Last week I bought an iPod Touch as a gift for myself (and also to my wife). Fair excuse, isn’t it?
I didn’t bought any goods this year. Tough I considered to buy a Digital SLR camera, but since the spending can be moved at the middle of 2009 and it is not a high priority (tough our compact digital camera was already had some trouble). So here the iPod decision came, because it has two reason.
First, at the early December of last year, I refused my wife request to buying her a digital dictionary (AlfaLink and other brands), I told her that, we better got an iPod Touch (since no iPhone yet), and installed some digital dictionary on it. I guess there will be so many dictionary around, including Indonesia-English and some standard our needed Oxford etc. I told her also, with this iPod we would get a sophisticated device to manage our works, including reading email and web, without the need to turned on our computer (hint: electricity saving, efficient). Glad she agreed on me.
Second, I took the decision on iPod Touch this time because it is right now needed for some of my works. For your information, I did some iPhone web based development last year started at November, including a high profile AOL iPhone web based application prototype came to my portfolio. And I felt this platform was really great. Sure thing as you know, it is easier to focused your code on one specific platform, easier to code, easier to test, easier to maintain. Sure I can do this development on emulator on my iMac, but getting the real feeling on real devices would be awesome.
Last reason is I really attracted to iPhone platform. 
Here is the real reason. And later, I decided to jump to another venture, since I already learning Cocoa framework, so I decided to continue with Cocoa Touch frameworks to build some future great apps on iPhone As of the writing, my enrollment application for iPhone Developer Program is not yet final tough I sent the application last week. May be because of long holidays shut down. Fair. I just waiting for billing processing, which seems are taken by Apple US. The Apple’s Asia staff is really helpful and fast responded.
So what do I feels after owning iPhone for a week? Here is my story.
I bought the iPhone at iBox located at Ratu Plaza, Sudirman, South Jakarta. I tried to find cheaper prices on the net, and I found one on JPC Kepang, and I visited their small store in Kemang area, but they had no stocks. So I went to iBox considered they have better price, and also a bonus of choices for every iPod buying. You can choose one of silicon case or travel charger for free. I refused to activated the device on store, I want to feel it by myself.
Return to home after hectic December 24th street madness, I started to sync it for the first time. I read the one piece short manual first, but I didn’t have patience, so I continue to turned the device on. And it synced to my mac. It is works! Yay! I registered the iPhone. And getting to know that I need to manually added some syncronization options for my contacts, calendars, etc. I checked all I needed, and my iPod Touch are all set. It already has a copy of all my contacts, my calendar on iCal and some musics. Tough I am not considered my self a music addicts, so my collection are rather tiny, I synced it.
Did you know when I opened it for the first, the shiny iPod interface are really attracted to everyone, including my wife and daughter, Sofia. My wife can wait. But Sofia is not. So I gave up. I only afraid she was not careful to hold it, so it may drop But, finally nothing is happened.
One thing to know, the iPod Touch interface is really works. My wife who never knows how it looks like (or even seeing a demo of it) just easily know how to use it since she holds it! Even Sofia, my 2 yr and 6 months daughter, she endlessly tapped every icons. Her favorite until now is the Home button.
So after everyone got their joy playing the new toy. It’s time to me knowing deeply about this devices. One thing to regret, why I was not taking the free silicon case instead of travel charger. Sure I need the charger, but the new iPod Touch is lasted with fingerprints anywhere. And it looks dirty
After those family rituals ended, and since the new iPod battery is dried up, I synced and charged the device, and while browsed the AppStore and brought some new apps for iPod Touch. My favorite until now are: Bloomberg, NetNewsWire, Twitterific, and Files Lite or Dicover (for managing file transfer to iPhone). These app are placed on page one, a day to day useful app.
Second page goes for another useful app for doing some other works and references. These are my favorites: iQuran Pro ($9.99) for reading verse and hearing famous recital directly; Oxford (bought for $24.99) very pricey but having short dictionary collection (compared to WordBook see next item), weak user interface, really worst spending ever; WordBook ($7.99 but I got it for $1.99 for holiday discount) a good dictionary with thesaurus, word links, and web links and having great interfaces, highly recommended if you are in the need for dictionary for your daily activities; iDict Indonesian-English, the one and only Indonesia dictionary, tough it seem the collection is far far than complete; Classics ($0.99, a holiday discount) a good apps to read some classic books with really nice interface including real page flipping effect; Shakespeare (free) for reading this man worksl WritePad (free) for doing some great tablet-like writing like typing by hand sketch; Scribble (free) sketching tools, I used it to play with daughter and doing some sketching ideas; 1Password (free), my current mac favorite password management (bought via MacHeist bundle), tough it seem the syncing to iPhone/iPod is dead broken, so it currently useless; Units (free) a good and damn simple unit converter; and InstaPaper. That’s all in second page.
Third page is for other useful utilities. But nothing is special right here, except iPray, Facebook, Wordpress, WorkLogLite, MyBudget, Night Stand, and Epicentral.
Fourth page is for gaming, finally, yay! Until now, I already got: Tap Tap Revenge (free) a nice iPod game, showed on Iphone/iPod Apple’s page; Enigmo ($1.99) an original iPhone game that need some brains, I currently still at level 24; Topple (free) yet another unique game just for iPhone platform that you can touch, multi touch for rotating, drag and utilize accelerometer for detecting movements; Labyrinth Lite (free) good another iPhone game that mostly run with tilting the device so the ball moved to the labyrinth; and Chocolate Shop Frenzy Lite (free), my daughter favourite game; I have others game on this page, but they are either useless or I got bored with them.
Actually my iPod Touch currently has six pages installed apps, but either I just tried some of them or they are not worth to mentioned here. Please expect some detailed app review coming on this blog.
The epilog is, owning an iPod Touch (as a replacement for the non-coming iPhone) is really worth. Me, my wife, and my daughter are really happy with it, we can play, works, read emails, study—especially my wife mostly used it for looking another translation on either Oxford or WordBook since they are not available on our Oxford Advanced Learner’s 7th Edition (paper book)—all in this great small device. Well, it’s really worth of gift to our family.
That’s all what I got from a week of my iPod Touch. Hope you got something from what I shared here.
Read original post at http://arifwidi.com/2009/01/05/a-week-of-ipod-touch
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