John Lamansky

Yes, they did it. Many of us figured this was coming. And wow, is it amazing.

The thing that blew me away the most is that the “iPod touch” has Wi-Fi web browsing using the same Safari browser found in the iPhone. And it has other iPhone features like the touch interface, the YouTube browser, and Cover Flow (the last of which has also been ported to the “iPod classic,” as it’s now called, and the iPod nano).

It has just about everything the iPhone has except the phone functionality. Which would work for me, since I already have an existing cellphone and cellular plan. However, public Wi-Fi is pretty scarce where I live, and of course I wouldn’t be able to browse the Internet with AT&T’s EDGE network.

One more gripe about the iPod touch: its maximum storage space of 16 GB looks wimpy compared to the cheaper iPod classic’s 160 GB. I know, I know, it’s because it has flash memory, but would it really be worth it to get an iPod that’s more expensive and has one tenth the storage space of another iPod? I guess those iPod touch features come at a high premium.

But still, if I were to get a new iPod, it would probably, just barely, be the iPod touch. 16 gigs would be a tight fit for my music, photos, videos, and podcasts, but it sure would be nice to be able to browse the web, assuming I could find a hotspot.

And plus, the iPod touch is just cool.

I’ve been considering an iPod purchase recently, and I noticed that Amazon has cut prices on the 5.5 generation iPods by about $13 for the 30GB version and $18 for the 80GB.

So yes, this is only a 5% discount, but I thought this was of note because I’ve rarely seen iPods below the standard retail price. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the iPhone announcement had something to do with it, considering the recent buzz about how it might impact iPod sales.

According to a Catholic News Service article, employees from Vatican Radio have presented Pope Benedict XVI with a specially-loaded iPod nano to honor the pope’s first visit to the Vatican Radio broadcasting headquarters.

Now that Vatican Radio offers podcasts in eight different languages, the pope has the technological capability to plug in and import the radio’s audio files.

[…]

Though the white iPod nano is tiny, it still made an impression on the pope. When the head of the radio’s technical and computer support department, Mauro Milita, identified himself and handed the pope the boxed iPod, the pope was said to have replied, “Computer technology is the future.”

The pope’s new 2-gigabyte digital audio player already was loaded with a sampling of the radio’s programming in English, Italian and German and musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. The stainless steel back was engraved with the words “To His Holiness, Benedict XVI” in Italian.