stats count

John's Blog

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day....Teach him to use the internet and he won't bother you for weeks!

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

iObsess, iSpaz

So I seem to have hit a brick wall finding the urge to post, although the argument could be made that I've just had an epiphany and escaped another addiction. I can live with either explanation, and will probably post when the mood hits me, or if something happens that I feel the need to share. Neither of those conditions have occurred much recently.

I've been spending far too much time obsessing over my recently acquired iPod Touch. After stalking The Apple Store daily to see if they had them back in-stock, they finally possesed the object of my tech-lust yesterday. I rushed over to the store and bought one, then raced back home and plugged it in all set to sync my music to it. But the iPod just sat there taunting me with the icons telling me to connect it, while my iTunes was just sitting there telling me that there were no devices connected. After reading the instructions, I noticed that it required a more current version of the OS than the one I had been running. So it's back in the car to buy a copy of Tiger, which will be obsolete when Leopard is introduced within the month.

So now I've upgraded the OS and I'm all set for the moment of truth. I click on the iTunes icon, and now I'm greeted with an error message telling me that iTunes is not compatible with this version of the OS. I was momentarily overcome with a sense of déjà vu and thought I was working with Microsoft products. Rather than stepping back from the problem and breaking it down rationally and analytically, I just hit the old panic button and ran off to The Genius Bar. Cooler heads prevailed there, and once the OS updates were added in, every thing worked just fine.

A pretty slick little toy, once up and running, although it does have a few shortcomings. Not really liking the absence of a dedicated volume control, but that's not as hard to deal with as I had feared. Cover flow navigation is awesome as well as the wireless iTunes store. For some reason, I've found this particularly addicting and potentially expensive. Being able to purchase music and surf YouTube while on the can is something that could be life-changing, although this may qualify as TMI.

And who wudda' thought that surfing the internet on an interface the size of a business card would be acceptable, but the pinch and drag Safari browser isn't that bad. Not gonna' replace a laptop anytime soon, but pretty good if you're on the road and need to check e-mail or are otherwise just going through web withdrawal.

The big downside is that it's a bit buggy, which again is not something I would expect from an Apple product. I've had to do several restores on it in the short time I've had it, which isn't something that you should have to do. I'll be visiting The Genius Bar again soon. Maybe this is one time I should take the extended warranty?
|| JM, 11:59 AM

3 Comments:

Being able to purchase music and surf YouTube while on the can is something that could be life-changing, although this may qualify as TMI.

ALWAYS guaranteed a laugh here!
Blogger Mary, at 5:49 PM  
What is The Genius Bar?

I'm just happy you are still replying on my blog because I really enjoy your comments.

Have fun with your new toy and you're right about enjoying time spent in the can! When I had that job I hated, I played solitaire in the restroom on my cell phone and it was a nice break. HEHE.
Blogger Liz, at 6:56 PM  
The Genius Bar is the tech support center located at The Apple Store. It's staffed by people who are well trained and courteous, which is a significant feat considering some of the dumb-assed questions like mine that they have to answer.
Blogger JM, at 7:38 PM  

Post a Comment