Life with the thumbs

So, I've had the iPod touch for about three weeks and the news is bad: I love it. I'm not sure how, but this thing has become pretty ingrained into my life already. That's not just fast - its crazy.

I didn't plan on putting that much music onto it - I already have a 30gb iPod and love that, so this would be a good supplement, especially since it's very PDA like in many ways. I managed to get this 8gb model by chance, but I'm very grateful for it. I had to resist using it for the first day - we were doing NSO presentations and it seemed like it might have been a little distracting.....

So, after I plugged in, charged up and configured, the first thing I did was to setup the email. For the .Mac account it was a snap - and so was the GMail and Yahoo! account - Apple was kind enough to to include account "wizards" for certain mail servers to speed things along. Nice. I had some issues with my hosted email and the SMTP server, by that turned out - at least partially - to be my fault by being overzealous with trying to set the specific ports. Ooooops.

Anyway, after getting the IMAP servers setup, things went pretty smoothly in the mail department. Safari is very similar to what I'm used to on the laptop, but the animations that it uses for pop-ups and new windows takes a little getting used to at first. Very nice.

One of the great things about it is the email - it's at my fingertips all the time. I normally loathe the Crackberry addicts, but I find that I'm starting to turn I to one despite myself. The ease of being able to swipe and tap an email to delete it, or even just being able to check my email from anywhere there's a WiFi signal - without having to drag out my laptop - is pretty freeing on a couple of levels. Considering that just about everywhere on campus has some sort of WiFi access, it means I can do work from just about anywhere. Good stuff.

One of the nicest features, hands down, is that I can add content to my calendar or my address book at any time. When I as at the doctors office the other day, they asked me to make an appointment for 6 months from now. Normally I drag the laptop out and put it in right there - otherwise, I get the little appointment card, then promptly loose it and forget about the appointment until about a week before. Not cool. With the laptop, I can add it, but that's cumbersome - especially since this office isn't exactly spacious. With the iPod Touch, I just switch to the calendar, add the appointment, and then don't worry about it until it pops up a reminder 3 days before, and then 1 hour before - and I've also got it set to SMS my cell phone to remind me in case I'm not at my desk when the computer tries to warn me.

With the roll-out of Apple's new "Mobile.Me" service, things will get even easier - instead of having to plug into the computer every few days to sync, everything will happen over the WiFi connection in the Touch and my laptop - and I'll be able to view and edit my calendar or address book from any computer connected to the internet. Time will tell if this is a good or bad thing - but I think it will be all good.