Jonathan Davies

Cool title isn’t it - not quite sure what it means at the moment; maybe by the time I have finished this post I will know. With the release of the iPod Touch, Apple has created another platform on which to sell music - this time though, it is mobile.

The inclusion of wi-fi was a very smart move by Apple. This feature had not been on the top of most people’s lists when expecting the sixth generation iPod, most of them wishing for just a widescreen, maybe touch interface. I don’t think that anyone would have expected them to release wi-fi if it weren’t for the iPhone; which really rolled up the expectations for it. The inclusion of wi-fi, of course, also gives us the opportunities of Safari  for web browsing and YouTube for watching those great free episodes of Heroes people doing stupid stuff.

The interface for the iTunes wi-fi music store (WFMS) is very clean and elegant. More so, if you ask me, than the desktop iTunes client. The form in which you preview a song; where a dial rotates telling you how much time you have left of the preview. For case and point about the ease of buying music. I takes me only three taps from the home screen to be able to buy something from the store. I am not sure of any online music store which is capable of doing that.

Another advantage the WFMS has over its older sibling is the load time, because of its minimal use of pictures and of course, its size the WFMS loads in seconds -  a lot faster, for me, that the desktop version.

However like all products the WFMS does come with it’s disadvantages. You can’t (to my knowledge) get it to save your password for purchases so I find myself clunky putting it in each time - very annoying.

Another feature, which I can’t understand why they missed out was the ability to buy audiobooks and to download podcasts - as far as I can see and the iPod Touch has shown it is very capable of downloading content via iTunes.

In conclusion, Apple have released a very strong base to build on. With the few changes in the future, it could be perfect. I guess that is what what I meant by the title, it is flawed, but there is no reason for it to be. Apple could have easily put in those missing features - I am going to look into why they didn’t that is for sure.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites