The Challenge

So the sun is shining outside and I'm damned if I'm going to spend the day indoors on my computer. So the challenge is to do all the stuff I would normally use my ubuntu box for on my considerably more portable iPod touch without spending any money.

1st challenge was obviously to write this post. While the blogger interface is great for posting from a desktop it's only just useable on the iPod touch. So first things first... Find a blogger iPhone app that will allow me to add to this post.

Right... OK... Turns out there is no fully featured blogger app which
will allow me to post photos. BlogPress promises all the features I'd ever need but the plan was not to spend any money. LifeCast is free and pretty much fully featured but only supports the 2.2.1 firmware and in order to upgrade I'd need a PC. Blogwriter Lite is free and runs on my firmware and while the interface is easy to use and will allow me to add new posts it won't allow me to edit old ones or post photos.

So in the end I've plumped for, drum roll please,
email!

Yep. The easiest way for me to add a blogger post is by email. The
only to update a blogspot blog with pictures for free is through
email.

At this point I'm considering trying to move to a wordpress blog if
google doesn't get it's finger out.

Next challenge... Watch the latest madness combat video! Should be
easy.

Yep was easy thanks to some kind sole uploading it to YouTube. The lack of flash on Mobile OS X based devices is still a HUGE issue. Next up is podcasting.

Ordinarilly you'd download podcasts from iTunes. Anyone whose read some of my previous posts know I hate iTunes. As a result I already have this solution on my iPod. MobileCast is a great jailbroken app which allows you to subscribe to podcasts and download new episodes OTA. The current release is a little buggy (a bit like the keyboard on this iPod which is currently about 6 letters behind my acctual typing speed) and the play buttons are really unresponsive meaning you have to prod it 6-7 times before it registers! However combined with Backgrounder (a jailbroken app which allows apps to run in the background) means I can write the post and listen to the Engadget Mobile podcast at the same time!

So overall in a pinch I could use just MY iPod Touch for a day. I've emphasised "my" because my iPod is jailbroken and tweaked to my needs. MobileCast for example is a jailbroken app and I couldn't use my iPod without copy and paste (provided by clippy) and as far as the actual UI goes SBSettings is a god send giving me an Android notifications style menu giving me access to things like wifi toggles without having to open the hugely bloated settings app.

Many of these things Apple should have included from the off and a lot of these gripes are fixed by firmware 3.0 but I'm not going to spend £10 (source:http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49301583,00.htm) for functionallity I can get by jailbreaking, FOR FREE!