From iPod Touch to iPhone 3G
- Jul 18, 2008
- Category: Apple, Gadgets & Toys, Technology
It’s been about nine months since I purchased the 16GB iPod Touch. It was always intended to be a stopgap solution until the iPhone made its appearance in Australia. That time came on July 11th when the iPhone 3G was officially released here. But I said I wasn’t going to buy one straight away. Maybe on the next major update, but not yet.
“The iPod Touch is an awesome device,” I told everyone who asked if I was getting the iPhone. “It would be nice, but I don’t need one.”
It took less than 24 hours after its release to change my mind.
Don’t get me wrong. The iPod Touch is an awesome device, and it almost does everything the iPhone does. But for a few different reasons I felt a bit limited when the App Store was released and the 2.0 software was available, even though I had bought and installed it on the iPod Touch.
For instance, entering a person’s contact information on the iPod Touch feels perfectly natural, intuitive and easy. Having to enter the same information into my Motorola Maxx V6 phone is clumsy and frustrating in comparison. But entering a set of details twice, one in each device, is inevitable.
The iPod Touch doesn’t have a camera, microphone or speakers, which many useful apps in the App Store utilise. Granted, the camera on the iPhone is far from great, but at least having it included gives you options; quickly snapping a pic to send over Twitter in real time is a prime example. Using the microphone to record a quick voice note or to determine what song is playing using Shazam is also very handy. On the iPod Touch, I felt like I was missing out.
And apart from the little things, there was also the big reason why I felt limited with the iPod Touch; lack of mobile internet, something I had never before experienced. It never appealed to me prior to the iPhone’s release since I had to use the clumsy interfaces of existing phones on the market to browse the web and check my mail. But this ‘always on’ digital life is starting to spread, and I wanted to be a part of it.
So, the morning after the July 11th launch, I did much phoning around to see which Optus stores had the 16GB iPhone left, to which I found that zero of them did. What a surprise. So off I went to raincheck my iPhone and enter the waiting game. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. Four days later, I had a shiny new 16GB black iPhone 3G in my hot little hands, completely functional and extremely awesome.
The first thing I noticed was how comfortable the iPhone felt in my hand compared to the iPod Touch. Obviously, you sacrifice the thinness of the iPod Touch to get the ergonomic comfort of the iPhone, but it’s well worth it.
The second thing I noticed was how smudgy and full of fingerprints the black plastic casing on the back of the iPhone gets. It looks like you’ve eaten KFC and wiped your greasy mitts all over it! Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it’s definitely visible in most lighting. Do I regret getting the black and wish I’d bought the white version? Not at all! A quick wipe on your jeans and it looks good as new. Plus, black is such a classic look, has better resale value, and I’ll probably be shoving a case on it anyway at some point.
So how about functionality, then? In the real world, carrying the iPhone with me has been much more useful than the iPod Touch. The GPS is very handy and also very fun to just mess around with. Phone calls and text messages are a beautiful thing on the iPhone. The entire user experience has been everything I thought it would be. It’s definitely more than “just a phone” (famous last words, by the way, for anyone who ever says that to me!)
Downsides? Battery life, for one. I’ve gotten used to carrying two separate devices around with me, phone and iPod, and now that they’re both in the same device I’m going to have to learn some power management. As per others’ reports, 3G sucks down battery life like a thirsty camel, so it stays set to ‘off’ unless I really need the speed. GPRS is decent enough for me for simple text stuff like email and Twitter. When I’m at home, it’s always using WiFi.
Another downside is the speed it takes to switch between different network services, ie: from 3G to GPRS. I can see this being a small problem when out and about where the 3G signal is low, but I’ll just have to remember where these areas are, and turn 3G on or off accordingly.
The camera is a lot more clunky and slow than I thought it would be, being an Apple product and all. But then, camera phones are never great, and I didn’t buy the iPhone for the camera anyway. It’s just a nice little bonus for those times when I’m not lugging around my DSLR camera with me.
Do I miss my iPod Touch? Yeah, I do, a little bit. I’d grown quite attached to it. I still feel that no matter how popular the iPhone becomes, the iPod Touch will always have a market. But I’m satisfied with the decision I made, and overall I’m very happy with my new iPhone (and didn’t even have to queue up in the wee hours of the morning to get it). No doubt Apple will release a new version of the iPhone 3G in a year or so, and minor updates to the existing iPhone 3G along the way. But what’s the point in waiting? During that time, the internet will be in my pocket everywhere I go. It’s a geek’s life!
The second thing I noticed was how smudgy and full of fingerprints the black plastic casing on the back of the iPhone gets. It looks like you’ve eaten KFC and wiped your greasy mitts all over it!
