Watch our video review for the Apple iPod touch 32GB (2nd Gen)

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Crazyhorse

11:18 AM on 20 September, 2008

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"If you don't want one you probably don't want a portable player at all. "

Oh, Hugo, why did you do it? The review was going so well. Not everybody wants an MP3 player simply to pose on their preferred method of public transport. Some want portability or higher audio quality or storage and so on so forth. Some of the great unwashed actually never worry about what the reat of the general populace think of what they are using as an MP3 player. Really, it's true.

I'll sit back and watch with glee as you carefully probe your way out of this minefield ;-)

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Juxtah

1:25 PM on 20 September, 2008

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It still just doesn't push the right buttons for me. It's just another run of the mill Apple product that excels in software design (excluding itunes from that sentiment of course) and just fails at the hurdles of hardware, looks, sound quality and price.

The price it asks demands such simple things as an FM radio, better file support and more. The looks, although subjective, to me is just as bland and boring as an old grey generic computer case that's been given a paint job, and had an Apple logo stamped on it. And if you buy an Apple player, sound quality is obviously nowhere near the top of your list, although sound quality certainly isn't bad in iPods, Apple backs it up with truly terrible headphones and file support, so it might as well be.

I admire the Apple software engineers for what they do (excluding iTunes again), especially considering the stuff they are given to work with. I own a Cowon D2, but I think pretty much everyone can see that the Samsung YP-P2 is so much better value for money then this player, and comes with the arguably better feature of bluetooth, rather then Wi-Fi.

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Hugo

4:37 PM on 20 September, 2008

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Crazyhorse: The touch is im *my* opinion the most desirable of MP3 players. I realise that many people won't want it because there's something about it they don't like or that it doesn't offer and they want/need. But I bet they'll be thinking "I wish the touch had FLAC sport" or "I wish it wasn't so prohibitively expensive".

Put it this way: if I'd said "if you don't want an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, you probaly don't want a car at all" would you have called me on it? I doubt it.

You're reading too much into a throw-away comment.

Juxtah - I don't want to sound rude, but what the heck are you talking about?

How can you critizise the touch's hardware? Multi-Touch is a hardware feature and is what makes the touch so brlliant. Frankly until any other manufacturer can equal or better that interface Apple could charge £500 for a touch and it'd arguably still be good value. Although admitedly it's the combination of great hardware and software that's what makes the touch *so* impressive from a technology stand point.

You'll never pursuade me radio on an MP3 player is a good idea, at any price. Especially in these days of podcasts and the iPlayer (especially as the BBC has the only radio stations worth listening to if you ask me).

The need for better file support I agree with to an extent - I should be to rip my music however I want to - but the argument that it needs to be mroe extensive is generaly made by pirates frustrated with having to re-encode downoaded stuff for different players.

Aesthetics I can't really argue with you because, as you say, it is sch a subjective aspect. But I definitely take issue with you comapring the touch to a "gray generic computer case that's been given a paint job". I'll eat the notebook I'm typing this on when curvy, shiny aluminum goes out of fashion.

Criticising Apple specifically for bundling awful earphones with its player is a bit much. One of Sony's NWZ-series players that we had in for review came with a set of dual-driver earphones which were pretty good, but that's defnitely the exception rather than the rule.

While I agree iTunes has a few problems, calling it a bad piece of software is a it harsh. iTunes primarly falls down when it isn't used the way it is intended to be. In Apple's ideal world, everyone would buy music from the iTunes Store and sync it to their iPods - as this is Apple Land they'd do it on a Mac too, but that's a less important point. Used in this way, Tunes works just fine - it keeps your music folder tidy, it even lets you listen to the DRMed (and in this usage modle DRM isn't a bad thing, because it's completely uninvasive) tracks on multiple computers (up to 5 if my memory serves me) which can be authorised or deauthorised via your online account.

Even if you want to use CDs (because, let's face it, 192k AAC is not comparable to a CD) you still don't have problems. You rip your music to your library using iTunes so you know your music will be compatible with your player and, again, it's all organised nicely - album art and everyting.

Problems occur when you start downloading pirated music. If you're an audiophile, or like to think you are, you'll only download lossless rips and these will inevitable be in FLAC format so you'll have to re-encode it as Apple Lossless (or AIFF or even WAV I guess if you're more retro) to use it in iTunes. Just don't even think about moving those files around 'cause iTunes won't keep track of them, oh no.

And that's assuming you have an iPod because if you don't things get even worse. If it's drag and drop, you might still be okay. I hope you didn't buy any music from the iTunes store, though, because that won't work unless you strip the DRM which is even more work! If you've got to use software to sync your player then you've sudenly got two programs fighting over which is in control of your music and then iTunes can be fussy and refuse to play ball - storing cover art seperately from the music files, for example.

My point? Any piece of software breaks when you don't use it the way it's designed to be used. iTunes works fine for the average iPod user who just wants to buy music and put it on their iPod.

Bluetooth versus WiFi is a simple aregument. The touch should have both, and it should do A2DP (as should the iPod - i mean, come on Apple..!). However, WiFi is FAR more useful than Bluetooth - App store (and a load of apps themselves) , Safari, email, music store etc. etc. all use WiFi.

Re the YP-P2. Yes it is quite good but it really can't compete with the touch's feature set so it's a bad comparison. And it has even worse format support than the touch, most notably the lack of any lossless support at all.

