MacInTouch reviewed the original iPod Touch
in 2007, concluding that the device — essentially an iPhone sans phone
and camera — served as a feature-rich iPod and the least-expensive way
to explore the revolutionary "multitouch" interface that made the
iPhone so famous. The "iTouch", as it's sometimes dubbed, had the
interface, operating system and most of the hardware of the iPhone,
while bypassing the 2-year AT&T contract, a $1680+ pre-requisite
for the iPhone in the U.S.

The original iPod Touch lacked email and applications (other than
Web apps via its Mobile Safari browser), and it had other deficiencies,
as well: no volume buttons, no speaker, no camera and no Bluetooth,
although it featured WiFi networking, along with USB. As a media
player, this iPod Touch was limited to 8 or 16 GB of storage vs. the
iPod Classic's 80 or 160 GB capacity.

Today's second-generation iPod Touch improves a bit upon the
original hardware, but it was the 2008 introduction of Apple's iTunes
App Store that has turned the device into a full-fledged mobile
computer with tens of thousands of third-party applications available.

To date, the iPod Touch is the only device other than the iPhone that works on Apple's mobile application platform. And that is the reason to buy one.

The good

The iPod Touch works with all of Apple's current (and confusing) collection of earbuds. Used with iPhone earbuds, the click controller pauses or advances songs just as it does on an iPhone, and the mic can be used by such apps as Skype. Also compatible are the volume-controlling earbuds used by the new button-free iPod Shuffle — but it sure would be nice if iPod Touch had the same "VoiceOver" spoken interface option as the other three iPod models do!

Apple also sells earbuds that include both volume controls and a mic, and these work fine with third party apps. We tested out Skype, which effectively turned this iPod Touch into an affordable Internet phone, so long as you have WiFi. If you have family or business partners abroad, this is a great way to save money on international calling.

iPod Touch is also compatible with all of the aftermarket mic-enabled earphones created for iPhone.

(Apple lists their FM Radio Remote as compatible with the iPod Touch, but we haven't tested it.)

The bad

We ran into problems using the new iPod Touch with some formerly Apple-blessed devices.

The Harmon-Kardon Drive+Play was one of the neater ways of integrating an Apple iPod into your car stereo. It works fine with iPhone 3G (except for charging), but the new iPod Touch won't even acknowledge its existence. Nor would the new iPod Touch work with a two-year old Pioneer car radio with built-in iPod integration that works with every other iPod or iPhone we've connected.

The iPod Touch also fails to work with a Logitech AudioStation Express — that was sold by the Apple Store just a couple years ago. Nor does it work with an Athena iVoice speaker dock we found online last year. These work with every other iPod we tried.

We don't expect uncertified devices like the Athena speaker dock to work with all Apple products, but we do expect products sold by Apple in its retail stores, like the Logitech AudioStation, to keep working. And we especially expect Apple's own products to work.

Apple's pattern of abandoning its old technology is worrisome. This isn't the first we've seen this — both the iPhone and the iPod Touch 2G are incompatible with Apple's own iPod HiFi speaker, for example. Over the past few years, Apple has been requiring companies making iPod accessories buy and use "authorization chips" to use Apple's "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone" logos with their products. With the iPod Touch, we may be seeing full platform lock-down. No chip, no iPod communication.

For new customers, this is less of a problem — many currently-sold accessories work fine with iPod Touch, but we bought a Phillips AZ1330D boom box new this summer, and it would not charge the iPod Touch 2G (posting an incompatibility error message on-screen), although it works fine with the first iPod Touch. Customers with an iPod "infrastructure" of docks, speakers and car adapters already in place may choose not to buy a new iPod that requires replacing their existing Apple-certified yet obsolete accessory investment.

We're not happy that Apple is forcing this choice — not everyone has the extra money to replace years' worth of iPod add-ons. We're currently left with three iPod speaker systems, two cars and several Docks that don't work with the iPod Touch — for no good reason and all under Apple's sole control.

Conclusions

The iPod Touch is no longer just a media player, as the "iPod" name suggests; it's a prime representative of Apple's handheld computing platform, supported by a huge (and growing) third-party community. Yet it's controlled entirely by Apple, with Apple deriving revenue from every component — from the initial sale to third-party applications, accessories, licensing and distribution.

