain nameless, but is not named after a fruit).  I then called up the same song on both the other media player and the iPod.  In this case, I went for a Gwen Stefani song which I had downloaded from the Internet.  I chose this song specifically because I had downloaded it digitally, so (in theory) I should not recognize the same imperfections in sound that I might find had I ripped it from a CD.  I then played the song on each of the two devices, while being careful to use the same pair of headphones.  After listening to that song, and a few others, I found that the sound was not extremely noticeably different.  In the middle registers I could not tell a significant difference at all, though the iPod did have an extremely crisp and clean sound.

I did notice a difference in the outer registers (highs and lows) which continued to sound crisp and clean on the iPod, but started to get muffled and even experienced some minor distortion on the other media player. 

Like many media players, the iPod also offers an equalizer, which allows you to adjust the various sound channels to match your musical taste (oddly enough, this can be found under settings, and not anywhere in the music screens, which made it somewhat difficult to locate.)  Just scroll through the list of preset equalizer settings until you find the one that best suits your needs.  I did find it to be odd that there was no opportunity to customize your own equalizer settings, but with so many preset options, this should only be a problem for the most advanced users.

In the end, I have to give Apple credit for the way they handle music.  They designed the original iPod around the concept of easily playing your music.  The current iPod Touch, for all of its trappings, has remained true to this mission. 

Videos:  The iPod Touch has a screen that was simply made for watching video.  Because there are no real hardware controls on the iPod Touch, the face of the device is available for use by the entire video.  And the iPod has taken full advantage of this, with a whopping 3.5 inch screen.  In fact, the screen is larger than any media player I have tested, and the clarity is unlike anything I have ever seen in a handheld device (as a minor aside, I was impressed by the iPod’s ability to capture video in a screen shot.  Many devices cannot do so.) 

But I am getting a bit ahead of myself here, so let’s back up for a minute.  When you enter the video menu, unlike many portable media players, you are not just dumped into an alphabetical list of videos.  Instead, you will find your videos grouped by movies, rented movies, and TV shows.   I was also impressed by how much information is contained on this list screen.  Again, while most players would provide you with little more than the title and possibly the runtime, take a look at the list screen on the iPod Touch.  Here, you can see we have a graphic showing the box art for the video, as well as:

• Title
• Director
• Episode Name (for TV shows)
• Runtime
• Rating

The only thing missing here is a short plot excerpt.

Go ahead and select the video you want to watch.  Don’t worry if you won’t have time to watch the whole thing in one sitting.  The next time you watch, your video will pick up in exactly the same place you left off.  This is a great feature, though it would be nice if it gave you the option of resuming or starting over from the beginning.

Just tap the screen at any time during the video to access the onscreen controls.  This includes the playlist button, which will open a chapter list, allowing you to jump to any point in the video. 

While such a scene selection feature is relatively common in DVDs, it is a rare treat in portable media players; and one which, as far as I know, is unique to the iPod.

One of the reasons I wanted to test the iPod Touch was because I had heard such great things about it as a tool for viewing video.  I am not a fan of watching video on such a small screen, and none of the portable media players I had tested in the past did anything to change my mind on this point.  Then, I saw the iPod.  And now I’m a believer.  As you can see in the photo, above, it truly was an incredible experience watching videos on this screen, which is unmatched by even some of the best portable media players in its class.

Photos: The final stop on our media player journey is your photos.  I love storing photos on my device.  With three kids, I am constantly being asked for a recent photo…which I usually do not have with me.  This is never a problem when your media player allows you to store photos.

I have to be honest here and say that while the iPod was a fine medium for viewing photos, it really did not stand out above many other media players.  Like most media players, your photos can be divided into albums.  Open an album and you will be faced with a photo wall of thumbnails, which you can scroll through.

Hit play to start a slide show, or select any picture to view.  One nice feature, which is unique to the iPod is the ability to email any photo with the tap of a single button. 

You can also set any photo as your wallpaper (which will appear on the lock screen) or assign it to a contact.

iTunes: Just as a brief aside, I should note that the iPod Touch continues the trend of allowing you to purchase music over the air, through the iTunes store.  I will talk about iTunes in more detail in a future article, but I did like the immediate access this gave you to new music.  On the other hand, I also felt that iTunes really blurred the distinction between music you own and music you are purchasing.  Since iTunes stores all of your account information, it is all too easy to purchase music unintentionally if you are not careful and paying attention.  Nonetheless, I really did appreciate the ability to access the iTunes store directly from my iPod.  It is a handy way to keep your music collection current and up to date, even when you do not have ready access to a computer.

Wrapping it up: If you want to watch movies and video on the go, then this is the device for you.  Its screen is simply unmatched by any other media players in the industry.  It is the only media player I have ever used that allowed me to watch video without constantly being aware of the tiny screen.  On the other hand, if you are more of a music only person, then this may not be the best device for you.  The iPod Touch is, by far, the most expensive portable media player in its class, and this price is well justified when it comes to video playback.  On the other hand, if you do not intend to play videos on the iPod Touch, then you may find that you are paying a lot of money for mostly cosmetic improvements.  Sure, the interface is nice, and coverflow just blew my mind, but if your aim is to listen to music, I don’t think you would find the increased cost justified. 

Then again, most of you are probably not interested in the iPod Touch for its portable media capabilities at all.  Most of you are looking at the iPod Touch, rather than any other iPod model or PMP because of its dual identity.  Not only is it a media player, but it is also a portable computer.  But, we’ll leave that for next time…

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