The scoop on iPods

Mon, 10/20/2008 11:22 AM  |  Sci-Tech

The iPod nano is an interesting small device that allows you to watch downloaded video and audio podcasts. Shown here is a Boing Boing TV interview with Star Simpson, the young MIT student mistaken for a suicide bomber at Boston Logan Airport. (JP/Zatni Arbi)

"I no longer complain about the traffic here," my colleague Vishnu Mahmud told me recently.

He just tells the driver where he wants to go and then sits back and watches the podcasts he has downloaded on one of his iPods

"There's a lot of great stuff that you can legally download free of charge," he told me.

No wonder he is always abreast with the latest technologies as well as the ways they open up new business activities: Instead of listening to music, he listens to news, reviews and interviews with industry experts.

Podcasts are actually MP3 files recorded and distributed through various channels, including Really Simple Syndicator (RSS), blogs and certain websites such as Apple's own iTunes.

Add video to the podcast and you have a video podcast that can be played back and watched on the iPod's small but vivid screen.

Courtesy of Apple Computers Singapore, I was recently able to play around with two of the iPod family members; the older version of iPod touch and the latest version of iPod nano.

Actually, Apple currently has four types of iPod; the iPod classic, iPod shuttle, iPod nano and iPod touch. Following Apple's tradition of being different, the product names are all in lower case.

The original iPod, like many of the other products from Apple Computers, created much excitement when it was launched in 2001. It had a clear purpose; to play back recorded audio files, particularly music files.

Today, it has evolved into a family of devices that handle more than just audio and video files.

Many even say that the iPod touch is a device that is still in search of an identity. What is it? Is it a PDA? Is it an entertainment device? It is clearly a multifunction device.

These are reasonable questions, as there is no way to connect it to the Internet except through a personal computer or Wi-Fi. If you add cell-phone capability to it, then it becomes an iPhone. That is why people also say that the iPod touch is an iPhone without the ability to make calls.

I found a couple of very useful features on the iPod touch besides its games. As I travel quite often, I really like language lessons. The demo unit I was playing around with had two of them -- German and French. The lessons let me listen to pronunciation using the headsets.

Neither the iPod touch nor the iPod nano has a built-in speaker; both use a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

As the name indicates, the iPod touch has a touch screen. There are only two buttons -- a power button and a button that takes you directly to the Home screen. The unit is also tap-sensitive: To select an item, just tap on the device twice.

In my test, the Wi-Fi immediately recognized my home Wireless LAN. Once it was connected to the Internet, Web browsing and emailing were straightforward.

The screen gets greasy quickly, so you need to have a piece of cloth on hand if you want to keep it spotless. A cover for the iPod touch can be purchased separately.

Both models have an accelerometer, which detects the orientation of the device's position. Place it horizontally in your hand, and the screen moves to landscape. Hold it upright, and the screen's orientation is portrait.

To demonstrate how the accelerometer works, the iPods have games that require the player to roll a ball from one end to the other just by tilting the devices.

The iPod nano, which comes in nine beautiful colors -- which gives it the name "iPod nano Chromatic" -- is very lightweight and has a portrait screen. Apple's focus on a captivating design is obvious in the iPod nano.

iTunes is also available for Indonesia, allowing customers around the world to purchase music by Indonesian artists.

An Indonesian-based company named EquinoxApps, led by Mark Hanusz, has been developing an application for the iPod touch and iPhone that is targeted for toddlers. The application is called KidsCards, and it is available on iTunes. It teaches everyday words using graphics images.

So, it seems that the iPods can be used by people aged one up to 100.

-- JP/Zatni Arbi

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