Notes In The Margin

I picked up a couple new toys this weekend. One, in particular, I'm very fond of. I got an iPod Touch, for use as my primary PDA, calendaring, note-taking, mobile computing thingy. Overall, I'm *way* impressed with it. It's quite a feat of engineering.

What I found frustrating about it from the very beginning - even before I had one - was the lack of availability of third-party applications for it. Granted, it's a very young device. I had a Palm device more than 10 years ago, and even then there were hundreds of third-party apps for Palm. Now there are thousands. And for the iPod, I can't find any.

Now, I know there are some, and that you can install them if you install hackish jailbreak software on the iPod. And, I'll probably do this. But I find it perplexing that a company as savvy as Apple would choose to release a device that didn't from day one, make it easy for third-party companies and hobbyists to provide apps for it. Nothing inspires device loyalty like an app that fills just exactly the need that you have. And, frankly, the default apps on the iPod are unimaginative. And ... duh ... no games. Who thought that made sense? At least put solitaire on here. Sheesh.

Having said that, the ease of use of the device, and the obviousness of use, impress me. There's never a doubt of what you're supposed to do to accomplish what you want.

One other complaint, I guess. The networking hides just a little too much detail from me. I needed to know my MAC address this afternoon, so that I could add the device to the permit list on my parent's 802.11 AP, and I couldn't find it anywhere. It's one of the Linksys devices, and I had to pick my device out of a list of other devices that had tried to access the AP, presumably neighbors, and I just couldn't do it in the time I had available.

Oh, well, mostly thumbs up, and I imagine I'll like it more, the more I rely on it.