Author: steve

….the iPod in all in its guises can be turned off by holding the play(or lock on touch devices) button.

I don’t use buses very often, however when I do the problem is always the same.

No, I’m not talking about the twats with mobiles blasting out crap drum and bass or the smokers or crap weed. No, the problem that annoys me the most about the buses is timekeeping, or lack of it in Travel West Midlands case.

The 17 route (and I assume others are the same) has a vague time table. Some times are quite clear, peak times are listed as ‘every 2-8 minutes’. As I was foolish enough to attempt to catch a peak time bus (Friday 16:10) I should have expected the lack of bus. 2-8 minutes? Well that seemed to be the frequency of buses passing in the other direction.

Eventually the bus turned up around 30 minutes late, some 22 minutes past the stated time. I have explaination for this, centro/twm may blame traffic. But this happens everytime I catch the 17 service. I knew I should have walked up to the Coventry road as the 58/60/900 service seems to actually run in both directions.

So I missed half hour of the two hours at Jimmy Spices, still got a few courses in. But annoyed at the usual piss poor service. I’d write to complain, but frankly this blog post would have more effect (ie next to none). I got a lift home, a much more sensible idea.

One of the benefits of winning the lottery would be to more away from that bus route. It has to be the worst in Brum, hasn’t it?

So the previous post has set the scene, I have my mind set on the classic. Well I did have my mind made up until I tried one.

I initially looked in the Birmingham Apple store, however they only seemed to have 2 units on display. One Black(dead) and one Silver. Also there was a noisy Apple TV demonstration going on. So with this in mind I decided to head to Solihull. After a brief, but messy nose bleed I proceeded to John Lewis. The iPod setup is fairly poor, so went to the Apple Store in Touchwood. The store was fairly quiet so was able to have a listen and play with a iPods.

First up was a Classic, holding the thing seemed a little odd, it’s just like my fatboy Nano on steroids. Worse was to come for the classic. The first one I tried had a disturbing annoyance, I found that it was stuttering when listening to a track whilst flicking through cover flow. The other two I tried didn’t do it. Also found the classic experience to be a little sluggish in the operation, I’m comparing the operation to my current Nano. It’s nowhere near as bad as my old Sony hdd though, but enough to put me off.

Then looked at the new Nano, whilst I found the operation of the device really slick (cover flow especially – I’m not a big fan of cover flow, but it shows how slow some ipods are) I found the design felt a little cheap compared to my fatboy nano. Lightweight is good, but this really is light.

Then I had a play with an iPod Touch, probably my first real go on an iPhone/Touch device. And yes I bought one (16gb). I may have dismissed the touch in the past, but after a play I really liked it. I could have gone the iPhone 3g route but my existing contract is for another year and I really do hate O2 as a network here in the uk.

Must test the unit tonight then box it up for Christmas

I fancied some new Apple in ear headphones, but looks like they’ve missed the UK stores.

/edit: Mom and Dad now have the touch ready to wrap up 🙁

Maybe, after deciding against a number of things such as saving money or getting a Netbook I think a decision has been made.

Of course this decision now opens up a number of new decisions. However the original decision has been decided upon as I’ve made a decision to sell something.

O.k.

Decision one……

£175 from John Lewis – minus my discount should be around £150ish

Money from both parents £140, plus my decision(2) to sell my iPod Nano 2nd Gen and dock for £50.

So it’s affordable. Next decision(3) is I have a little change, so what earphones? Lets face it, the apple bundled ones are shit. Will probably have around £40 so will try to get some in-ear ones. The advantage is they cut down noise (handy on the train) plus I should be able to listen to iPod at a lower volume (assuming).

Next decision(4), what colour?

I normally go for the black finish, so I guess my mind is made up.

Possible other decision(5), the new 16gb Nano is cheaper. The 16gb iPod touch is only a bit more(6).

Of course the real problem is I’ve not visited my technical therapy areas recently.

Need to go to the shops…………..(well I could do with shoes as well)

/edit, mmmmmm seems it’s dropped by £5 today. Maybe I should wait! (7)