Anything I missed?

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mmemmory

5:00 PM on 20 September, 2008

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Personally I don't mind iPods (I have what is now known as a "classic" although admittedly only due to my Cowon X5L being stolen and the iPod being the only player that my insurance would get me)

But what I think Apple miss out on (or their users) is the audio quality. I like the touch interface whenever I've tried a mates (although I can never get to grips with the onscreen keyboard no matter how often I try) and it *is* nice being able to browse the web using Safari but, to me, the main point of any MP3 player is playing music to sound as good as possible and on this Apple don't seem to be trying that hard (or not as hard as other manufactorers)

Now maybe to some the quality of the music isn't important (my mum has a nano and is very happy with it - even with stock buds! urgh!!) and if the quality is fine to most of your consumers what's the point of trying to make it better but to me it matters so I'd like it to be as good as possible.

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Juxtah

5:14 PM on 20 September, 2008

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@ Hugo

Ok, I'll try go through your points :P

First, I believe I can criticise the touches hardware, multi touch is a hardware feature, yes. And I agree it is very nice, and a great feature. However in other areas the touch is lacking, we may not see eye to eye on this but I think a radio on an mp3 player is a great feature and considering how cheap it is I don't think the inclusion of one could ever be seen as a negative point. And I love being able to record the odd song of the radio while listening to it with my D2, not a requirement I agree but If I'm paying for a premium player I'd hope it has all the features I may only have a use for once or twice.

For the file support, and I have to heavily disagree with your point of 'only pirates ask for this' since if you wanted to look, you'd see 99%+ of all pirated music is in mp3. As for me I rip all my CD's in .OGG partly because it sounds great, mostly because it all that jetaudio supports ;). Again I have to make the same point as above, if Apple wants me to pay twice as much as their competitors they better give me more features, even those I may not have much use of too often (although a player that can play .OGG is a requirement for me now considering I have about 50+ CD's ripped into .OGG).

OK, maybe I was a little harsh about the design, however I'm a large advocate of design needs to be interesting and look good to catch my attention. For me the general range of Apple products looks bland, and in my eyes it just doesn't look good, and the touch follows that Apple trend and just doesn't interest or pique my attention.

And it's not that Apple bundles the bad headphones in that I'm complaining about because let's be honest pretty much every manufacturer does it, it's the fact that these headphones sound just completely awful yet to Apple seem to be worth a large replacement fee, and the scary thing is people actually buy them...

And I have to disagree that iTunes isn't a bad piece of software, compared to it's major competitor Winamp it is slow and drains a lot of resources. And compared to the organisational skills of MediaMonkey iTunes falls flat on it's face. And on top of this they insist on packaging programs with it that you haven't asked for like Bonjour (which iTunes works just fine without) and Quicktime (which is handy but If I need it I'll get it separately).

And you keep going back to piracy, I'm no pirate but I'm clued up enough on the subject to know that itunes doesn't have any problems dealing with mp3's of which 99% of pirated albums are made up of.

And the on the WiFi vs. bluetooth thing, I think you missed the word 'arguable' in my initial comment. For me bluetooth is the better option, as I like not having wires trailing all over my person, and personally have no need for WiFi as wherever I go that has WiFi already has a computer there of some description. WiFi for me is of limited use you see, whereas for you it may be great. There's no doubt I'd like to have it, but the simple fact is I don't use it enough to justify the extra cost.

And on the YP-P2, I said much better value for money, which it is. It's almost half the cost of the iPod touch and comes with 80% of the features, if you can live without WiFi I believe it's a much better choice.

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xbrumster

6:47 PM on 20 September, 2008

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love ipod touch and love iphone.. the only thing i havn't got my head around this new toy is that black plaster on the top left corner?? wot's that?

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Skobbolop

8:46 PM on 20 September, 2008

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Seriously.. you don't buy an ipod because of it's features.. you buy it because it's a fashion statement/symbol whatever.. and you pay a premium price for this... fair enough...

if your an audiophile or need a specific feature, or your an old school winamp user and you hate itunes (or whatever the reason), you'll buy a different player...it's that simple..

i love iRiver and the new products from Cowon look very promising, but they are just not as "hip" as the iPods, according to the masses (apple really knows how to promote af product). imo players from cowon and iRiver are as good, if not better, as the iPods..

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ilovethemonkeyhead

10:03 PM on 20 September, 2008

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it's a wifi antenna, mate :D the original had it, and the original iphone disguised it as that lower plastic half (so you know you've got it the right way around)

i'm still puzzled as to why microsoft refuse to release the zune outside the americas - if anything, it'd stop apple dropping the classic, and hopefully will also offer superior audio quality.

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xbrumster

11:22 AM on 21 September, 2008

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arh... antenna is king.

anyway nowadays, the bigger the size, the better. Let's all develop a complex over it.

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Ed

9:14 AM on 22 September, 2008

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@ Skobbolop

Your point was, to some degree, valid before the release of the iPod touch. However, with the touch you're paying a premium for a shed load of extra features. Whether you want them or not is your choice but they're certainly there.

And as it happens, you're not really paying that much of a premium for the regular iPods nowadays. Maybe £10 here or there but overall they're pretty price competitive (audio quality and format support aside).

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