Apple's business bonanza aside, buyers get a mobile, networked computer with a revolutionary user interface and a thriving ecosystem of add-ons and software that dramatically increases its value after initial purchase. We've come a long way from the original iPod Touch and its "OS X 1.0" software, which served as an advance scout for something much bigger (like the original Macintosh 128K did).

iPhone OS 2.0, included on every iPod Touch now sold, has really changed the platform, making the original iPod Touch, too, much more useful than it was when purchased. This stands in marked contrast to all other "iPod" models, which are rarely upgraded by Apple and bear no real similarity to the iPhone/iTouch platform.

With OS 3.0 coming in a few months, this platform clearly has a future ahead of it. Like a traditional Mac or PC, it will be useful for more tomorrow than today. That's a huge value (though this may be offset by the need to replace incompatible old accessories).

If you already have the original iPod Touch, the second generation offers a few upgrades — speaker, volume controls, faster CPU, more storage, microphone capability — which may not be enough to justify buying a new iTouch and dealing with the compatibility issues it has with previous accessories. But if you don't own the first generation iPod Touch, and you don't have, or plan to get, an iPhone, this is a great entry into a major platform that is already very useful with a great future ahead.

Platform

The iPod Touch uses the same operating system as the iPhone, which
is a (massively) slimmed-down version of the "OS X" operating system
used for Apple's Macintosh computers. The Mobile Safari browser is
based on Apple's desktop Safari browser (though it doesn't support
Flash content), but the user interface is completely different. The
iPhone/iPod Touch UI is designed from the ground-up for fingers and
small screens rather than the mice and relatively large screens of
desktop and laptop computers, and every other phone vendor has been
scrambling to catch up with it.
[See our first iPod Touch review
for more details about the underlying hardware platform and user
interface, as well as our iPhone reviews, listed in the "Links" section
below.]

In 2008, the year after the iPod Touch's debut, Apple rolled out "OS
2.0" for its mobile platform (dropping "X" from its name). Aside from
some performance improvements and bug fixes, the real news was support
for Apple's new iTunes App Store, which opened up a whole world of
third-party apps, drastically expanding the usefulness of the device
and justifying many more purchases.

In other words, iPod Touch is not a Walkman-like, single-purpose
device. It is an evolving, general purpose computing platform that fits
in the palm of your hand.

OS 3.0

iPhone OS 3.0 is due this summer. Like OS 2.0, it should run on all
previous iPod Touch models, with an upgrade price of $9.95. Apple gave
a public preview, focussing on features for developers but also
showcasing new features for end users. Notable enhancements include MMS
messaging (to support sending and receiving pictures, contacts, audio
messages and map locations); voice memos; calendaring enhancements;
cut-and-paste (like Mac OS X has); and a new Spotlight system for
searching the iPod's contents (including third party app data, if the
developer writes a plug-in).

Other anticipated features include WiFi auto-login, support for
Stereo Bluetooth headphones, Notes sync, Safari anti-phishing security
improvements and form auto-fill, improved parental controls, true
YouTube login, and the ability to get movies and TV shows directly from
Apple's store without having to use your Mac or PC to buy-and-sync them
over iTunes.

Apple also promises a developers' interface to the Dock port in OS
3.0 for enabling custom hardware and software access — think audio
recording, data acquisition, 3G cellular data or fax modems... and
ultimately anything the homebrew hardware community can dream up! (A
little keyboard, like the fold-up ones that used to be made for the
Palm III and Palm V series, would be quite welcome.)

But, as we await OS 3.0, what does the second-generation iPod Touch have for you today?

Hardware

The second-generation iPod Touch (available with 8, 16 or 32 GB of
memory) adds external volume controls and a speaker for sound effects.
It also has a faster processor, although Apple doesn't mention this in
any of its marketing materials. We found that applications launch
faster, Safari displays web pages faster, email fetches faster and
everything feels quicker. When running the same apps side-by-side with
an iPhone 3G, the second-generation iPod Touch was a clear winner —
faster and more responsive. (It probably doesn't hurt that the iTouch
doesn't have to run the cell phone communication software in the
background like iPhone does... but that software spends most of its
time idle on iPhone anyway.)

