The iPod Touch is Sublime But…

After pining for an iPod Touch for months, I finally pulled the trigger recently – and now wonder why I waited so long.

In short, the Touch is sublime. It is a wonderfully designed and multi-functional product that probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves because of the obsession with the iPhone. Sure, it doesn’t have a phone or camera but Wi-Fi connectivity and ever-growing bounty of applications makes the Touch an interesting and useful device.

Since getting the Touch a couple of weeks ago, I’ve not only rediscovered my digital music collection but spent a lot of time on iTunes App Store downloading applications (mostly free ones) – everything from travel and food apps (Hotels.com, UrbanSpoon, BlackBook Guides and What the Locals Like) to utilities (Zenbe – a list-making app) and social media services (Wordpress, Twitterific). Using the iTunes store, you can customize the Touch or iPhone to meet your personal or professional interests.

As for why I decided to buy a Touch rather than an iPhone, it came down to economics. Buying the Touch meant a one-time cost while getting an iPhone from Rogers meant locking into a three-year contract that would have cost $1,080 just for data. It wasn’t something I could justify. CBC suggests the three-year contract is the second most expensive in the world.

While I don’t pine for always-on access to the Web, it would be nice if the Touch had a camera and the ability to use VoIP. You could easily see a company such as Belkin make a camera peripheral that would plug into the Touch’s input jack or the dock connector, while VoIP seems like a remote possibility so Apple doesn’t piss of the carriers. (Check out petitinvention what an iPod Touch camera would look like.)

As well, Kevin Purdy makes a strong case for the Touch vs. the iPhone with a post entitled “Forget the iPhone–The iPod Touch is Good Enough”.

Before signing off, this is the first in a series of posts this week about the wireless Web. My thesis is while the iPhone and other smartphones such as the Blackberry Bold are amazing devices, they are not going to have as much of an impact on the mobile economy than most people think.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod Touch