I have to intromit , I ’m a little defeated with one aspect of theiPhone . It ’s not the fact that it has n’t yet managed to wrick me into some sorting of instantaneous celebrity , nor that it did n’t preclude me from burning myself on the wassailer the other sidereal day , or even that it failed to embrace me in some sort of golden aura that would enable me to win friend and influence people . Then again , I did n’t really require it to do any of those things .
But I did expect Apple ’s legendary convergence gimmick to , well , converge some equipment , and the trueness is that almost three workweek after , I ’m still carrying around not only my iPhone , but my iPod too . I mean , wait just one darn secondly : Steve Jobs dub the iPhone the “ good iPod ever . ” Why would I possibly require anything else ?
Steve ’s not whole wrong . For many of its functions , the iPhone is the best iPod ever . Its television playback puts my fifth - genesis iPod with video to shame . I ca n’t imagine ever drop dead back to view video recording on my iPod — unless , that is , I want to utilise my iPod docking facility tohook it up to the TV . I do n’t do it very often , avowedly , but it ’s something my iPhone ca n’t do . And the iPhone has just enough of those oddity and defect to make it impractical as my master euphony histrion .
You see , I ’m one of those people who takes their iPod almost everywhere : When I take the air to the local cafe , or labour to the storehouse , or even sit around down to write this piece , I do it to a soundtrack . Ever since grow my first iPod back in 2001 , I ’ve seldom been without one by my side . And now , here I am , with two and I ’ll tell you this : it ai n’t twice as squeamish .
One job is theiPhone ’s much - abused headphone jack . Apple ’s included earbuds do n’t do it for me : I ’ve yet to find out a pair of earbuds that will stay in my ear without shove them far enough in to make them difficult to remove without the help of a prybar . I ’m currently on my third or fourth pair of Sony behind - the - fountainhead earpiece . Audiophiles will in all likelihood shiver at the thought , but hey , they⁏re cheap , and they exploit swell for my needs . Unfortunately , they also have a chummy , L - shape plug which simply refuse to fit in the iPhone ’s jack ( I have the same problem with the cassette tape adapter that I utilize in my auto , where I also have to contend with noise from the GSM radio causing a flinch - induce whimper on my stereophonic system ) . Now , I ’m not quite to the point in time where I want tostart shaving plastic off the quid . ( In both casing , I think that might demand a fair amount of surgical operation . )
My fellow Dan Frakes has already reviewed acoupleofadapterswhich would avail solve that job , but the one I ’m waiting for isShure ’s Music Phone Adapter , since it ’ll allow me really apply the phone feature as well . I also tend to keep my iPod in my pocket when I ’m using it , skipping through tracks by touch , so deliver some form of control that I can use without having to take the iPhone out , unlock it , switch caterpillar track , shut up it and put it back is essential .
forcible limitations are n’t the only trouble . While I ’m pretty far from fill up up my 30 GB iPod , I do have more medicine than can fit on the 8 GB iPhone . “ No problem , ” I can hear the masses clamor , “ just set up a playlist for it to sync with . ” I ’m totally with you , except that it leads forthwith into my next problem .
Like Macworld ’s own Jason Snell , I keep most of my medicine on my desktop Mac while using my MacBook as my basal computer . Jason ’s managed to get multi - computer syncing working , but it ’s clear a quirky process that does n’t always go as expected .
And , to bestow insult to metaphoric injury , my background Mac is run Panther , which is n’t even compatible with the iPhone . I ’d planned to upgrade it to Leopard , to take reward of Time Machine , but since Leopard is n’t shipping until October , I ’ll have to bear off on that . I could rise my background ’s thrust on my MacBook , and convince iTunes that it ’s my library , but that ’s a chip too much of a dogfight to go through every time I want to sync .
In the end , I pretend you could say that the thing really keep me from using my iPhone as my iPod is inertia . At the moment , there are just too many little basket for me to jump through ; it ’s easier to just stockpile around my iPod too . I ’m fair certain that I ’ll get around to converging these two devices at some point , but it may take a while . Just goes to show you that convergence does n’t always bolt down : In fact , sometimes it just reminds you how good something like the iPod is at the one thing it does .