The speaker is hidden inside the headphone jack. It has a much
smaller opening to broadcast its sound than the iPhone, so it's a lot
quieter. But it's adequate for casual gaming, and makes the alarm and
timer functions useful, finally. The iPod Touch makes a pretty good
alarm clock; just make sure the volume is turned up before you go to
bed!

The newer iTouch has a lower-capacity battery than the original, yet
claims longer life — 36 hours of music vs. the original's 22 hours, and
6 hours of video playback vs. 5 hours. We didn't perform an exhaustive
test, but we did watch TV shows for a couple of hours on a plane flight
(with the volume up to overcome aircraft noise) and noted the battery
indicator was still more than half-full at the end. This follows the
trend of Apple's previous iPods; with time, more power-efficient
electronics enable longer operation with smaller batteries.

While the second-generation iPod Touch adds Bluetooth hardware, you
can't do anything with it yet. Apple says the upcoming OS 3.0 will
enable it to support stereo Bluetooth headphones. Third party
developers will be able to use it, too — for multiplayer games among
iPods, exchanging virtual business card, or whatever else they think
up. This flexibility limits interoperability, though; it doesn't use
the standard Bluetooth OBEX protocol for sending data objects, so it
won't work with non-Apple devices.

Additionally, the new iPod Touch supports the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, which previously worked only with the iPod Nano.

Software and Services

The second-generation iPod Touch includes more Apple applications
than the original did. Email is now built-in, with support for IMAP,
POP and Microsoft Exchange servers. MobileMe subscribers, Exchange
users and Yahoo Mail users can get "push" email notifications, so email
arrives on your iTouch as soon as it arrives at the server.

Apple's Calendar and Contacts apps work as stand-alone tools but are
much more useful when integrated with desktop calendaring. iTunes syncs
over USB between iCal on the Mac or Outlook calendars and address books
on Windows. Apple's MobileMe subscription service "pushes" automatic
updates "over-the-air", as long as you're within range of a WiFi
network, for $99/year ($67 at Amazon).
Exchange users get calendar and contact sync for free — assuming they
have a corporate Exchange server. (MobileMe also includes email, web
hosting, plus photo- and video-sharing services.)

There is also a free option for anyone with a Gmail account: Google
has implemented part of Microsoft's Exchange protocol for Google
Calendar and the Gmail address book. We experienced a few glitches with
it. When importing the Mac Address Book using a Google tool, all
addresses, emails and phone numbers of type "Other" (rather than Work,
Home, Mobile) failed to appear in Google's address book (and thus
didn't carry through to the iPod Touch Contacts database). And, after a
few weeks, one Google Calendar simply disappeared from the iPod Touch;
we had to reset the device using iTunes and re-set up Google sync to
fix this.

"Push" email isn't available from Google either. For that, you'll
have to use Apple's MobileMe, a real Exchange server or Yahoo Mail. Now
over its initial teething pains, MobileMe seems to provide more
reliable data sync, not to mention much easier setup.

iTunes App Store

Like its predecessor, the second-generation iPod Touch plays music,
movies, TV shows and podcasts. But, with iPhone OS 2, you can now buy
music and download podcasts directly from the iPod Touch, accessing the
iTunes Store over WiFi with no Mac or PC intermediary required. (OS 3.0
this summer will add support for buying movies and TV shows too.)

In contrast with other "iPods", the iTunes App Store is where the
iPod Touch's real value lies. With tens of thousands of applications
written in the past year, and more appearing daily, you can find all
kinds of things you might need. For example, Apple neglected to provide
any sort of to-do list in its software package, but there are dozens of
these applications available at the App Store, ranging from free and
simple to expensive and feature-rich.

You name it; someone wrote it, and you can get it: Games. Instant
messaging. Fitness goals. Diet tracking. Movie listings. A koi pond.
Wine databases. Frommer's travel guides. Alternate web browsers. Birth
contraction tracking. Algebra tutors. Yoga guides. The New York Times.
Zip code lookup. Instrument simulations. Brewing calculators. Slick
Wikipedia front-ends. Live major league baseball coverage. Databases of
gluten-free foods and restaurants. A bubble level. Stupid fart jokes.
(Sadly, we're not kidding about that last one.)

