PigPog

If software is cheap enough, there’s very little reason not to buy it, if it’s useful to you. The main thing that puts me off at that point isn’t spending the money. It’s the time and effort taken to make the purchase, then enter a serial number and store it somewhere safe for the future.

It’s not really a problem I have with buying, so much a little friction in the process.

That’s what the iTunes store does. It removes that friction. I see an app I like the look of, I tap a button, then tap again to confirm. Moments later, i’m using the app.

That speed and simplicity makes me buy more software. Generally, I’m buying at a low price, but it’s easy, so I do it.

The one reason I didn’t want an iPod Touch is that there’s no way to connect to the Internet when you don’t have WiFi. Relying entirely on WiFi is probably fine in San Francisco, but not so great in Tiverton.

It doesn’t have Bluetooth, so connecting through my mobile phone was out. Until I happened on another answer – turn the phone into a WiFi hotspot. Here’s a post that explains how it’s done. You need a little app that turns the phone (works on lots of phones, not just my Nokia) into a WiFi router. Make sure you change the settings to make it secure, or other people can cost you a lot of money.

After that, run the app on the phone, and you can hide it in the background to leave the phone locked if you prefer. Let the iPod connect to the phone’s WiFi connection, and it thinks it as ‘real’ WiFi.

Not as convenient and easy as it should be, but it works, and now we have iPod Touches that can connect to the Internet wherever we are.

We are now happy owners of two iPod Touches – I went to Exeter’s Apple store yesterday to pick then up as Sam made her way back from Birmingham. So far, I’m very impressed. It’s a great little PDA, does games well, syncs nicely with the Mac apps, and it’s an excellent little browsing machine. With eReader, it’s also a very nice eBook reader.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it already, and I haven’t even pulled those white earbuds out of their wrapper yet.