More reasons I like my iPod Touch

I don’t own a cell phone. Have only had one, once, and for a very short span of time and doubt I’ll ever own one again. I don’t understand people walking, driving, and standing at counters, talking and texting away on their little devices. In truth, I find it annoying.

But…

I consider myself a tech geek. And so last year I bought an iPod Touch… I’ve posted about it before and overall I really like the damn thing. There are things I hate about it — so much of its media is locked in and has DRM, the device is sealed and discourages hacking, you can only develop Apps for it from a mac, Apple exerts too much control and has a very unreasonable developer license, and so on. These annoy me and I avoid buying DRM media content from it with the exception of the occasional missed television episode.

Sidenote — I’d love to check out an Android device and become an evangelist for that instead of Apple; Google is much more *open* in regards to development and I’d like to build apps for a mobile device (don’t own a Mac, sorry Apple) but I really can’t justify purchasing another toy. I’m a huge fan (and shareholder of) Google and feel far more inclined to support them than Apple, which is increasingly turning out to be Evil Inc.

Anyways.

The other week when our youngest was in the hospital I took the day shift. He was under quarantine and couldn’t leave his room, which consisted of a bed and medical stuff. So we really had nothing to do. But I had our iPod touch. During the next six hours or so I was there with him we were able to:

• Listen to music
• Watch a handful of cartoons, some bought, most converted from television recorded on my laptop
• Use the “I Hear Ewe” app, which allowed him to click on various animals and vehicles and hear them make noise
• Read a comic
• Play airhockey
• Practice saying sounds with the pocketphonic app
• use the Dinosaurs app to identify dinosaur pics
• Play around with iSeismo
• Build a Martian
• Paint
• Roll dice
• And when he went down for a nap I continued to read the novel Makers

Not bad for a device that fits inside my pocket!