The Good

1. App Store – The ability to legitimately get third party applications onto your iPod Touch/iPhone is an awesome advancement in the iPhone and iPod revolution.  It looks like there’s endless possiblilties for the iPod or does it?

2. Ability to save pictures – Hold an image for a few seconds on Safari and it gives you the option to send the picture or save it to the photos application.  This is very handy.

3. Ability to take screenshots – Hold down the two physical buttons on the iPod Touch together in a clicking fashion and a picture of your screen will be saved to the photos application.  Handy for developers I reckon, so people can take photos of crashes or when things go wrong.

4. Janurary Software Upgrade Patch Included – Handy for people who didn’t have it but if I had paid for it back in Janruary I would have been pissed that I had to pay again for an update.  I got two updates for the price of one.

The Bad

1. My iPod keeps crashing and songs keep skipping – I am fully aware it has limited CPU and RAM but on more than one occasion when I have been listening to music and running just one app, it has crashed and I have had to manually reset it.   I never had to reset my iPod Touch pre-update.  The iPod skipping music as well reminds me of the horrible things they called compact discs.  The album artwork view is super slow as well.  Safari crashes loads as well.

2. Paying For Apps – The web-based ones like facebook, google etc. make the site easier to view but viewing them in Safari would suffice.  I would be very angry if I were the folk who coded the jailbreak software because they gave apple some great ideas.  It’s an absolute farce though to have to pay for some of the software when it’s not worth it.  I have yet to purchase any games for the iTouch but in the past they have been awkward and super battery drainers.  I think the apps is more of a novelty at this stage than anything else.  Let’s hope iTunes doesn’t give up selling songs and movies ;).

3. iPod Dock Behaviour – My iPod Dockdoesn’t have the same compatability with my iPod Touch on firmware 2.0.  For example, when I press sleep on the remote for the Dock, it doesn’t put my iPod to sleep.  It also seems to bypass the password on occasions too.  Apple aren’t to blame for this one though.

4. Incompatability with Last.fm – I have serious trouble trying to get my songs to Scrobble, I have to use iSproggler which works at it’s own will seemingly.

5. No copy/paste function – In computer history, copy and paste is like when the monkeys at the start of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ decided they can use a bone for practical things.  Copy/Paste is as necessary to computers/IT as a keyboard/keypad is!

The iPod Touch/iPhone still has a long way to go to replace internet browsing the old fashioned way.  It also has a long way in terms of making apps that are worthwhile.

Apps I’d like to see:

- A last.fm scrobbler (last.fm were denied this because apple won’t let programs run in the background, only their own like mail)

- On Windows, you press Ctrl+Alt+Del to see what the hell is going on and close any apps that are going to make your system explode and gives you ability to close them, firmware 2.0 should have this or something like it.

- Windows Live Messenger Client – I don’t see Microsoft developing this any time soon as a third party app or giving Apple permission to release it.

- A Digg.com application

Colin Meloy Sings Live!
(Wikipedia Article)

I discovered Colin Meloy fairly recently and within a month or so he had moved to my most listented to artists on my iTunes.  My first encounter was his 2005 EP  when he covers 6 Morrissey songs in an acoustic set.

I am an obsesso-face, self proclaimed Smiths fan and went to experience Morrissey in Cork in June 2008.  I had just gotten to know The Smiths in the previous months which led me to Morrissey’s back catalogue which is quite extensive so I didn’t know where to start listening with him.  I wanted to sing along at the concert.  I assumed that Meloy would play the most popular Morrissey songs to prep me for the concert but the EP was more of a mix of rare B-Sides and featured just two popular songs.  The two songs which were most known were ‘Sister, I’m a Poet” and “Everyday is like Sunday.”  The latter which Morrissey played at the Cork Gig in June.  It was a good starting point for getting to know Morrisey post-Smiths.  The success of this EP led to Meloy recording and releasing two more cover EPs Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins & Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke.

‘Colin Meloy Sings Live!’ is a collection of The Decemberist’s songs & other material from Meloy which were recorded at live shows in 2006.  The Decemberists are an extremely popular folk/rock band from the USA who have enjoyed tremendous success.  The Live! Album is a great starting point if you wish to get into ‘The Decemberists,’ as it features some of their best songs like ‘The Engine Driver,’ ‘We Both Go Down Together’ & ‘On The Bus Mall.’

One of the things that I like about the album is that with the longer songs on the album, he tends to add in samples of favourite songs of his own  ‘Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect’ features a few bars from Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams,’ & ‘California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade’ which tends to drag on for a bit (although I really like the song) finishes with an almost full cover of ‘Ask’ by The Smiths.  Another feature about the album which I really like is Meloy’s introductions to the songs because it gives the album a very personal touch.  The audience participation in the songs as well always comes at the right times and unlike other live albums, there is no screeching, whistling or any background noise at all, only when Meloy commands it so.

This album is a gem.