Let’s get crazy for a moment and declare the iPod touch the New Breed of PDA, a personal digital assistant, not to be confused with public display of affection, even though there are few zealous Apple proponents who might blend the two for their obsession with Apple devices. The iPod touch or iTouch is essentially the iPhone, minus the phone and things like Edge, but keeping the cool touch screen and allowing for connectivity not just through iTunes, but Wi-Fi as well. With the iTouch having the strength of the new iPhone SDK, the tech savvy jailbreak applications ranging from NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) emulators to Apollo Im, and even possible enterprise support similar to its cousin the iPhone, like syncing with a Microsoft Exchange Server; what is to prevent this extendable portable music player from becoming a full blown PDA device?

The answer: nothing. Even Google has made their calendar accessible from the web to devices like the iPhone and iTouch. You also currently have the ability to sync your contacts and calendar through outlook or iCal, your todo lists from websites like rememberthemilk.com, and your e-mail directly from your account. One can’t ignore the power of having your data, music, you-tube videos, movies, pod-casts, contacts, and more, locked into sleek colorful device that can go with you any where, even when disconnected from the web.

You have to admit, this could even be seen as Apple’s play at creating a PDA, releasing both the iPhone SDK and creating the iTouch targeted at people who didn’t want it as a phone. Or this could have even possibly been the target all along for the iPod, since it always (to my limited knowledge) had the ability to store contacts and calendar information from initial production.

Granted the current, biggest drawback is that iTunes does not sync calendars with the Windows Calendar (on Vista) or any calendar application you use outside of Outlook on Windows, or the iCal on Mac OS X. But most people who have need for a PDA, are most likely going to have either the iCal or some form of Outlook. Combine that with things like Plaxo or even the Google Calendar syncing tool with Outlook, you can now have your mail, music, videos, games, contacts, calendar, grocery lists, and much more in the palm of your hand or for the avid jogger, in an band around your arm.

If anyone has any cool applications for the iPhone/iTouch, that would enhance the quality life or help with organization, help the community and leave it in the comments below.

Michael Herndon posted this entry on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 9:28 am. It is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.