My iPod Touch needed some backlight repair the other day. One night it was fine. The next day, I could barely see the screen.
I bought my iPod Touch at Best Buy just before Christmas. A friend recommended that I take it to the local Apple Store to see if they could fix it.
After 10 minutes at the Genius Bar, I walked out of the Apple store with a piece of paper saying they were going to be replacing my iPod Touch with a refurb. Apparently, backlight repair involves enough effort that it is just easier to swap it out.
The new iPod Touch arrived a couple days later and was in very nice condition. I’m pretty happy with how easy the whole process went. Apple didn’t ask for details on what happened. They just recognized the problem, knew it was under warranty and took care of the situation.
If you buy an iPod Touch iPod Touch
, I highly recommend registering it with Apple that way if you ever need to take it in for something like backlight repair, they know who you are and will probably deal with you very quickly.
by Mike on April 27, 2009
The rumors that Apple and Verizon are working on agreement to bring the iPhone to the Verizon network seem to be gaining momentum.
AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple for the iPhone will expire in 2011. Verizon is hoping to sign a deal to add the iPhone on Verizon’s network which currently has more the 80 million subscribers.
I, for one, never considered buying an iPhone because I have been a happy Verizon customer for many years and never considered leaving for AT&T. Switching networks is a lot more of a pain than switching phones within that network. I went with the Apple iPod touch
and just kept my old phone.
The USA Today article mentioned that Verizon obviously has a lot to gain in the deal, AT&T obviously has a lot to lose in the deal, and Apple would gain a lot by having more potential customers. At the end of the article they mention one way that Apple would gain would be people that have been unhappy with the AT&T service and switch to Verizon would have to buy a new phone which would be even more sales for Apple.
So, you will not be able to just switch your SIM card. The AT&T network uses the GSM Network whereas the Verizon network uses CDMA. Now that the cell phone companies have agreed to use the Micro USB format for the chargers, maybe we could get them to work on a universal network protocol to make it easier for customers to keep a phone when they switch providers.
One of the main reasons I bought my iPod Touch was to use it as an eBook reader. I seriously considered buying a Kindle instead but it seemed silly to pay extra for a device that did less.
I am constantly using my iPod Touch to read eBooks.
The biggest advantage that the Kindle has is that it has Amazon securing eBook rights with the publishers which means they have a ton of titles and that list is sure to grow rapidly over the next few years and probably at a rate that the other eBook stores will have trouble matching especially if Amazon can secure exclusive eBook distribution rights.
But as of today, that doesn’t even matter anymore. Amazon has released a Kindle app for your iPhone/iPod Touch. For now you have to buy the books from a PC/Mac but then they will get magically teleported onto your iPod Touch over your Wi-Fi connection.
I haven’t had a chance to install the app to see how it matches up as an eBook reader against Stanza or eReader but based on the description it at least seems to match all of the normal specs in that regard.
I was just getting ready to order a couple books for an upcoming vacation and will definitely be ordering a couple Kindle versions to give them a try.
by Mike on January 16, 2009
AT&T just committed a serious faux pas by spamming millions of their users with text messages to remind them to tune into American Idol. AT&T denies that their act was spamming because they only sent the texts to heavy texters and people who have voted on American Idol using text messages.
There has been a backlash. People do not want companies randomly sending them text messages and that’s just one of dozens of places I read unhappy about the spam.
My question is why even bother with text messaging anymore. I just have a normal boring cell phone and I made Verizon disable texting on my account because I never sent any outbound and the inbound were never messages that I wanted to receive.
But even more important than that is the fact that we are quickly heading into an age when most people will no longer need text messages.
I have an iPod Touch and anywhere that I can get Wi-Fi, I can use email, chat, or services like Twitter and Facebook. For people with the iPhone or other smartphones, they can access these types of services anywhere they can get a signal.
With that kind of power, why bother with texting anymore?
by Mike on January 8, 2009
Finally. No more walking into a coffee shop, unpacking the laptop, waiting for it to boot, only to find out that they don’t have Wi-Fi or that the signal sucks so badly it isn’t worth the bother.
Instead, just grab your Wi-Fi detecting t-shirt
from the laundry pile and you can instantly know where the best Wi-Fi spots are in the neighborhood.
Now all they need is a way to indicate whether the Wi-Fi signal is open and free or encrypted like the annoying AT&T one that so many places seem to be using these days.
by admin on January 6, 2009
This isn’t really news about a mini gadget but it is kind of interesting.
LG announced that they are going to release some HDTVs that can connect directly to Netflix to stream videos. I love Netflix and I would really love an HDTV but I will not be rushing out to buy one of these specifically for that reason.
A few concerns come to mind right off of the bat:
- Getting an Ethernet jack to the TV. Most houses don’t have Ethernet jacks all over the place and very even fewer have them anywhere near there TV.
- Lack of videos available for streaming from Netflix. The DVD inventory is amazing. Their streaming inventory is not. Until their streaming library gets much stronger, buying anything special to be allowed to stream the movies just doesn’t appeal to me.
- Bandwidth caps. The ISPs would love nothing more than to limit the amount of bandwidth we are allowed. Watching streaming movies on a regular basis would eat up a lot of bandwidth.
- Tied to one computer. I think a better option would be a box that did the streaming that could send the signal to any of the computers or TVs in the house.
- Netflix’s future. What if Blockbuster or some other competitor like Amazon become the new, popular streaming movie provider in the next year or so. I would prefer for the internet connection to be a little more generic than just plugging directly into Netflix if it is going to be embedded into the TV.
I like gadgets but I’m not really a huge fan of combining them into one big expensive gadgets. I’ve never been a big fan of TVs with build in DVD players or computers that cram all of the hardware into the monitor. That’s just a personal preference type of thing but I’d much rather easily replace a cheaper DVD player, for instance, when something newer comes around or when the old one breaks than have to decide whether it is worth it to replace the whole system.
