Next week is my birthday and Donna gave me license to get my own gift. On Tuesday I stopped by the local Apple dealer (no Apple Store in Appleton, yet) and picked up a 32GB iPod Touch. My 5th Gen iPod has been “well loved” over the past few years. Battery life is starting to fade and several rows of pixels on the screen have gone out so I figured it was time to step up.
I absolutely love this device. This is the most revolutionary device I’ve had in years. I thought the Windows SmartPhone was a good idea, I thought watching videos on the iPod 5G was cool. The iPod Touch brings together several technologies to make me more effective and actually reduce costs incurred with my mobile phone.
With WiFi, it means I don’t have to carry around my laptop to stay in touch. While typing an email on the touch isn’t quite as quick, I can keep up with newsfeeds (including the local paper which I haven’t read in years). Podcasts are still a staple of my diet and the Touch does just as well as the old device at keeping me informed.
Sadly, not all my devices are fully supported. The iHome radio in the bedroom does not charge or control the device, but it still plays the audio. That’s no biggie in my book. The Belkin TuneTalk has no effect, but I use the H2 for most of my recording these days. On the positive side, the Griffin iTrip and Belkin FM tuner work just fine.
One odd problem I had this past week was an issue with the time. It seemed every time I plugged in the touch to the (Windows) laptop, the time would “unsync”. I set the device to 5:01PM and connect the cable to find it jumps to 7:15AM before it even starts the sync. I visited the Apple website, tried a soft reset and a full device wipe (and restore) which took several hours and had no impact.
I called Apple support and they recommended the same steps, but I refused to do that again. We went in to msconfig and turned off all but the critical Apple services, rebooted and things were fine. We then turned everything back on and discovered that putting the laptop to sleep with iTunes running is a bad idea. Now before I dock the iPod Touch I have to remember to start iTunes “fresh” for best results or risk losing time on the device. How bizarre is that?
I commend Apple on their great support and helpful website for getting me through this odd incident.
Hi Chuck,
I found something similar would happen to my iTunes library files. I went through a period of months where I couldn’t find my iPod Nano. I used my FM transmitter, plugged it into the headphone jack on my laptop, set the screen to blank after 1 minute and went on my drive.
When I would get to a destination I would simply pause the podcast, close the laptop, and let it hibernate. Three to four times a month I would notice the library files become corrupt. I then started to exit iTunes before closing the laptop, but that would still corrupt. Finally, I found that iTunes does some writing to its files even after you exit iTunes. So then I would exit iTunes, count to 10, then close the lid. Everything was happy then. 🙂
Nice to see your website, Chuck. I miss the weekly drive without Chuck and Kreg, but I am VERY glad that you have some family life back.
Take care,
Will (the Computer Guy)