n3wblog tech commentary and observations from the early 21st century

iPod touch 32GB

iPod touch 32GB

While in Toronto this weekend, we stopped into the Apple store to play with the new 32GB iPod touch. My feelings about the first edition was, they’re cool, but 16GB isn’t quite enough. Also, they lacked the web-browser, email and calendaring capabilities of the phone so I was, like, fuck that.

What a difference a few months can make.

The new touch is totally what I wanted it to be when it came out. It’s a web pad that can play video. The wifi support is outstanding, and able to connect to WPA secured hotspots with ease. It should drastically cut down on my need for data on my blackberry.

Video support is what you’d expect on an iPod. MPEG4 or H.264 only. I’ve been using Quicktime with Perian to do my transcoding, though beltzner keeps recommending iSquint so I may have to give that a try and ditch my clunky Automator workflow.

Playback is very smooth on the touch. You don’t get the somewhat clunky loadtimes as on the 5G iPods. Though I haven’t really done any critical listening, audio quality seemed very good on my Koss Portapros. I still expect to use my 5G ‘pod for listening to audio and podcasts and keeping the touch as more of a video player. *note that the iPod touch and iPhone didn’t suffer from the downgrade to Crystal Audio Digital Audio deCoder chips and are still using the more audiophile-friendly Wolfsons. See disassembly photos.

All in all I’m very happy with it and can’t wait for my next trip to spend some quality time using it.

current storage capacity: 386GB

boolean is listening to Calculation Theme by Metric from the album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?


5 Comments

handbrake does a good job of transcoding for ipod too, I hear.

Posted by anthony on 12 February 2008 @ 2pm

Absolutely, it’s a great tool for ripping DVDs and it is what I use. I’ve mentioned it here before. The recent update is very nice as well and comes with a few new interface improvements.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to work on XviD-encoded files, only DVDs or DVD images.

Thanks for the comment!

Posted by boolean on 12 February 2008 @ 3pm

[...] that I’ve had an iPod touch for a little over a week and gotten used to it and what it’s capable of, I have a few ideas [...]

Posted by n3wblog » Blog Archive » iPod touch wishlist on 17 February 2008 @ 4pm

[...] a technology slut. I like gadgets and gear, particularly stuff that relates to audio. I have a few iPods and I love listening to music on them. The experience is mediated by the quality of the headphones [...]

Posted by n3wblog » Blog Archive » On Headphones: Part 1 - Koss Portapros on 16 June 2008 @ 3pm

[...] know, the iPod touch isn’t as cool as the iPhone which by now, most people own and are busy twittering about how [...]

Posted by n3wblog » Blog Archive » iPod Touch wish fulfillment on 22 July 2008 @ 10pm

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