You can access the App Store directly on your iPod Touch over WiFi
or within iTunes on your Mac or PC. iTunes provides a richer
environment for browsing, but to subsequently move apps onto your iPod
Touch, you'll have to sync via the USB cable. If you purchase on the
iTouch itself, it downloads over WiFi, and the next time you plug into
your Mac or PC via USB, iTunes copies a backup of the apps you've
purchased onto your Mac. (Note that apps you purchase can be used on up
to five iPod Touch or iPhones registered to your iTunes account.)

The App Store controls all distribution and sales for
iTouch apps — it's a convenient one-stop shop, but it's also the only
store in town. And while you can browse and search the App Store freely
on your iPod Touch, you must create an AppleID/iTunes Account to
download even free apps.

Apple has a vested interest in the App Store — the company takes a
30% cut of every sale. At a recent Apple quarterly financials call, CEO
Steve Jobs said the App Store does a gross revenue of $1 million per day.
That makes Apple's cut something like $109,500,000 a year — and growing
— not a large fraction of Apple's $10 billion per quarter revenue, but
nothing to sneer at either.

Apple controls exactly what appears in the store too. Every
developer must be approved by Apple before their products can go on
sale, and all third party apps are reviewed by Apple for compatibility,
security and content.

In theory, this ensures that no dangerous software makes it onto
your iPod, but the review process is not very consistent. Applications
have been blocked because they accessed "objectionable" content that
wasn't actually part of the app. For example, the popular Twitter
client Tweetie had an update blocked, because a popular
Twitter topic that day involved a "dirty" word, and so appeared in the
"Trending" list that Twitter sent to Tweetie. And, more recently, nin: access, an app from industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, was blocked for providing access to the same music sold by Apple in the iTunes Store.

Most recently, the Eucalyptus e-book reader that accesses the Project Gutenberg archive of free books was blocked because the Apple reviewer
searched for the Kama Sutra on his own initiative. Each of these cases
has been resolved successfully in the end, but they highlight the
degree of control Apple exercises over developers for the iTouch
platform.

This total control over the iTouch ecosystem is a bit worrisome. But
the experience as a customer is so compelling that we have bought in,
purchasing and downloading dozens of paid and free apps for this iPod
Touch. These applications turn it from an expensive toy into an
incredibly useful tool (not to mention a great little gaming device).

Jailbreaking

Before Apple introduced its App Store, there was a thriving
community of "jailbreak" developers, who figured out how to bypass
Apple's iPhone/iTouch lock-down in order to write their own software
applications for the devices. Now, many applications originally
developed for the jailbroken iTouch have migrated to "legitimate" App
Store apps. Still, jailbreaking remains alive and well, as there are
always those who want iPod Touch to do even more than Apple has allowed
so far — such as running background applications to play Internet radio
while checking email, or recording audio from microphones hacked into
the Dock port.

Ultimately, jailbreaking is beyond the scope of this review, but if
you're feeling adventurous, there is an active community to help you
break out of iPod Touch's remaining limits.

Hands-on

In the hand, the latest iPod Touch feels just right; its
gently-curved back lays nicely in the fingers, like the iPhone 3G but
even slimmer. Its shiny metal back is prone to scratching, like all the
classic iPods. Apple includes a microfiber polishing cloth, which we
use as much for the metal back as for cleaning the glass face where you
manipulate the user interface with your fingers.

As described in the MacInTouch review of the original iPod Touch,
this interface is nothing like using a desktop computer. Instead, the
iPod Touch is a unique, gesture-driven, tiny tablet that has to be
experienced first-hand (if you're not already familiar with the
iPhone). It's a compelling experience in which you directly manipulate
everything on-screen, without the disconnected tools of mouse and
keyboard. It's the first commercially successful computer that takes
advantage of tools we have decades of experience using: our fingertips.

On the downside, the device's home screen doesn't scale well to the
dozens and dozens of apps that the App Store encourages acquiring.
(It's a little like flipping through a notepad without an index.) Some
better organization scheme is clearly needed, but there's no word yet
from Apple about having anything helpful in the works.