Hahahah! My friend who upgraded to the new iPhone ended up buying the white one because of this fact. As far as looks go I do like the black better but good luck keeping it clean! :-P I got a case for my iPhone and it just covered the back and sides of my phone, I really wish I would have bought one with a cover over the screen. The fingerprints are driving my INSANE! I’ll get over it though… hehe.
It’s just a nice little bonus for those times when I’m not lugging around my DSLR camera with me.
Amen to that! I used to carry my dslr around with me everywhere and it got old, especially when I was carrying around my camera bag and backpack full of books at school. It’s going to be nice not to have the added weight on my shoulders. :)
$840/year for mobile Internet? No thanks. I don’t need the Internet that badly that I can’t wait until I’m near a WiFi spot.
Camera and microphone for the iPod Touch would be nice. Hopefully someone will create a “sled” containing these features into which the amazing thin iPod Touch can be inserted, soon.
Pam: Haha yeah the fingerprint issue is annoying, but you do get used to it. Maybe get an Invisible Shield just for the screen? I hear they don’t show fingerprints nearly as much.
Dave: Everyone has different needs. If you can’t justify the cost for it because you don’t need it, that’s perfectly fine. The way I see it, I payed AU$408 for the iPhone itself, and $29 a month for my plan, which I would have been paying anyway. So $408 for the iPhone is even cheaper than what I paid for my iPod Touch.
I wouldn’t get your hopes up for some sort of attachment device for the iPod Touch, however. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of it being so thin in the first place? Apple will never do this, so you’ll be limited to third parties, in which case it’s usually junk, and probably won’t be able to interface with the iPod Touch software anyway.
reemixx: You only pay $29/month for the plan, which includes data service? I had heard that it was $70 (US)/month. Conversion rate between AU$ and US$ is about 1-to-1 now, isn’t it? At $29/mo, I’d definitely consider it.
Regarding defeating the purpose … well, that’s if the thinness is your priority. If instead you’d rather have the hardware features I mentioned, of course you wouldn’t mind sacrificing the thinness. And there are a lot of companies out there that make quality hardware addons for the iPod; Belkin and Griffin Tech comes to mind.
Dave: Yup, that’s right. I think it’s a pretty good deal. The higher plans have even more included calls and data, of course. There’s even a $19 plan here, but it doesn’t include much.
As for the attachment for mic and camera for iPod Touch, I still can’t see how that would work. It would have to interface with the device in both hardware and software, and I can’t see Apple ever allowing that to happen. Might as well just carry a separate camera with video/sound recording and save your iPod battery. Still, nice idea, and the more options the better.
reemixx: I don’t pretend to know what interface the iPod firmware provides to third-party devices, but I do know there are already third-party devices that seem to interoperate with the iPod’s firmware … for example, FM transmitters like the iTrip. But yeah, Apple may have somehow shut down access to functionality that they already provide on the iPhone. So they can catch suckers like me who are now considering “upgrading” from the iPod Touch to the iPhone. ;-)
Dave: I was thinking more along the lines of how an external camera attachment was going to save the pictures onto the iPod Touch, etc. Then again, nothing is quite impossible these days. Maybe something like this will make an appearance for use with jailbroken iPod Touches in the future.
Good luck on your ‘upgrading’ decision. Hope this blog post helped you at least a little bit.
I’m also very happy with my iPod touch and I too am “upgrading” to an iPhone 3G tomorrow (I hope)…can’t wait!!
Listen I’m looking for a way to port eveything on my ipod to my iphone. I mean bookmarks, shortcuts, music, video , everything. easily maybe? Would appreciate suggestions.
Great post…
P
Pierre, regarding porting media from the iPod to the iPhone … do you have any reason to suspect that you can’t do this with iTunes?
Thanks Dave. Actually no not really. Maybe I’m over reacting and that’s why I haven’t found much info on this online, because it’s that easy.
So I can take a backup of my ipod with itunes and then restore it to my new iphone? isn’t that like cloning? That’s why I’m thinking it won’t be possible.
You don’t really take a “backup” using iTunes, in the sense that iTunes copies media from your iPod to your PC that isn’t already there (although it WILL do this with items purchased from the App Store). Isn’t everything that’s on your iPod already on your PC? If not, you’d need to find some third-party software to copy the media from your iPod to your PC.
Once the media is on your PC, iTunes will just copy everything on your PC to your iPhone. The only things that wouldn’t be copied would be items that would be unusable on your iPhone anyway. For example, if you had games that only worked on the iPod Video 5G, they wouldn’t work on your iPhone.
Regarding “cloning”, Apple has absolutely no problem with you copying your media to multiple players. They expect you to do that when you upgrade your iPod. ;-)
I’M IMPRESSED!! I finally just got my iPhone and it’s amazing. Not only did it port all my shortcuts and contacts, it also imported the last website I visited from my Ipod touch. AMAZING… Now how do I remove all those smudges from the back of the unit? :-)