Living with OS3 on the Ipod Touch

It's time to come clean and admit I was wrong: I'm pretty disappointed with the improvements in Apple's recent revision of the operating system on the iPod Touch and iPhone. I was pleased to see various features, like search and cut & paste, but for me the killer app was bluetooth: I wanted a BT keyboard and headset so I could really use the Touch a bit like a mini PC for proper typing and get more from it as an audio device. I'd also hoped it would open the door to other 3rd party hardware like GPS modules, or even sensors for science experiments (at school the science team are currently testing some bluetooth sensors for a local firm that makes them).

Sadly, I've used search once, and copy and paste not at all: it's just too fiddly.

The crucial factor, though, is that bluetooth is completely crippled. It only supports audio out, not even allowing use of the microphone on a headset let alone other peripherals.

Looks like I might have to bite the bullet and go for an iPhone, or perhaps Apple have done enough with this (and potentially with their possible refusal to sanction Spotify in the App Store) to drive me to another solution. Anyone for Android?

Ipod Touch

I love my Ipod Touch and today went looking for a free blogging app. This post is therefore being written with Lifecast! It was dead easy to configure with Blogger an option from the start-all I had to do was enter the username and password. So, it's free, easy to use and gets the job done: I recommend it.

I'll write a proper post at some stage about the Ipod touch - it really is a brilliant device and OS3 looks likely to bring some killer features like Copy and Paste and bluetooth: the latter would enable an external keyboard which would really remove the need for me to even consider a netbook.

I can see us looking at the Touch (or even Iphones) at school for SLT. We already all use Outlook for email and calendars (but don't share our calendars properly) and Itunes is happy to sync with Outlook; we also have mobile phones so we can ring each other in emergencies. As we've got wifi I could see us using something like the touch to access web apps like the school review / lesson observation system I wrote (which I'll share with you in a future post). This would be much more unobtrusive than a laptop but would save people typing in their written notes later.

Do you have an Iphone or Ipod Touch in use in school? I'd love to hear if others are using these devices already...