I've made it no secret, I bought an Apple iPod Touch two weeks ago. I bought the Touch for three reasons, namely to,
- replace my paper based DayTimer which I've been using for over 20 years
- learn something Apple without having to spend $1500 on a Mac (yet but read the next point)
- learn how to create iPhone/Touch apps
As you can see, the first objective was to get rid of my current PDA and it was going great until the start of the 2nd week. It was then I realized the Contact Management was lacking, in fact, it was just not trustworthy. What I mean is, I would enter contacts with birthdays and anniversaries, and I was never sure if Calendar events would be created. Worse, I was never sure if the correct synced events would be created in Outlook when I synced my Contacts and Calendars. Long story short, since this was my primary reason for getting a Touch and everything else was secondary, if it can't do THAT, then it's gotta go back.
As for the other two objectives, well, I started on those as well! I bought two iPhone books and even got a Mac VM up and running to continue with Objective-C and iPHone app creation. Had things have gone smoothly, I was planning on getting a real iMac to do more iPhone apps. In fact I had brainstormed 17 iPhone app ideas! Ya, 17! Sure, chances are low I would have made any significant amount of money, but that wasn't the point. Remember the first words of point 2 and 3, "learn" I wanted to learn more!
Apprently some people reading my blog feel I'm a little TOO Windows biased. HHHmmmm Yup, guilty as charged! But what they don't realize is, I come across this honestly! I've GOT my Java certification! I've done Sun SCO Unix administration courses, I've run a Linux web server for four years running six J2EE/JSP websites of off MySQL! I've used Apple computers in university AND done UNIX at university for five years! I across my love for MS honestly! No, I don't think MS is perfect, but neither is anyone else.
I'm sorry for all the Apple/iPhone/Touch fans out there who think I'm nuts, but this is how I feel (and yes, there are many fans, including the guy at Best Buy processing my return) . In my specific "use case scenario's" the Touches' sycning functionality just didn't cut it for me. I know someone's going to say I just didn't try hard enough......hhhhhmmmmm gggggrrrrrr I was working on these issues for two weeks, from 7PM to 2 (and sometimes 3) AM!!!! Yes, I spent 7+ hours a night for two weeks straight!!!!!!!! So this is NOT for a lack of effort.
Please understand, this is NOT an attack on Apple, it's just one person's opinion. Read my other blog posts, I've been spending countless hours on this and I have a few specific scenarios where I can make this break. I'm not going to try/get/buy/use MORE tools just to satisfy my primary objective when that tool should be able to do it itself. Sorry. This is how I feel, this is nothing against Apple, Touch, iPhone, or anyone personally. This is my personal opinion, it didn't work for me. It works for countless of other people, just not me. And that's ok.
Yes, the games are great! The wifi connectivity is AWESOME, and yes I will miss that! Just last night, as I pulled out my netbook, my wife asked me if I missed my Touch....for the connectivity, I was disappointed to not have it. But I had 14 days (according to Best Buy's refund policy), to evaluate/judge/decide if the device suited my needs, and unfortunately it didn't.
So, now that I'm back to my paper DayTimer, it's time to grab a coffee and get coding!
PS SG told me Apple just HATES if when people talk about Mac OS running in a VM. HAHA I LOVE being told I CAN'T do something (especially on my own blog where I'm not making any money off of it and I'm doing just to share experiences). Here's an example of my i7 running a Mac VM in VMWare! Very cool! Oh, and another screen cap, even better cause it's of my desktop, is over on this link.