Battery life seems as good as advertised. With heavy daily use for
email, calendaring, web browsing, and light gaming, our test unit
wanted to be charged a couple times a week.

iTunes

Any urge to rip the packaging off and start playing with your new
toy immediately is quickly thwarted. Like all other iPods, you must
first plug it into your Mac or PC and use the latest version of iTunes
to set it up. iTunes does make setting up email on the iPod Touch
easier, though; it can copy the settings from all of your Apple Mail or
Microsoft Outlook email accounts to the iTouch, saving you entering
server addresses, passwords and ports. It also can copy all of your
Safari bookmarks to the iPod Touch and keep them in sync with your
desktop as they change over time. (MobileMe subscribers can sync
bookmarks wirelessly.) And iTunes backs up your iPod Touch every time
you connect it, so if you lose your iPod Touch, you can replace it and
restore all your apps and data, just like an iPhone.

Playing music is every iPod's raison d'etre, so audio quality was
one of the first things we evaluated after activating the iPod in
iTunes. The original iPod Touch had some excess noise in its
amplifiers, noticeable during very quiet passages, but Apple seems to
have fixed this. We couldn't detect any in the new model. The iPod
Touch's improved audio circuitry is masked by mediocre earbuds,
however, as with the 3rd generation iPod Shuffle. Using higher quality
earbuds is definitely recommended (see links to some favorites at the
end of the review).

The iTunes Genius feature, introduced with iTunes 8, works on iPod
Touch, and it's great. We occasionally stumped it with obscure
international music or little-known local music acts, but for the most
part it knew all about our music and created pleasing playlists. As in
iTunes, you can save a Genius playlist — the next time you sync, iTunes
picks it up (just like it does "On The Go" playlists from other iPods),
so you can listen to it on your Mac, PC or other iPods.

CoverFlow, the horizontal album-flipping interface featured on the
original iPhone, is even more fluid on the new iPod Touch than it is on
an iPhone 3G or earlier devices — perhaps thanks to the new, faster
processor.

Display

As before, the iTouch display is remarkably bright and crisp with
167-pixel/in. resolution (a finer dot pitch than Apple's desktop
displays use). Though the iPod Touch can't play HD video like a desktop
Mac, its display is only a quarter the size of HD, so this isn't really
a deficiency. Apple's iTunes Store includes iPhone/iTouch-compatible
files along with HD video downloads, and we watched TV shows purchased
from the store.

Safari and WiFi

Safari is faster and snappier than on iPhone 3G. It also appears to
cache more content, perhaps due to lacking the memory overhead of
cellular network software. Whatever the cause, it doesn't have to
reload pages from scratch as often, which dramatically improves the web
browsing experience, especially if you use tabs. (We recently
discovered iCab Mobile — it's even faster still, and much more feature
rich, a bargain at $1.99!)

WiFi 802.11 b/g wireless range is fair; neither exceptionally good nor poor. (There's still no 802.11n support.)

PDA Features

As a PDA, the iPod Touch is weak, with a basic calendar (named
"Calendar") and a basic address book ("Contacts") but no task
management, no linking or grouping, and no ability to sync its
otherwise-handy Notes with a Mac or PC. (Apple says Notes sync is
coming with OS 3.0 this summer.)

For those who need more, the App Store can make up for these
deficiencies with everything from basic to-do lists to full-fledged
project management apps. For the truly hardcore, there are at least
five different iTouch apps for the popular Basecamp project management
system from 37signals. And, for Mac-based customers, Bento is worth a
look; the $4.99 iTouch version can sync with Bento 2 on the Mac over
WiFi — it's pretty slick, though version 1.0 was crash-prone in our
testing.

Games

Games, first introduced in different form with the iPod Video in
2005, have really come into their own on the iPod Touch platform. Some
game developers have even programmed their games to use higher-quality
graphics on the faster second generation iPod Touch.

Games range from traditional phone/PDA games, such as Bejeweled, to
novel interfaces that exploit iTouch's unique motion sensor and
multitouch screen, such as Rolando, Radius and Bloom. Many games have
free "light" versions, with more levels or features in the paid
versions.