In case you're somehow not familiar with the touch, like the iPhone, it features a multi-touch sensitive, 3.5-inch display with 320x480 resolution. The touch is also slightly slimmer and shorter than the iPhone. Otherwise, it's obvious that they're siblings.

With its silver and black design, the iPhone touch is a stylish, cool handheld. You can find music, videos and more on a widescreen display with the touch of a finger. The interface uses software to present the appropriate user interface for each application.

Overall, the iPod touch is a joy to use. Once you turn it on, there's a "slider" at the bottom of the screen that you use to "unlock" the iPod for use (which isn't to be confused with unlocking the iPhone for use with carriers other than AT&T).

The iPod touch includes Wi-Fi wireless networking, the first on any iPod. Originally, it came with three applications that use it: Safari, a web browser that lets you wirelessly view web pages and use Google Search or Yahoo! oneSearch; Apple's YouTube application, which lets you wirelessly watch free videos from the video web site. You can use your fingers to "pinch" and "unpinch" sections of web sites to expand them for better viewing or shrink them for navigation. Touch the URL address field and a small, virtual keypad will pop up so you can type in a new address, if you wish.

Earlier this year Apple added five more mobile applications -- Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes. The iPod touch software upgrade also includes new features such as Web Clips, a customizable home screen and the ability to watch [url=http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/mwsf_movie_rental_comes_to_the_itunes_store/]iTunes Movie Rentals[/url].

Mail on iPod touch is a HTML email client that fetches email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics along with the text of the email. Users can configure Mail for Google’s Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, .Mac Mail or most POP or IMAP based mail services with just a few clicks.

Maps on the iPod touch feature the ability to automatically find your current location using nearby Wi-Fi base stations, and use it as a starting or ending point for directions or to find local points of interest. You can get real-time traffic conditions, and view maps in map or satellite view, or a hybrid view that combines map and satellite views so you can see major street names overlaid on satellite imagery.

Stocks and Weather lets you access live stock and weather reports, while Notes lets you jot down information on-the-go using the intelligent keyboard.

Even better, the iPod touch home screen can now be customized, allowing users to reorder and add new icons. There's support for up to nine different home screens that you can easily flick between. With the new Web Clips feature, you can create custom icons on your home screen for your favorite web sites.

With its 3.5-inch widescreen display, the iPod touch is better suited for watching videos, as well as viewing photos and album art, than the 5G iPod, iPod classic or the 3G iPod nano. The iPod touch has a built-in accelerometer that automatically senses when you rotate it into its landscape position. When you're in music, it automatically switches to Cover Flow so you can browse your music collection by album cover artwork with a flick of a finger (that's one of the "wow" features I mentioned).

When in Photos, it automatically displays the photo in its landscape aspect ratio; when in Safari it displays the web page horizontally. The iPod touch also has a built-in ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the display's brightness. Apple says it can handle up to 22 hours of audio playback and up to five hours of video playback. I actually obtained 24 hours of audio on my bike trip and just over six hours of video playback during my at-home experimentation.

The touch does have some drawbacks, however. With its design, it's almost impossible to use the controls without looking directly at the screen, whereas with the more traditional iPods you can learn to navigate to a large degree without actually seeing the screen.

In my initial review of the iPod touch, I lamented that the 16GB storage capacity at a price tag of almost 400 bucks didn't seem too impressive when you can get a 160GB iPod classic for 50 dollars less. That's still true. However, the iPod touch now comes in a 32GB model for $499, joining the 16GB model for $399 and the 8GB model for $299. That makes the high end model a better value, although there's still no iPod that matches the classic in offering the most bang for the buck.

Macsimum rating: 9 out of 10.