Does any one have an IPod Touch?

[swiftman]

I debating on getting one.

How does jpod stuff look/work on it? Has anyone used the WiFi feature to come to this site?

also... does anyone think that 8GB is enough? 16 is obviously better... but would even 16 be enough for jpod materials as well as other stuff?

never owned an ipod or a zune... im asking those who are in the know.

[jemstone]

there was actually a thread about this somewhere in here. it is sad that the ipod touch does not have the "center button" feature that is part of the ipod classic and the nano.

i would say that the center button is a very critical feature as there are very useful and important notes written with the mp3s. if you check out a lesson on the ipod, you can press the center button a few times and you'll get to the notes page. unfortunately you can't get to that page if you're using the ipod touch.

also the ipod touch does not support long titles (which i recently found out). if you have an mp3 with a title that is very long and a critical difference is at the end of it, you won't get to see it. you can stare at the ipod touch for a very long time and the title will not start to scroll for you to read to the end.

i'm just highlighting the bad points that i know of. there are plenty of good points for you to own an ipod touch too. like the superb ui, the sleek look, the big screen. there are others i'm sure but can't recall right this moment.

[markystar]

you can view the pdf's with it!

i'm not sure about the line by line dialog in the learning center. but as mentioned, yeah, the "center button" to view lyrics doesn't work

so far, i'm not a fan of the iTouch or iPhone. they get all smudgy and greasy and dirty really quick. for the time being iPod with Video is still the king, imo.

[watermen]

you can view the pdf's with it!

i'm not sure about the line by line dialog in the learning center. but as mentioned, yeah, the "center button" to view lyrics doesn't work

so far, i'm not a fan of the iTouch or iPhone. they get all smudgy and greasy and dirty really quick. for the time being iPod with Video is still the king, imo.

I can't view the Japanese character in the PDF on my iPhone. It only work for a few lessons, but not most of them..

[Mike_in_Nano]

Hi Guys

I am pretty new here having moved to Japan from Taiwan (where I was learning Chinese via chinesepod.) This question came up there but not a very clear answer. With the ITouch can you view and zoom in on PDF files as well as on the dialogue. For me I will buy an ITouch in a moment if I could zoom up on the dialogue(so I can really see the Kanji) I asked in the Ginza Apple Store and they did not think so.

Can anyone confirm this?

[watermen]

Hi Guys

I am pretty new here having moved to Japan from Taiwan (where I was learning Chinese via chinesepod.) This question came up there but not a very clear answer. With the ITouch can you view and zoom in on PDF files as well as on the dialogue. For me I will buy an ITouch in a moment if I could zoom up on the dialogue(so I can really see the Kanji) I asked in the Ginza Apple Store and they did not think so.

Can anyone confirm this?

I don't have I touchpod, but I have iPhone, you definitely can zoom, I assume, but the PDF in my iPhone turn out to be blank....I can't see the character probably.

[swiftman]

well, i went to bestbuy... and i must say...

after looking at the zune, ipod classic, and the ipod touch...

the touch is on another level imo... i am just worried about functionality i guess... i want to be able to use it for all the pod casts and stuff from jpod.

also... do you guys think 16GB is enough? i figure it is since i read that someone put the whole first season of "Heroes" from NBC on it and still had room for music and other stuff.

also... is the lack of the center button really a big deal? would it drastically affect my ability to use and learn from jpod? or is it mostly just a convinience thing that on the ipod touch is more of just a multi step process as opposed to just hitting the center button.

i hope the ipod touch can do all this... as jpod will be the best supplement to my college course.

[jemstone]

or is it mostly just a convinience thing that on the ipod touch is more of just a multi step process as opposed to just hitting the center button.

oh the center button is not a shortcut for some multi steps process. for the classic, you need to press the center button to get to the lyrics screen. there's no other way to get there on the ipod. the lyrics screen is where the notes for the lessons are.

[swiftman]

darn.

so no way to get to notes...

i need to go to an apple store and check it out myself... as i dont have a frame of reference... since i have never owned an ipod classis...

do you think there will be a way to get there in the future with an update or something? or perhaps some apple people would be able to figure it out?

[jemstone]

not too sure... i've submitted an enhancement request for something like a center button to view lyrics on the ipod touch. hopefully there will be future enhancement for that.

the notes you can view it through itunes though.
right-click -> get info -> lyrics

and i'm not sure if you still need the notes if you have the accompanying pdf. i think the accompanying pdf might have more information than the notes.

[プチクレア]

I have classic Ipods, an Ipod Touch and an Iphone.

