Finally Giving In

I have been a long-time fighter against Apple's victimizing marketing campaign. Remember that when everyone around was flocking to get a Mac or an iPod, I was the one who expressed the aloft indifference, and I go, "I don't have one of those. My good old Creative MP3 player only costs $30 bucks, and it's got FM radio."

Life has its interesting twist. This Thanksgiving, I've got my first iPod from my dear wife, the iPod Touch 4th Generation. Yes, I betrayed my own anti-iPod ideology, and joined the billions of others in this beauty movement. 80% of why I fell for the iPod touch is purely for its aesthetic form factor. Yep, I am that superficial. I truly believe that there are still many other similar devices out there that are functionally just fine, if not better, but they just don't look right. It's kind of like, when you date a super-model, you don't care about her intellectual side. There are still things that I took for granted, like playing regular video files such as avi, mpeg and etc., that are rendered to be quite difficult on the iPod touch, and we all know why. Apple won't make it easy for you to live without the iTunes store.

So immediately I loaded my pod with a bunch of apps, all free of course. Here are just a short list of what I've downloaded so far.

News: NYTimes, Economist, BBC News, NPR News
Social: Skype, QQ, Facebook
Reference: Dictionary.com, Wikipedia Mobile
Media: Todou.com, Pandora Radio
E-readers: iBooks, Stanza
Utility: Free WiFi Locator, Unit Convertor
Productivity: Evernote
Entertainment: Urbanspoon, Showtimes

Haven't got any games yet, but already found the apps store addictive. The next question is, how long will this enthusiasm last? Sure I will get bored one day, or by that time comes, some other cooler devices come out. But before that happens, I might feel compulsive to post some silly tricks or tips that I tinker on the new toy. So bear with me.