Touch me

The wee ones had their 9 month/Easter pictures on Monday. This round went much better than our 6 month/Christmas visit, which was... draining. At any rate, our photographer of choice is currently Sears so after the pictures were taken, we grabbed some food (and I use the term loosely) at the food court in the mall and capped our evening off with a trip to the Apple store.

The reason for the visit was that Jen wanted a music player that would also show pictures. Well, if you want to show pictures, the iPod Touch with its large screen is the way to go. It also boasts a multitouch/gesture-based interface which makes my traditional mouse look no better than a rock on a string. Jen played with one in the store and was sold instantly.

The device itself is super thin, not nearly as fragile as it looks, and should be treated like crack cocaine. It speaks to some primeval part of my brain -- likely the same set of neurons that causes birds to collect shiny things. Turning it on is like coming home to a house smelling of pie and I feel like a part of me dies each time I'm forced to turn it off. I covet Jen's iPod touch, even if it is tainted with the genre known as Country.

Since we're a Linux household, I spent a significant amount of time Monday evening jailbreaking the device and installing the software necessary to allow us to upload music wirelessly. The whole process is still a bit clunky, but the capacity should minimize updates to the collection and I have opportunities for streamlining. Uploading photos still requires iTunes on my work laptop, but if we simply sync our entire photo collection then the need to sync should be minimized.

Jen has explored the system as time allows and has surprised me with her system knowledge and by setting up her own e-mail account. That a nontechnical user feels comfortable enough to explore without some sort of geek sherpa speaks volumes about the experience of using Apple's products. If they start making all computer equipment this easy to use, I'm going to be unemployed.