Treeduck

Unless you are one of the lucky few invited to the Formula One Paddock Club, being in the grandstands at the F1 race isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You only get to see a small section of the track and keeping up-to-date with the latest happenings can be difficult especially if your seating position is poor.

However, if you have an iPhone, then you have an edge over your fellow budget viewers. The official F1 timing application not only lets you see the timings for each car, but also view where they are on the track in a 3D map in real time. The starter pack allows you to use the application on practice races for US$1.99. If you want to view the timing and map for the actual race days, like the upcoming Singapore F1 night race, you can purchase them in the application itself for US$3.99. Other races cost between US$2.99 to US$4.99. The Championship pass for the entire season goes for US$14.99.

This application also works with the iPod touch but requires you to have Wi-Fi Internet access during the races.

Now in its third year, Apple's iPod touch has evolved so many features and uses beyond media playback that we're not really sure what to call it anymore. Some flock to the touch for its first-class mobile Web browser and email support, while others see it primarily as a portable gaming device, and some still pick it up for good old-fashioned music and video playback. No matter how you choose to define the iPod touch, Apple's third-generation version has arrived, flaunting 8GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities priced respectively at S$308 (US$218.07), S$468 (US$331.35), and S$628 (US$444.63). Its hardware design hasn't changed dramatically from the model we reviewed in 2008, but neither has its status as the world's most feature-packed portable media player.

Editors' note:
This review was first published on our sister site CNET.com. References made to other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia.

Design
For better or worse, the first thing we noticed about the third-generation iPod touch is how unchanged it looks. Side by side with the second-generation iPod touch, you'd be hard-pressed to find a way to distinguish the two models from each other. Aside from minor differences in the etching on the back of the touch, the second- and third-generation models are splitting images of each other.

Just like its phone-wielding sibling, the iPhone, the iPod touch is a touchscreen device with a glass-covered 3.5-inch screen that sports a 480 x 320-pixel resolution. In spite of its touchscreen interface, Apple includes a few physical buttons, including a slim volume control on the left edge, a hold switch on the top, and a home button on the face of the player, placed below the screen. The bottom edge of the touch includes the same universal dock port and 3.5mm headphone jack as previous models, piercing the otherwise unbroken expanse of chromed steel that wraps around the back and edges of the device.

The shape and dimensions of the touch also remain unchanged (110 x 61.8 x 8.5mm), defined by a flat-glass front set inside a curved steel backing that feels natural in the hand but makes the iPod a little wobbly when you set it down on a table. Packaged with the touch is an Apple universal dock connector USB cable, a pair of white earbuds that include a microphone and remote control on the cable, and a molded universal dock insert to use with any charging or speaker accessories.

Features
Out of the box, the third-generation iPod touch includes an amazing music player, podcast support, video playback (including iTunes rentals and a YouTube player), a Safari Web browser, photo viewer, an email reader (compatible with Outlook, Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or any POP email service), an integrated iTunes Store for music and video downloads, and a host of smaller utilities (weather, calendar, maps, stocks, notes, voice memos, clock, contacts, and calculator). Provided you become proficient with its touchscreen keyboard, the iPod touch is more pocket PC than an MP3 player.

If the MP3 player market was a fault line, we'd have a boatload of busy seismographs on our hands. Certainly, two of the most exciting releases of the past couple weeks are the new iPod Touch and the Zune HD. Now, if you're curious how the two devices compare with one another, you could always read the deluge of articles available on CNET and around the Web, but we can certainly see how that might be a bit overwhelming. Soon enough, we'll pit the two players head-to-head in a knock-down, drag-out brawl (aka Prizefight). In the meantime, we've created a purely technical spec-to-spec comparison chart to tide you over.

iPhone/iPod OS 3.1

Apple announced the release Wednesday of OS 3.1, which will be a free update to both iPhone and iPod Touch owners.
With 3.1, users on both platforms can now get Genius recommendations for applications they've purchased. These show up in the App Store app, as well as in iTunes, and function in a similar fashion to Genius for music. It takes your purchase information and sends it to Apple, which will analyze it for similar purchases, and offer up recommendations. This may end up being a more precise system since there are fewer apps than music tracks.
3.1 also adds a new security feature for iPhone owners--the capability to lock down the device over the air using MobileMe. Previously, if your phone was lost or stolen, this feature would only be enabled if the user had set it that way.
iTunes 9
Apple introduced a new version of iTunes, which offers iPhone and iPod Touch users a way to better organize applications they have added to the device. Users can now drag and drop apps to multiple home screens at once, instead of doing so on the device itself.

iPhone and iPod Touch users can now rearrange apps on their home screen right in iTunes, instead of on the device itself.
(Credit: Apple)
Another new feature in iTunes 9 that users in households are sure to enjoy is something called Home Sharing. This lets you automatically sync purchases across multiple computers within a household. This means they don't have to be redownloaded, or transferred from portable devices, which can save time if you're in a hurry.
The Genius feature and DJ feature have been mashed together to create something called Genius Mixes. The software can create multiple stations of music without the user having to pick a song for it to start from.
The software also has a new purchase-centric feature called iTunes LP, that adds a handful of digital pack-ins to purchased albums such as liner notes, photos, videos, lyrics, and links to online resources. This confirmed rumors Apple had been cooking up such a feature going back earlier this year.
In the same vein of iTunes LP, there's iTunes Extras--basically repackaged bonus features from movies and TV shows. This aims to add a little more value to rented and purchased video content, and steer customers toward Apple's store instead of some of the competition.

Amy Tenderich writes one of (if not the) most influential blogs about diabetes, Diabetes Mine. Noting the news today about Apple selling its 100 millionth iPod and praising the exceptional industrial design of Apple products, she asks for Apple’s help in designing better medical devices. She points out blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps in particular (recent model insulin pump pictured above next to iPod). See her open letter to Steve Jobs here.

In the letter she notes that millions of people are tied to their medical devices, and can’t leave their home without them. Unlike the iPod, these devices help keep people with chronic conditions like diabetes alive.

There’s something else these devices do not have in common with the iPod - sensible design and attractive features. Tenderich says “most of these devices are clunky, make weird alarm sounds, are more or less hard to use, and burn quickly through batteries. In other words: their design doesn’t hold a candle to the iPod.”

She isn’t asking for Apple to actually get into the medical device business. Instead, she’s asking Steve Jobs to help jumpstart a little creativity in the space. She has three suggestions:

We have begun by brainstorming a number of actions that you and/or Apple could take to jumpstart this discussion:

* Sponsor a contest by Apple Inc. for best-designed med device from an independent party, and the winning item will receive a makeover from Jonathan Ive himself

* Conduct a “Med Model Challenge”: the Apple design team takes several existing medical devices and demonstrates how to “pimp” them to be more useful and cool

* Establish Apple Med Design School – offer a course on consumer design concepts to selected engineers from leading pharma companies

Frankly, all of these sound brilliant to me, and the press would have an absolute field day praising Apple were they to do any one of them. Apple PR, are you listening?