The iPod Touch, launched on 2007–09-05, is Apple’s attempt at provide a non-mobile alternative to the iPhone, made infamous for the removal of all editing ability from the calendar until firmware revision 1.1.2.
Notes:
Good Points:
- Now finally includes an e-mail client (as of firmware rev. 1.1.3, although it was considerably lame of Apple to demand early adopters to pay up for this)
- Half as thick as an iPhone
- The Skyhook location feature works in Lisbon. Creepy.
Bad Points:
- No Bluetooth support for audio or for dial-up networking via a decent phone
- No speakers. There’s a piezo clicker, but it would have been nice to have a simple speaker for showing videos and stuff without resorting to the earplugs
- Everyone I know with one complains of the battery life (and I do too)
- Mail client doesn’t cache inline images, even when they’re sent as attachments (you have to be online all the time, which is stupid)
Owner Info:
Since the device has no support for an “Owner Info” screen, I created a wallpaper specifically for that purpose, using measurements gleaned from iPhoneMinds:
Feel free to change this for your own purposes in any editor that suits your fancy and sync it to the device. Besides a photo, there’s plenty of room for contact information.
Some design notes:
- Helvetica Bold works very well for phone numbers, making them very readable.
- The colors were chosen to work well with the tinted overlays from the clock and slider:
- The top becomes a neutral, informational navy blue
- The bottom turns into a mossy green that reinforces the point that it’s how you gain access to the device
You can, of course, fool around with coloring to suit your own tastes, but gradients are, in general, a bad idea – the tinted overlays will mess them up, and in this case you want the text to be readable under pretty much any conditions…
Bugs:
| Issue | Description |
|---|---|
| #5748499 | Hidden/Protected Web Gallery Albums are inaccessible on iPhone and iPod Touch – the Mobile Safari redirects are broken for hidden albums (you can get there, but only by manually tweaking the URL) |
Resources:
Here’s a shot of the factory diagnostics screen (via Engadget):
