iPodTouch: Review and Assessment

I have had a few days now to play around with a 4th generation iPod Touch (the one with cameras) running on the latest version of iOS and quite honestly, my resulting opinions are rather astonishing compared to public opinion. From what I hear, most people think of Apple as a great company with which their products are always top quality and work perfectly and are wonderful. I found none of this at all.

HARDWARE:
     I don't see why people say Apple hardware is the best. This may just be user opinion but from my time with the device, trying to press keys was very awkward with how they placed them. Every time I would hit a volume key the thing would pop out of my hand from having to push so hard on the angled side. The cameras are absolutely dreadful and I honestly think I get better quality from my DS. There is no flash for the camera either so a lot of pictures just suck flat out. This is just going over aesthetics, later on I will get into the internals and how underpowered they are. The screen was very nice and I do give credit for this. Very crisp images even despite having to use a Zagg protector thanks to the lack of Gorilla Glass or some other protective screen coating. I really wish the company would stop with their aluminum backs though as they get scratched up so quickly and attract finger smudges like crazy. It just takes away from the appeal of a slick device.

HARDWARE OVERALL:
     Alright so you have heard me rant and here's my final opinion. Button placement is horrible on this device and if you aren't holding it in your right hand, pressing the buttons (especially volume keys) can lead to nasty results. Whoever decided to angle the buttons with the back was stupid as all this does is press the device up and out of your hand. The screen scratches way to easily along with the back so without a protector or case you can expect the lifespan to decrease drastically. Good points? Not many but the screen is definitely nice and I do love the stiff click when you press a button.



SOFTWARE:
    Apple and their iOS5 is oh so very revolutionary with its notification center (exactly like Android's) and Multitasking (like Android's) and other features like Wireless sync (like Androids and copied from a developer without any credit) but how does it run? Crappy. On the 4th generation touch there is just so much lag that the device is useless. The user has to constantly free up space and end running apps just to use something else. I get way better use out of my Android devices which never really slow down unless I run some seriously heavy apps in the background. With this iPod even opening up the music app slows everything down. This truly baffles me though as my friend with a 3rd gen gets reliably fast use. I feel the problem is in the 256MB of RAM Apple so generously included. This isn't nearly enough memory to do simple tasks especially when you include such a great processor.

SOFTWARE OVERALL:
    I like notification center and I like multitasking if only because it makes me feel more at home to my Android devices but the problem here is that they don't work even half as good as the competition. The hardware was built to be bad and so the software is running horribly. I won't even get into how confusing and stupid some of the services are.

OVERALL:
    Overall, Apple has lost a customer because this is just one of the worst devices I have ever tried. My original Droid wasn't as laggy as this and that thing lagged some sort of bad. Never again Apple, never again.

SOLUTION: If the company would take some time to work out issues I wouldn't have to write this article. iOS5 is not ready yet they push it to everyone and the hardware is so far behind the times it can't run the most simple tasks. If they would just add a decent amount of RAM we might get somewhere.