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If you recall, I purchased an iTouch. This, oddly, is our third apple product. Lisa, Nora and two Micro Center dudes used peer pressure into getting me to purchase one. Here are some thoughts on it.

The device itself: it’s enclosed in a rubber silicone/plastic case, which not only protects it but disperses the heat that it generates. That’s a huge plus and increased the likability of the product. It also has the screen protector, which even when really smudged the screen is perfectly readable. So that’s plus 2 from my initial impression.

Built in software: the mail app for whatever reason started working pretty well after I set it to push email every 30 minutes. The music and video apps work well – I’ve watched a few tv shows on it and I’ve taken to downloading podcasts and listening to them at work/in the car.

That being said, Safari crashes with more than three tabs open and the mail app crashes if I go through my inbox too quickly (read, delete, read, delete, crash).

I’d consider myself a medium level power user. At this point in life I’m not too picky. I find the features and options of the first party apps lacking. The mail app has no option to disable opening the next message after reading the first, and there’s no way to delete without opening the email itself. Because of the aforementioned safari app crashing, I’m somewhat stuck. I’m looking into alternatives, but the draconian apple policy is making the search fruitless.

App store: one of the reasons that really drove me personally to even consider this device was the app store. I figured that with the draconian and rigorous process with by which apps are included in the store would uphold the quality of said apps.

Not a chance. Of the 200K apps in the store, a vast number of them are just pure garbage. And I don’t mean things like the ‘fart app’ – I mean they’re buggy and broken. I honestly can’t tell what it takes to get an app into the app store, and apparently a lot of developers don’t know either.

I jailbroke my device to install two apps on it: ScummVM and the Google Voice Mobile app.

Third party apps: there’s something for everyone, and this is where it shines. Obviously I have my collection of work related and play related apps; so does Nora. The interface is designed for her to use: slide to move through screens, tap to select an app. Lisa periodically plays a scrabble-esque game called “Words with Friends” and religiously plays another word game called “Moxie”. Personally, I’m certain she’d buy an iphone just for Moxie.

Gaming on the device is a mixed bag, though if the GTA:CW app is any indication, it’s only because not enough devs have the imagination or resources to develop properly on the device. I’ll get into what I have on my device in a moment.

Opera is shaping up to be a great web app. Unfortunately, it’s still slow and it doesn’t take advantage of other apps in the device (like clicking a video doesn’t take you to the youtube app). If it did do that, Apple would certainly take it out of the app store.

Battery life: the thing needs to be tethered/charged daily. I mentioned before that I wish they made it thicker to incorporate a bigger battery.

Overall: I’m still on the fence with it. I’ve more or less conceded that it’s Lisa’s and that I would periodically play with it. But for the loss of my Treo 650 I’d continue to leave it at home as I always did, but now I’m carrying around a Voyager VX8300 ‘dumb phone’ and I sold all my other PDAs, so I’m kind of stuck with it.

Nora really like it. It’s loaded with videos for Nora to watch and learning apps for her to play. She’s even taken to playing some of my apps – she likes ‘Angry Birds’ and is really into playing ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ with me. She’s actually very good at it! I help her pick the plants, and she plants them and she catches the sunlight.

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Sites I visit daily:

Touch Arcade: it has lots of stories and previews of apps. The forums are great for honest reviews of apps and games.

App Shopper: I check this every few hours. This site has made other sites like FAAD, FGotD and AG redundant. Not only that, but it’s easier to use than the iTunes app store.

Free App a Day, Free Game of the Day, and Appgratuites.

FAAD is just as it sounds, though it is a bit game heavy. FGotD is sponsored by OpenFeint, which is kind of like xbox live for the iphone. AG is the french version of FAAD, but the apps there tend to be of much higher quality. All the stuff that appears free on these sites appear on app shopper, but it’s nice to see reader reviews too.

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My favorite apps:

The Google App, which is especially useful to have by our side when watching DWTS. Pandora, the streaming music app. Dictionary, ebay, craigspro, Sparkpeople (diet and training app) and wordpress.

For Nora: Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (99c). Kiwitiki, which I also love. You’re a bird who collects flowers. It’s a beautiful game with a great soundtrack and it’s for young and old alike. Nora can idly run and jump to collect flowers, and as a power gamer you can score combos for higher scores.

For Lisa: Words with Friends free and Moxie; the latter was provided by FAAD and it’s amazing fun.

Finally, the games.

I purchased Asphalt 5 for $5. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. I purchased it because I have ‘kind of fond’ memories of playing Asphalt Urban GT in St. Martin while Lisa was laid up and sick; this isn’t that. It’s buggy (see above) and quite too easy.

Alright, with that out of the way: X2 Football 2k9 (2k10 is supposedly amazing), angry birds, plants vs. zombies, battle of wesnoth (99c, over a dozen scenarios, well over 60 hours of gameplay AND you can sync your saves to play on the desktop), PandaMania (this grew on me, it’s like Angry Birds), StarPagga, and Auditorium.

I’m putting aside some money to buy GTA:CW; the lite version plays flawlessly.

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That’s it in a nutshell.

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