One positive that could come out of their Netflix’s Watch It Now being used on more devices than just computers is it could finally give them a strong reason to vastly increase the amount of videos available for streaming.
by Mike on January 2, 2009
I waited months before buying my iPod Touch. In fact, I started looking at them before the 2nd generation iPods came out. I was trying to decide what I would actually do with it besides just playing music. I was also considering buying a Kindle
but couldn’t figure out what I could do with it besides read eBooks.
I finally learned that the eReader software that I used to use on my Palm Tungsten had been made available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. A couple weeks later, I had my new iPod Touch in my hands.
Getting the software
The eReader software is available for free on the iTunes App Store. Just search for eReader. They also make versions available for Windows and Mac if you also want to be able to read the eBooks on your computer. The Windows version runs very well under Wine. I had been using it on my Asus Eee PC before buying the iPod Touch.
Getting books on the device
If you create an account on Fictionwise or eReader.com, you can download the books that you have added to your library directly to the iPod Touch over your Wi-Fi connection. The software also offers built in connections to a few book providers that I have never used and the option to add your own custom locations which I have also not bothered to use, yet. Since Fictionwise lets you download books as many times as you want, you really don’t have any need to maintain local backup copies of the books. I still occasionally download eBooks that I read years ago if I’m reading a sequel and trying to remember what happened in the original.
Managing books on the device
The bookshelf on the eReader application gives you the option of sorting by Title, Author, or date added to the iPod Touch. The right side of the screen gives you the option of scrolling by first letter if you have a ton of books stored on the device.
You add new books by clicking the plus sign on the upper right side of the title bar. If you want to delete a book off of the device (but still keep it on your Fictionwise bookshelf on the internet), click Edit on the left side of the title bar, the red circle next to the book you want to delete, and then the Delete button that pops up on the right of the title.
I wish they gave the option to tag the books. I would like the option to tag that a book is unread or read, fiction or non-fiction, and what genre it belongs to.
Font Quality and Control
You can select 3 different default fonts. Georgia, Helvetica, and Marker Felt. Marker Felt is horrible for reading. Georgia and Helvetica, on the other hand, are beautiful and very easy on the eyes. You can set the font size for Small, Medium, Large-ish, Large, Huge or Gigantic. The default is medium. I regularly switch between medium and large depending on my mood. After changing the font or font size, the book spends several seconds recalculating the current page number and total page numbers. If you plan on testing several different fonts or sizes, I recommend going to one of the first pages of the book because the refresh starts on the first page and gives you control once it reads past your current page. If you are hundreds of pages into a book, that could be up to 10-15 seconds.
You can also reverse the color to black background with white lettering.
Page turning
One of the knocks that I have heard about eBook devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader is that they cannot replicate the feel of reading a book. One of the nice things about the touchscreen of the iPod Touch and iPhone is that it gives the reader a little bit of the feeling. You can change the page turns to work by either dragging your finger left and right, up and down, or tapping top and bottom or left and right. I change that setting between all four options almost daily. It seems that sometimes where I’m sitting just makes it easier to use one setting of the other.
I recently learned of a new eReader on the iTunes store that might someday replace my official eReader app. Lexcycle makes an iPod Touch/iPhone reader called Stanze that also connects directly to my Fictionwise bookshelf. It also appears to handle some book tagging and allows for some more precise font control. I played with it for a couple minutes last week. It seemed pretty impressive and when I finish my current batch of books that I’m reading, I might give it a more thorough review and consider making a semi-permanent switch. In the meantime, the official eReader software handles everything that I really need quite impressively.
by Mike on December 31, 2008
I have read the rumors of the new iPod Touch type of gadget having a 5″ or 7″ monitor and other than that having a pretty identical shape as the current iPod touch. While reading about this rumor, I have seen a lot of comments from people asking why anybody would want something that size without a keyboard because typing on the touch screen is not nearly as friendly as typing on real keys.
But there’s no reason that Apple couldn’t make a keyboard that plugged into a USB type of slot on the rumored iPod.
Think about it.
You could use the media player functions, and read eBooks, play games, and use most apps with a nice flat device about the size of a book. I hate using my ASUS Eee PC
for these functions because having the lid and keyboard connected via a hinge just makes the device awkward when you don’t even really need a keyboard to do these things.
But if you want to get into some serious writing, you could easily plug in a little portable keyboard, set the rumored larger iPod Touch into a stand to hold it more vertical and type away.
Plus the larger screen would make browsing and watching movies much more normal than the current iPod Touch can handle.
It might not be the device for everyone but I think it would have real possibility as the Netbook device that could perfectly handle all of the things a non-geek would want.
by Mike on December 30, 2008
This year I purchased to very different devices that would both fit my definition of a mini net gadget. An Apple iPod touch and an ASUS Eee PC.
They both are very small and portable and they both easily connect to the internet. Those would be my two primary rules when determining whether something is a mini net gadget and those are two extremes of the gadgets that I’ll be talking about on this website.
The iPod Touch is an amazing gadget for the amount of functions you can accomplish with something that is smaller than a wallet. I use it for eBook reading, music, podcasts, internet, to do lists, and an ever growing variety of functions.
The Asus Eee PC has become my laptop of choice outside of work. The featherlight weight and relatively powerful processor allow me to do anything from writing stories to installing and upgrading blogs and allow me to handle all of these tasks on my couch or at a coffee shop without lugging around a full size laptop of hiding in the computer room on the desktop computer.
In addition to just reviewing these types of gadgets, I also plan to talk about the software that runs on them and ways to get the most out of them.