Student E-zine of the ACJ
|
|
|
| Fri, April 11, 2008 Student E-zine of the ACJ |
|
Home>>Metroving>> |
IT bridges the gap for the disabled
|
Touching millions across the world
In September 2007, Apple launched the iPod touch in a long line of iPods introduced in the market. The media player is sleek and slim and has only two buttons – the power switch and the home button. The home button displays the home page, which has different applications that can be accessed via the touch screen. This is quite unlike the package of the iPod classic which is bulkier and has four buttons to access music and videos. Ipods are primarily used for its music player facility. The iPod touch delivers on its promise and can play music in two modes: the Cover flow mode, which lets the user browse through albums and the List mode which categorises the music according to songs, albums and artistes alphabetically. Music can be accessed in a similar way in the iPod nano and the iPod classic, but only after sifting through various folders which is quite tedious. The iPod touch requires a touch on the category, a click on the alphabet pertaining to the category to access the song in a matter of seconds. However, the actual sound clarity is mediocre with the lack of speaker options and even some amplifier noise. Apart from music, movies, videos and photographs can be synced onto the iPod touch. Other iPods have the same applications. However the larger screen brings these media elements to life. The user has the choice of zooming into pictures, which is not available in the other models. Zooming into pictures can be done by a pinching technique: make an outward pinching motion on the screen to zoom in and an inward motion to zoom out. The screen also adjusts according to the user’s orientation. For example, if the device is upright, the pictures will remain in a vertical position. But once the screen is turned horizontally, the picture also shifts to that orientation. What makes the iPod touch starkly different from different iPod models and the ZEN Creative, Transcend and other media players in the market is the wireless internet option. With similar browsing systems to Apple computers, the World Wide Web is practically in the user’s pocket. Apart from this option are other features like calculator, world clock, stopwatch and calendar. However the downer is that none of the applications can be initialized unless connected with iTunes - an application introduced by Apple to play and organise digital music and video files. And that’s not the end of the initialisation process as the iPod touch will work only when connected to the latest version of iTunes. Unfortunately, the wireless internet access does not work till this software is loaded which means the device will start working only on connection to a computer. Therefore, the iPod touch is pretty much a shiny hunk of metal when first bought and is no different from other iPods. Due to iPods’ problems with iTunes, other players are so much easier to use. Copying songs to an iPod is impossible without iTunes. This is not the case with other media players from Creative, Samsung and Transcend which can almost be used like a pen drive. Which means files can be transferred by simply hooking up the device to the computer and copying them. This can’t be done in the iPod touch, where the only way to upload or delete files is through iTunes. Another problem with the iPod touch is the difficulty with using the keyboard when surfing the net. Lastly, when it comes to storage space, the player is available only in 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB, miniscule compared to iPod classic’s 160 GB space. The price of the product which ranges between Rs 18,000 and Rs 40,000 has also discouraged customers. According to market research firm iSuppli, iPod users have not been too enamoured by the wireless internet application and are still going for the cheaper iPod nano. However they added that Apple expects to sell at least 8.5 million instruments worldwide. There is only one device in the market that deserves to compete with the iPod touch, applications-wise. And that is ironically a device introduced by Apple – the iPhone. It looks like and has the same features as the iPod touch, but so much more. Apart from the obvious use as a phone, it has several features that the media player lacks like camera, Bluetooth and speaker amongst others. Therefore, a customer willing to spend more than the 23,000 rupees spent on a 16 GB iPod touch, might as well purchase an iPhone instead. |
||
Editor : Ranjani Rajendra
The views expressed in this site are not necessarily the views held by the college.
Copyright © 2007-2008 Asian College of Journalism. All Rights Reserved.
