And another round of "I've got to have it" starts.       

Lack of recording capability in iPods and other mp3 players continues to astound me. When I had a MiniDisc player, one of the best features was the ability to record via a plug-in microphone. Of course, as much as I was a fan of MD technology, it was inferior to mp3 technology because the MD player contained moving parts that often broke after months or years of use. And so it has been phased out, supplanted by mp3 players.

Surely there are others who wish they could record lectures or concerts via their music player. Yet surprisingly, even the Archos players have dropped line-in recording.

Why is this?

Not sure, but I have never had an interest to record anything with my iPod.  I bought a cheap digital voice recorder for that.

Cheap digital recorders are good for recording lectures, but when it comes to recording things in high quality (e.g., concerts), it's good to have a device that is specialized for that purpose. The old Archos players were like that -- In fact, they were more like mobile digital recording studios than mere audio players. Unfortunately, the current players have lost that functionality (not even a line-in jack anymore). Instead, random features such as PDF viewers were added. (A PDF viewer on a PDA is useful; a PDF viewer on a media player just doesn't seem like a necessity to me. Why not add more intuitive/useful features like audio recording or FM tuners?)

Oh well. I guess I'm one of the few who feels this way.

I picked up a nice little SanDisk Sansa mp3 player with built in record, etc. It's not an iPod Touch (no video etc.) but surprisingly full featured for the price if you are looking for a combo player/recorder that fits in the palm of your hand. It replaced my Olympus WS-320M for a fraction of the price.

I own a Zen Neeon and a Zen Vision: M and both of them have the ability to record stuff and in very good quality as well might I add.

Now onto the matter of the iPod Touch. Like all of Apple's lovely little devices it'll be half as efficient as any similar product out there and more expensive. For the life of me I can not understand why anyone would buy an iPhone when you can get a Nokia E70 which has all the best features of the iPhone and NONE of it's shortcomings for far less or why anyone would buy an iPod (any model) when almost every brand of media player out there (even the generic ones) offer better and cheaper equivalents.

The iTouch is simply going to be another glorified hunk o' junk that the idiots of this world are going to snap up because it's the "hip new thing" to have.

Raven1417

The touch based, no keys interface of the iPhone and iPod Touch remains light years ahead of anything else in the marketplace as far as human usability goes. While a spreadsheet of features shows these products to be behind the curve, the trend will be towards the iPhone's interface in the future. If the E70 was that usable, you'd have a point. But it isn't.

You won't find too many concerts where recording is actually LEGAL.....

....if any....

The missus and I picked up a couple of 1gb 'Laser' mp3 players that have record functions as well as FM radio....all for AU$35.00 Now why would I pay $500+ for a touch iPod when I can hear the music I want perfectly well on a device at a fraction of the cost....makes no economic sense to me.

Excalpius

The touch based, no keys interface on those products is poorly designed at best, they tried to make it so visually pleasing that after one use it actually becomes ugly and smudged. It's a fancy gimmick and nothing more, it's not smoother or easier to use I've used an iPhone and I have made myself very familiar with it's interface and can use it really well, but in comparison to other products it's slower and more cumbersome and offers nothing that I haven't seen before and the same goes for any iPod.

Why don't you read the article below to find out the actual differences between the iPhone and the E70 and let me know what you think then.

Maddox

EDIT - And how could I forget the lovely feature of the iTouch that is the double-click to bring up the media buttons...it even works when the device is locked...cos that's what we want right? To be walking along or on the bus with our fancy new overpriced toy in our pocket changing songs randomly on its own...

Raven1417,

I didn't argue that the iPhone had better features than the E70. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up this non-point of contention. Even if that was what we were discussing, presenting a link to one of the worst designed websites on the Internet doesn't help your case.

You seem to be one of the handful of people who doesn't believe the iPhone's interface is revolutionary. Since Microsoft and Apple are all moving towards this paradigm, you are welcome to remain with whatever paradigm works best for you. That is the power of the free market.

I for one am looking forward to interacting with my devices through voice and touch wherever possible, since I believe devices should learn to accommodate human beings, not vice versa.

re: EDIT - um, what does a bug report have to do with this discussion?