When I received the shipped box it my hand, I was surprised. It was so very small, and when I opened it up, I saw a very small case, almost the full size of the shipping box, and was wondering if I had ordered the OEM version or something, as it felt like my iPod Touch was missing lots of stuff. Then I struggled to get the plastic case open before realizing that Apple had put an arrow pointing to how to open the whole thing, and its USB cable, headphones and dock adaptor fell in my lap. There was also a small, tightly wrapped tube of felt, which when opened, unravelled to be a small microfiber cloth.

I checked out the quick install instructions and found out that I needed to update my iTunes to the latest version, go figure. The iPod almost feels like a toy. It is wider than the Flip Ultra, a video camera on the go that many bloggers love and that I recently received, but thinner and close to the same overall length. It is very surprising to experience how small it is, despite having played with other people’s iPhone a few times in the past.

Once iTunes was updated, I plugged it in and went through the “installation” pages in iTunes to make sure it was set up properly with my computer. Turning on the iPod, I realized it had a full battery and was ready to go. There is nothing worse than getting a new gadget and realizing that you have to wait overnight to be able to use a shiny new gadget.

Looking at this from a blogger perspective, I laughed at the home screen of the device. Movies, music, etc… Who would need any of these things? I quickly moved all of the things that I felt were non-essential to the second page, leaving the home page more than half empty for me to add in applications that would help me in my day to day blogging.

Over the next few weeks, I will be going over the included applications, applications I have downloaded from the App Store, and my continued thoughts on the overall device. I will also be researching the jail breaking process and if it provides a better extended application experience.

For all of you not interested in these posts, I will be spreading them out over a long period of time, so that I keep pushing out great blogging related content over the coming weeks, and I will be covering Blog World Expo next week, so expect a fair number of posts on that event both during and after it runs.

Donators

Thanks again to everyone listed below for their help in reaching my goal of getting an iPod touch. I now have one, and can start convincing all of you to buy one too.

Ryan Caldwell of College Crunch
Mark Wood, My Cousin
Jeff Chandler of Jeffro2pt0
Chris Garrett of Authority Blogger
Yan Fortin of Geeks are Sexy

Originally posted on September 13, 2008 @ 3:59 pm