You know what I do whenever I have gadget envy? I give an existing gadget that’s close enough to the one I’m lusting over a nice little makeover, and then I try and convince myself that what I have is good enough - if not better - than what I was originally making eyes at. It works for the most part… until I drunkenly smash the thing. But that’s only happened to me a couple of times in my entire gadget history, so I’m not going to beat myself up about it

Right now my gadget envy is focussed on the iPod touch. All the journos I know that have one are thinking about buying one. I suspect that the courier tried to deliver my iPod touch review unit on Friday, but given that I wasn’t home, I was unable to take receipt of this wondrous new toy.

But I don’t need to see it to know I want it. I had my first “iPhone experience” last Thursday (as did Mitchell, coincidentally - it was the first time he and I met face to face!) when a fellow journo showed me his hacked one. Absolutely breathtaking! The touching, the swiping, the pinching (er, with the iPhone, not with any other parties!) - it was all so slick and impressive. But I’m not touching an iPhone without 3G.

The Touch, on the other hand, is something I can really see myself using. Perhaps someone would consider trading me an iPod Touch for an 80GB iPod video (black), 30GB Microsoft Zune (brown) and 60GB Creative Zen Vision:M? The sad thing is I’m entirely serious.

At the moment I’m fixating on the Zune as my “it’ll-have-to-do” device. It doesn’t have the eye-catching menu system of the Zen or the large capacity of the iPod and ease-of-use of iTunes, but it does have something that no Apple player to date has offered: a subscription music service. For a monthly fee, I can download all I want, and the service encourages me to try new music that I wouldn’t ordinarily try if I had to pay per album. A good example - just now I downloaded the latest Foo Fighters, Keyshia Cole and Will.I.Am albums.

What I’m p*** o**ed about is that Microsoft still hasn’t done anything halfway decent with the WLAN in the Zune. It was ahead of its time as a concept, but helloooo, where’s the wireless access to the Zune Marketplace? I cannot believe that Apple pipped Microsoft at the post on this with the iPod Touch and iPhone, when the Zune was released, what, almost a year ago?? (November 14 2006, to be precise.)

I do realise that there are new Zune devices imminent, but really, they’re going to have to be pretty damn amazing to touch (geddit?) Apple’s new iPods. This time around, Microsoft can’t use the fact that it’s their first shot as an excuse, and it doesn’t help that the company habitually takes three goes to get something right.

But I digress. An MP3 player can have rainbows coming out of the earphone jack, but it’s not going to make the music any better. And isn’t that ultimately what it’s about - listening to music? So isn’t a device that makes it more convenient to get new music and experience new artists ultimately better than one with a slick, multi-touch interface and gorgeously large screen and all those other fancy doodads? That’s what I’ll keep telling myself, anyway, until I can afford an iPod Touch for myself!

5 Original Responses to “Can the Zune satisfy my iPod touch gadget lust?”

1. 1 questionfear Sep 30th, 2007 at 8:13 am

   Ah….gadget lust.

   Hey Jenneth, have you used emusic as an alternative to Zune Marketplace? They have caps on the number of songs you can download per month depending on what plan you choose. I pay 9.99 and get 30 song downloads…that’s usually two albums plus some singles. All DRM free, so you won’t get locked into having music that only plays on one of your many mp3 players.

   Just a thought for you. Good luck with the gadget lust.

2. 2 Jenneth Orantia Sep 30th, 2007 at 8:21 am

   There’s always a way around DRM… that’s all I’ll say

3. 3 gasuz07 Sep 30th, 2007 at 9:53 am

   Gadget lust….must be in the air or water….. I have had similar conversations concerning the ipods and zune…as well as the advantage and shift. My decision on both were to think on it a little while… but then place an order so that the item arrives in time to be slipped under the Christmas tree….and blame the purchase(s) on Santa

4. 4 Patrick L Sep 30th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

   Hey Jenneth,
   I have good news for you: the iPod touch (both 8 and 16Gb) are available and in stock at Dick Smith

   Having said that, I think I’ll wait until the Apple Dev team jailbreaks the Touch, because I don’t want to have to carry that, with my PDA AND my phone.

   Take it easy.

   PS was the thursday night you spoke of (where you saw the hacked iPhone) the night of the STUB? If so, then I’m even more bummed for piking!

5. 5 vting Sep 30th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

   Go for it, Jenneth and get the iPod Touch dont go to the dark side again!

   As Patrick L said its in stock go out and get one and do a review to share with us all.

   I know you say there is no more tech purchase for this year, come on now who can wait when the lust it hanging in the air.