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The personal site of Jamie Knight, an autistic web developer, speaker and mountain biker who is never seen far from his plush sidekick Lion. View the Archive

Topics: Autism Development

iPod Touch Mini Review.

I was given an iPod touch via work about a month ago. I needed a mobile device for work and an iPod touch seemed ideal. It can access my email, be used for shooting an editing video and also for writing, slack etc.

Finally, it can also run the speech generation software i use when i cannot speak and it can be used for testing sites and app in Voiceover.

I’m really impressed with this little iPod. The biggest thing to impress me has been the usability for writing and its performance.

The iPod touch is the same physical size as an iPhone 5 which means i find it very very easy to type on. Ive been using screens this size for almost 5 years.

I am still faster with a physical keyboard, but curled up on the sofa on the iPod touch or my phone is much more comfortable.

I like to try and keep emails etc short, so i find doing the first filter of my emails on the iPod touch works well. I also am getting into the habit of writing more notes. Some of the notes will go on to become blog posts.

The iPod touch is really fast, in CPU terms is faster than many Macs i have owned. Its about 60% faster than my first 2010 MacBook Air.

Thats insane levels of performance considering the size and cost of the iPod. Especially considering it is running a much nicer higher resolution screen.

The iPod touch can juggle spreadsheets that my old MacBook Air struggled with. It’s hard to know if thats purely a hardware things, or if part of the smooth performance is due to software. Either way its might impressive and gives a great user experience.

The iPod touch is a lovely device to hold and use, i like the rounded edges. When holding it you just want to touch it and feel it. Or at least i do anyway.

The only negative thing i have seen is battery life. The iPod touch seems to need charging far more often than my iPhone does. I guess this is due to a smaller battery but i am not sure. I charge it overnight, and it normally needs a top up charge doing the day.

Beyond the normal uses, the iPod touch also helps my confidence. I cannot speak much at the moment, so having two different methods of generating speech always available to me is great for my confidence.

I would recommend it as an awesome device. Its much cheaper than an iPhone, and for £23 a month you can pair it with a Three 4G hotspot and get 20gb of data too.

Overall i am amazed at how productive i can be on such a small device.

Published: 25 February 2016 | Categories: , Permalink

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