I’m not impressed

Dead iPod Touch

Another day, another iPod Touch calamity. While updating one of the installed applications, gremlins attacked and icons no longer appear on my home screen.

I’m not an Apple fan-boy, I have never been, and I am unlikely to convert because my first foray into the world of Apple products has been a largely unhappy journey. iTunes, at least on Windows, is slow and often unresponsive. Backing up my iPod Touch literally takes several hours, and the version 2.0.1 update took four attempts. The music interface, while great for the Latin-alphabet world, is a pain to navigate with Chinese songs and artists. Installing and upgrading applications via the iPod Touch interface is a slow and arduous affair. While there have been some outstanding applications, the majority are uninspired and useless. You also often find two or more applications that do very similar things, but each lacking in various regards, which means you end up keeping all of these applications; the closed model of the iTunes Store discourages, and in fact prevents, modifications and extensions a la open source software.

I could keep going on for quite some time, but I’m sure others have documented the failings of the iPod Touch and the iPhone in more detail. I can overlook some bugs, but wholesale destruction of my data is unforgivable.