iPod Touch – A Great Alternative to the iPhone

Back on October 20th, I posted a blog titled An iPhone App For Setting Up Your Satellite Dish which showed how an app, at a cost of just $9.99, could simplify finding and setting up any satellite dish. All you have to do is just point your iPhone anywhere towards the sky and you will see all the satellites lined up, on the live video screen and their settings!

The drawback to this great idea, however, was that you needed an iPhone 3GS, plus a monthly cellular subscription with AT&T in the US or Telus, Rogers or Bell in Canada. For those with existing Verizon phones and mobile broadband, adding an iPhone, with AT&T, would be just too expensive. Plus, if you’re a happy Verizon customer, why would you want to switch to AT&T just for a few “nice to have, but not essential” apps? Also, if you are like Al, of the Bayfield Bunch, and hate all phones, then the iPhone is a non-starter for sure.

Apple’s iPod Touch does everything an iPhone can do except phone calls - $199

So, how about a device that does just about everything the iPhone can do except make phone calls? How about this device not being tied to any type of cellular service contracts? How about being able to surf the web, send emails, use apps, watch movies and use maps to get directions from wherever you are? Apple’s iPod Touch does all of these things starting at $199 for the 8GB model. Oh yeah – it does all of that iTunes music stuff too that iPods are famous for.

Just turn the iPod Touch on its side and the keyboard switches to landscape mode

The iPod touch is the only iPod with built-in wireless access to the web. So, if you’re in an RV Park with free Wi-Fi, or have a Cradlepoint Router or a MiFi device, just turn on your iPod Touch and you’re good to go. Whenever you’re connected via Wi-Fi, you can access your favorite websites using Apple’s Safari browser to read blogs, emails, pay bills or anything else you normally do with your laptop computer. If you’re on free Wi-Fi, no problem, if you’re using an air card, bandwidth usage will, naturally, be applied to your 5GB limit.

In addition to the Satellite Finder App referenced above, there are literally thousands of others – including dozens that would be useful for us RV’ers. I was looking at one today called The RV Companion.

What caught my eye was one feature of this app – a built in bubble leveler that helps with leveling out an RV by estimating the thickness of spacers to place under the tires.

The RV Companion application also tracks supplies, campground and site information for over 13,000 campgrounds, reservation contact details, RV information, tow vehicle information, maintenance records, procedures (winterizing, starting the water heater, etc.), and trip logs for each campground. This app costs less than $6. A limited edition is available for laptop use here for free.

A screenshot of RV Companion’s info on the Sands RV Park in Desert Hot Springs

Another iPod Touch app I found that might be useful for RV’ers is this RV Checklist – watch your wallet though, it costs .99 cents!!

One of the nice things about this checklist is the ability to just tap the screen to check off each item finished. A check mark appears and that task is then “dimmed” on the screen.

The checklists include: Depart From a Site, Arrive at a Site, Prepare For a Trip, Plan For an Extended Trip, Winterization as well as the option to create your own checklist. After finishing with a checklist, it can be cleared and put back to its original state so its ready for the next time you want to use it.

So, while an iPhone is just too expensive a toy to justify, for me anyway, an iPod Touch seems to be a much more reasonable alternative – especially since there are no monthly contract fees etc. Some of the thousands of apps are really useful and could come in quite handy. Now, I’ll just have to wait and see if Santa is listening!!

Have a great Wednesday, and thanks again for visiting.