A long while back, I bloged about ipods.
I still feel the same about them, but, I have discovered that there are ipods and then there are itouches…….
<!– Warning, major geek content to follow (You have been warned Sue and Jan) –>
At work we are messing with some web stuff (thanks again Nick, your idea and programming are astounding) and the main thrust of what we are doing is iphone based. Work owns an itouch and since an itouch is pretty much the same as an iphone sans phone, they have lent me the itouch so I can develop things easier.
Let the record show that I have not loaded itunes on my computer and I have not put any mp3’s or photos or videos on the sucker yet……. Instead I am totally smitten with the functionality of it. Its a weapon…..well, ok, that might be taking it a tad far…. but my point is, with a few well chosen applications it becomes a very useful tool…. How so?
First up, it runs Safari web browser. This means that it can handle streaming video, so IP camera’s and the like all show video embedded in web pages. Not only but also it means that web pages look and work like the real thing. Its surprising for such a small screen that its so useful. Ok, it can not handle flash or java, but that has not caused me a lick of trouble thus far.
Next up is an application called wififofum. Its a wifi radar. It shows you what wireless access points are in range and lots of information about them. Very handy since we are currently launching our wireless controllers and brains at work.
Pinglite is helpful, you can ping an entire subnet with this sucker and run traceroute.
The main ‘killer app’ for me however is inet. This app is amazing. With it you can scan your network and look at all the computers attached, what ports they have open and so on. The big thing however is that it has ‘ping’. So you can ping any IP address you enter……. astounding…. no really, any ip address, on or off your connected network.
Now, that is a very handy tool to have in your pocket.
Today, I was hooking an IP camera up in the factory. Pull the itouch out and try and connect to it via the browser, no go, ping it, also no go. Ping the router its connected to. No. Reboot the router, yes, can ping it now. Ok, camera, yes, pings fine, video, get one or two frames then it freezes, ping the router, its gone…… all from standing in the factory with ‘my’ itouch. Not a laptop or computer in site. Replace the router, and all is good. Sweet.
Forget playing music on the thing, its just too handy to be playing music on it……
Then there is the usual, Twitter, Yammer, Digg, Google maps, Google earth, Youtube, Google Analytics, Skype, astronomy (ie, sky maps, I am still totally lost in these northern skies), Pandora (mmmm, trance on tap), email, weather, VNC, seismograph, and after Terry got hold of it, a bizillion games……….
Ok, well, its still got ipod roots, but this is a game changer. I finally get what the hype is about.
(Dan, just to calm you down a little, I still want to look at the Google Android).
An iphone where you have all that, plus connectivity where ever you have mobile phone coverage would just be icing.