Wether you should get an ITouch really depends on what you want to do, and your environment :

- If you just want to listent to the lessons, watch the videos, read the notes but use the learning center at home, then get a classic Ipod; the Itouch doesn't have a "note" function, and thus it won't display any lyrics (or the Ilearning either), and the screen on the newest classic Ipods is big enough for sporadic video viewing in my opinion

- If you want a really on-the-go experience, that is, surfing the web, using the learning center, posting comments etc while you're away from home, you should go for the ITouch or Iphone. Lessons both audio and video work, it displays the pdfs (at least the newer ones; the pdfs that I checked and that did not display kanas or kanjis are at more than a year old; the grammar will work though, so you can always use the lesson transcripts in the learning center), and you can use the questions in the learning center too. Zooming in and out is very easy. I haven't checked the line-by-line audio. What's more, the ITouch has a very nice Japanese IME, which the Iphone still doesn't have (come on, Apple !).

BUT, you should remember that all those nifty features work on a WIFI network. If you don't have easy access to one, or only has access to paying WIFI, you might find yourself with a nice ITouch but no way to use it on the go, or you might end up paying quite a lot for it. I bought mine last october in the Shibuya Apple Store, mostly because I had left my computer in Paris and didn't have easy access to the internet; but as there isn't as many WIFI hotspots in Tokyo as in Paris, I really started using it when I came back to France.

Now I have an Iphone, which does all the same features (MINUS THE IME....) but can access the internet wherever I am even if there isn't any WIFI hotspot. I use it to listen to Jpod and Epod during my lunch break, to answer mails, to check my MIXI account.. but if there is a hotspot, I switch to the Itouch which is faster, and lets me write in Japanese.

As for how big an Ipod you should get, when you are accessing the podcast through WIFI you're not actually downloading them onto the Itouch (it doesn't donwload podcasts "for keeps"), so technically you can fill it with your music other than podcasts, and still have access to all the lessons on the Jpod site. I bought a 16Go, because I have lots of music and videos, and I thought my 8Go nano too small.

Hope this helps ....

[swiftman]

what a bad ass review!

i am going to get an itouch! mixi accessibility is a plus as well. i have tons of access to free wifi all over the place where i am so it will be good!

i do have one quick question though... how much battery life have you experienced when using wifi... i have heard from some that it is quite low and that they carry around the charger with them to surf for longer periods with the charger plugged in... has this been the case with you?

thanks so much for such a detailed review!

ども　ありがとう　ございます！！

[プチクレア]

I never had any problem with battery life. I can't really tell you how long it is, and I never spent more than 2 hours at a time surfing the net with my Ipod Touch, but that has never been a major issue. Comparing wifi surfing and edge surfing on the Iphone, I have the impression that wifi surfing doesn't use that much battery time. I guess the problem mostly comes from multi-tasking (surfing and listening to music at the same time)

I've checked line-by-line audio yesterday, and unfortunately it doesn't work, as it needs the flash plug-in, which at the moment can't be used on mobile Safari. There are rumors that in the new software updates for both Ipod Touch and Iphone it may be fixed...

One last thing...

If you want to listen to the podcast and read the pdf AT THE SAME TIME, you need to load the podcast from your computer Itunes onto the ITouch; while playing quicktime sequences online Safari won't let you see another page at the same time; you need to use the music feature

In order to access the audio and video files from Safari, you need either to click on the links on the home page (under "free content", "basic content" or "premium content"), or if you are in the learning center to use the "download entire lesson" command ("not "play now", "play in pop up" or"entire lesson audio" in the side bar as those use Flash)

And you will need Itunes on your computer to activate the IPod Touch before you can do anything with it, so you might want to download it first and check that it works. No Itunes, no activation !

[Jason]

I've had a 16GB iPod Touch since not too terribly long after they were released, and I've loved it ever since. My Nano and gen 5 iPods were good, but the usability of the IPT just blows them out of the water. It does smudge like Marky said, but it's not that hard to wipe it clean. My biggest gripe about it is that due to the lack of physical buttons I have to pick it up and look at it in order to do stuff like change volume, play/pause, ff, etc. I wish there was a home button shortcut for play/pause at least. That's a relatively minor gripe though. My other gripe used to be that it didn't come with all the apps that the iPhone did, but that's no longer an issue as of last week. It sucked to have to shell out $20 for the apps since I already had one, but I believe all new IPTs come with them all installed.

I believe I read that the newest firmware, 1.1.3, added support for displaying lyrics. But I haven't tried it myself since updating mine.

And you will need Itunes on your computer to activate the IPod Touch before you can do anything with it, so you might want to download it first and check that it works. No Itunes, no activation !

Um, I was pretty sure only the iPhone had to be activated to be able to use it at all, though you still need iTunes to transfer media to the IPT. But then again I got my IPT used.

[swiftman]

thanks everyone... FedEx delivered my 16gb today.

im excited to get started! If anyone has found cool resources to use with the touch do let me know.

as soon as i get my invisible shield on, im going to start messing around with it.