A day (and night) in the life of Apple's iPod Touch

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It's been a busy few days for the guys who work in our postroom, with a steady stream of deliveries from Apple, writes Andy Clough. The iPod Touch has finally landed on these shores, and it seems half the people I work with have bought one.

Rarely has one new product created such a buzz in the office. I must admit to pangs of jealously when the guys on our sister magazine Stuff got their Touch's on Monday, but mine finally arrived yesterday, and I've been up half the night playing with my new toy.

Things didn't start quite as smoothly as I'd hoped, though. I had to upgrade my laptop to OSX 10.4.10 so it could sync with the Touch, and just towards the end of the download an 'unexpected error' occured, crashing my computer. Disaster!

A quick search of the Apple forums revealed that I was not alone in this experience, but fortunately the ever-helpful Steve from our IT department was on hand, and within an hour or two he had fixed my laptop. (Thanks Steve, I owe you a pint!)

From then on, the set-up procedure was seamless. The Touch syncs with your Mac or PC via USB, and will transfer all your music and video from iTunes, plus pictures from iPhoto. The whole process took less than an hour.

I just love the multi-touch screen derived from the iPhone. Even though I'd read about it beforehand, nothing quite prepares you for the way you can flick through your Album covers or photos on the screen, and gliding through web pages on Safari is a breeze.

I even found typing on the virtual keyboard just about manageable, although it's impossible not to hit the wrong keys occasionally.

I've got the larger (16GB) version of the Touch, but I can see that filling up before long. Last night I downloaded an episode of Grey's Anatomy from iTunes (about 500MB), and given that quite a few of my albums on iTunes are ripped in Apple Lossless (250-300MB each), I reckon I'll run out of space soon.

We'll be running a full review of the iPod Touch in the next issue of the Ultimate Guide to Digital TV, on sale October 25.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod Touch, iTunes, MP3

Andy Clough
Andy Clough

Andy is Global Brand Director of What Hi-Fi? and has been a technology journalist for 30 years. During that time he has covered everything from VHS and Betamax, MiniDisc and DCC to CDi, Laserdisc and 3D TV, and any number of other formats that have come and gone. He loves nothing better than a good old format war. Andy edited several hi-fi and home cinema magazines before relaunching whathifi.com in 2008 and helping turn it into the global success it is today. When not listening to music or watching TV, he spends far too much of his time reading about cars he can't afford to buy.