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Last weekend, I got myself a 16 GB iPod touch. Managed to get a nice rebate on it. They look a bit like the incredibly over-hyped iPhone, but without the chrome rim and about half as thin. That’s only a mere 8 mm. It’s a good thing it feels quite sturdy, otherwise I’d be seriously concerned about snapping it in two… So, this is what it looks like when displaying its home screen:

Apple iPod touch

So, Ive been playing with this gem for a week now, and it’s incredible! The multi-touch interface really is as amazing as Apple claims it is. The sound is of the quality I’d expect from an iPod, and video just looks gorgeous. It’s a shame that it only supportys H.264 encoding for video, but then again, having to recode a movie specifically for it does have its advantages. I can optimize the result for the iPod’s screen resolution, which brings an hour of video down to less than 450 MiB while keeping good quality. Not too bad.

I have jailbroken the device, but that caused it to be so unstable that I’ve restored it within an hour. I’ll just wait for the App Store that Apple says will open up in June. And it is of course still mainly a portable media player, and when it comes to that, it performs like a champ.

Last Friday, I installed Leopard, the sixth major release of Apple’s Mac OS X.

After 2 days of playing around with it, all I can say is: Incredible! Not only is it notably faster than Tiger (Leopard’s predecessor), its new features are simply fantastic. Of course, I’ve used things like backup software (Time Machine) and virtual desktops (Spaces) before, but somehow, Apple always manages to implement things just a little more streamlined and polished than the rest.

I’m very happy, and Leopard once again remembers me why I love OS X so much.

Today I received my new aluminum Apple Keyboard. I knew it would type very comfortably, because it has the same kind of keys that my MacBook has. And on top of that, it’s just gorgeous. It does have a wire, but with a keyboard that’s not really a problem since I have it laying on my lap most of the time. And with the included extension cable, it easily reaches far enough.

For those who don’t already know what it looks like, this is it:

Aluminum Apple Keyboard

Since a week or two ago my 20 GB 4th generation iPod died, I needed something else. As temporary substitute my phone (a Nokia N73) did nice, but a phone just isn’t designed to be an MP3 player. An iPod is. It just sounds better (with proper ear pieces).

Back in late 2004, when I bought my previous iPod, my music collection was about 3.5 GiB, so that left me with the choice of going for an iPod mini with 4 GB, or 3.81 GiB, which would barely hold all my music, or to go for the 20 GB iPod. I decided on the latter.

Now, my collection has grown by a little more than 2 GiB, totaling 5.85 GiB. So now I didn’t have to go for a bulky large iPod with a screen that’s far too big (I have my Palm T|X to watch movies on the go). The black iPod nano comes with 8 GB, or 7.45 GiB.

That leaves me with almost 2 GiB of growing space. Looking at the expansion of my collection the past 3 years, that means another year or 2. After that, we’ll see what happens.

Oh, and it’s definitely worth the name “nano”. Boy is it small. Here’s a comparison with my Apple Remote:

Apple iPod and Apple remote

The new white earbuds are still of inferior quality. They don’t even come close to actually utilizing the full potential of an iPods capabilities. But that’s easily remedied with some quality earbuds from Sennheiser, the MXL51 Street.