Category: accessible Devices
hi all!
I really want an iPod touch! But really...
I currently own the fifth gen iPod Nano. Chances are that if I get the touch I will sell it for around $120 (it's a 16 gig model that retails for about $180), and use that to buy the touch.
My idea is that I will discontinue my cell phone, or buy a very simple cheap $20 wallmart prepaid phone which I will carry around when I go to off-campus areas. But my college will have wireless internet all over, so I could use the ipod Touch well. As with my GPS topic though, there are a few questions..
1. I've heard blindCoolTech's review of the touch. I'm sorry, but I was discouraged by it. The way the person reviewing had to go through tapping each key on the keyboard, and the way the device kept switching from landscape to portrat, really discouraged me. So for those who have a touch or iPhone, how hard is the keyboard? will it take me 2 minutes to enter www.blindcooltech.com like it took the guy in the review?
2. I already have a netbook, but this isn't as portable as an iPod Touch. Would it be worth it really? If I have a netbook that is.
3. I'd use my touch as a phone replacement. I would download skype for it and install it. I'd then buy a skypeout/skypeIN account and use that as my cell phone, as this would probably cost me around $20-30 a month, a bit cheaper than using a local cellphone provider like Metro PCS , Boost, or Revol. Is this possible and if so do you think it's a good idea?
4. Any way of getting the iPod touch paired with a GPS? Does it have bluetooth? (I admit, I haven't checked on that) or are there external GPS devices which plug into the front of the touch?
Thanks again for all answers :)
All the best,
Tomi
About typing on the touch, what you can do is use 2 fingers .. slide one finger along the surface of the phone till you hear the letter you want then while you hold that finger in place double tap anywhere else on the screen with another finger i found it a lot faster to type that way on one when playing with it in the store than using the same finger you used to navigate to the letter to double tap on the letter cuz also if you can't see you wont always hit the same spot twice so the 2 finger method avoids this. if i am not mistaken i do believe the touch has a gps reciever built in like the phone does as well. could be wrong though but i'd check on that . You also may want to double check that your college doesn't have any bandwidth caps before making that decision. I know in order to curb bit torrent and stuff like that schools are implementing stuff like 500mb a day caps on each student so having 3 g on your phone may still a plus. .. especially if you have something like the non smart phone data plan that doesn't have the 5GB a month cap like the smart phone data plans. i believe At&T and t-mobile both have pre paid unlimited plans that include talk and data for about $60 to $80 a month and that will allow you to have a cell phone gps and use skype on the phone as an option (if you use a nokia or windows mobile phone ) and will be less in the long run over the cost of a trekker ipod touch and other stuff.
I'd not go totally with skype on a touch as it doesn't have a built in mic unless you get the 64 gb model. If you get the IPhone on the other hand assuming your cell provider supports it then that would work i think. typing is simple once you get used to it. what review of the touch did you listen too, there is more than one i do belive.
There is currently no way to use GPS with the touch that I know of. As far as typing goes you get better at it but at least with my experience I'll never be using the touch to write email or papers. I probably wouldn't get an IPhone because I text a decent amount and couldn't type fast enough to text efficiently.
Yeah, I know toledo doesn't put such caps, though I've read their policies and torrenting for instance is heavily monitored.
The thing is, $60 a month adds up to around $720 a year, which is quite a lot compared to the $270 I paid for my touch (yep I did buy it! :) ).
I know, it is a bit incconvenient that there's no builtin microphone, though the headphones are pretty cool. I'm not sure of the costs of skype out, but compared to buying a full fledged cell phone plan for $80 using skype to text and call would work fine. Apple might actually enable multitasking (e.g. running apps in the background) during the summer with the 4.0 update, so that'll be great as my touch could totally become a phone.
There's "gps" in the touch, but it uses wi-fi signals to discover your location. Skyhook wireless (www.skyhookwireless.com) drives trucks all around the country and world looking and mapping down wi-fi hotspots - they have over 100 million wifi routers already mapped. It's pretty accurate, though no doubt GPS would be more down to location. Either way, I probably won't get a GPS, as it's use is fairly limited on most college campuses.
You're paying 80 dollars for a cell phone plan? Wow!
LOL never mind. Sorry I misread something. Hmmm, I think the Ipod touches sound really cool! I just bought mobile speak and mobile geo so I'm having to wait which is fine with me.:)
that what it uses the wi fi .. i knew the touches did gps in some way just couldn't remember how. I'd check out the article on the loadstone gps about someone who used it to map out a college campus with some success to see if to see if my idea of a phone with skype and gps would be worth reconsidering . Also i do believe the headphones with microphones on them that are used for wired hands free should work on the most recent iPod Touches as well so thats an option for using skype on them.
i have confirmed that the current version of ipod touches 32GB and up have a built in microphone as a friend and i chatted on skype with them using it on their touch with out adding a microphone. and it sounded really clear would of never guess they were on a touch
The problem with the built in mic thingy is that its not actually built in to the touch; its built in to the headphones. This means that if you don't like the apple headphones you will have to search for an adaptor that includes a mic that lets you plug your own headphones in - they do exist.
Tommy, you probably should have checked the security of the wireless before you bought the touch. At my uni for example, we have to download a little client before we can connect and this doesn't work on the touch. On top of this, theres no way of joining a domain or connecting to smb shares which are 2 popula methods of authentication.
Hope you enjoy your touch though, its great.
Domains and smb shares are used in corporate enviroments but i doubt in a university campus enviroment as the Home versions of windows can't connect to a domain you would have to have one of the professional versions for that.
Journalist,
I currently own an iPod Touch 32 GB model. If you have any questions, or if you wish for me to do a better review on it, feel free to email me, or you can just reply on this topic. Yeah, I listened to the review on Blind Cool Tech and it wasn't very good!
I'd be happy to assist you in any way possible!
Macy
PS: The touch does have Bluetooth on it but haven't figured that out yet.
You go under settings and under general I believe and it has a button to turn it on.
Do you have to have access to a wireless network in order to take advantage of the aps such as the radio ones?
Wow, being blind, a touch screen anything sounds really complicated! How does speech work with the ITouch? It sounds difficult to type on those things, but I've never used one.
@14 yes.
@15 its actually pretty easy once you get used to it, but typing isn't really one of its strong points.
Exactly. I'd thought about getting an IPhone once I'm able to upgrade again, but I realized that I text too much to make it worthwhile. I do like the iPhone (I played around with it a few times at my local AT&T store), but I believe you have to have a data plan in order to use it for one thing, and I realized I'm not very good with gestures. Even having one finger stationary on the screen might be difficult for me. So while I will more than likely get an IPod Touch for music I don't know about the IPhone. I might just get a Nokia phone and install Talks on it again. I realized I actually prefer Talks over Mobile Speak.
brian, if u want something for music, there's the new ipod nanos, that will work, the Itouch me thinks is more for the apps and wireless stuf, the music, is just an additive.
I prefer the Touch to be honest. I wasn't impressed with the Nano for some reason. And anyway which ones have speech?
latest generations of all the IPods have speech i believe, shuffle nanno and touch.
Well I just ordered an IPod Touch 3GS yesterday from Best Buy. So now I just gotta figure out how you use ITunes with Window-Eyes. And yes, I have the most current versions of both.
Which size did you get? its only the 16 and 32gb models that have speech, not the 8.
Actually it's the 32 and 64 GB that have it. And I ordered the 32 with that in mind.