Grant Glewwe

I took the plunge and bought a Touch yesterday. I ordered it through Circuit City, and picked it up with my family at about 5:30 yesterday. I got to play with it for about ten minutes before gaming. I did get music and videos loaded, and I handed it to Sandra to play with for a few minutes before I left. I am VERY happy with it. I connected to our network with no problem, grabbed a You Tube video, and then looked at the Vecenza gaming blog page. It cached the page so I was able to look at it today as I blog this. I’m watching an episode of Neurotically Yours right now. I also watched a couple of Enya music videos and a video of Megan laughing! Awesome. More updates as I find new cool things.

Sandra and I discussed the idea of me giving up costly vices to achieve justification of purchasing an iPod Touch. The two vices I came up with that have monetary costs attached were:

1. Consumption of carbonated beverages; typically caffenated - sadly, I rated this at about $5/wk (sadly, b/c that is too much in any case)
2. Consumption of gourmet espresso beverages (Goodbye Starbucks!) - I rated this at $10/mo (one every two weeks)

I identified a third as I wrote this post:

1. Lunch “out” at the company cafeteria; it means I have to stay a little better prepared, but saves $5/wk

All three of those means I save about $50/month. The 16 GB iPod Touch will run me $437 less 20% on $425 of it ($85 savings - I can get Circuit City cards at 20% through a gift card program - e-mail me for details). That means $352 for the iPod Touch. At $50/mo, the iPod Touch is paid for by the end of April. Here I go!

So Apple released the new iPod Touch a few weeks ago. The thing looks exactly like a handicapped iPhone. They released a 8 GB and 16 GB model. I read posts by a lot of angry whiners that want a hard drive based iPod Touch. I’ve currently got an iPod Video 60 GB and I’ve come nowhere close to filling it. Admittedly, I’m not purchasing seasons of Lost to watch on that tiny screen, but then again, even if I did, would I need to carry them around 24/7?

I gave myself an iTunes project. Could I live in 16 GB of flash memory for my iPod needs. I started tossing out music that I don’t listen to. Ever. Never. Those previously mentioned whiners said they needed the 160 GB iPod Touch hard drive because they had HUGE music libraries. On the order of 30 GB or more. Then the other 100+ GB would be used for hauling around their extensive video collection and their two photos of their children. One person wrote

“You build a gorgeous iPod with video, wifi, etc and you only give me 16gigs?! I’ve got 40+ of music, and god knows how much more in video!”

40 GB of music is about 33 days of music listening 24/7. I think this guy has issues. Choice issues. I’d love to look at this iTunes library ordered by play count. Like most people, he probably has 1000 tracks with play count > 1 and 200 tracks with play count  > 10.

I recently reset all those play counts, but my play counts aren’t going through the roof. I can stick 2000 songs in 8 GB which is way more than I need, another 1 or 2 GB for pictures of my kids (which is way mroe than I need), 2 GB for podcasts (especially audiobooks), and have 4-6 GB for video. 1/2 a GB gets me a “1 hour” episode of Lost. 1.3 GB would let me watch a 2 hour movie. I can live with that. It just means I can’t keep Seasons 1, 2 and 3 of Lost (about 36 GB) on my iPod all the time. Darn. You know, cuz I won’t see my computer any time in the next 54 hours of solid Lost watching.

I’m pretty convinced I will have an iPod Touch. The two guys at work with iPhones tried to sway me in that direction. I have a cell phone. I don’t need an $80 plan just for my own iPhone (I pay $100 for 4 phones right now with as far as I am concerned “unlimited” calling). Insult to injury, iPhone has only 8 GB of flash memory. That might be tough to live in.

The clincher for me was the WiFi web access built into iPod Touch. Sure the iPhone with an $80 plan gives you unlimited data and browsing (in fact, all plans must pay the $20 for unlimited data). I won’t mind using Safari to browse at Panera. Or Krystal. Or any of the other 2 million places that now offer FREE WiFi access. Starbucks can cram their pay service.

Now what if iPod Touch offered unlimited data for $20/month. Would I buy that (no voice calls mind you)? No way! I don’t own a PDA now. I’m not that desperate to be a web monkey. Cool? Yes. Need it. Not!

So clearly, tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and tauntings of outrageous iPhoners, AND take an iPod Touch, and by opposing, end them.