The iPod Touch: A business tool, too

Clock and Calculator

The world clock is extremely useful when traveling across time zones, crucial for the jet-setting international exec. The same is true for the built-in alarm clock.

And while it's as simple as they come, the Calculator application works just as you'd expect, whether calculating mileage reimbursement costs or figuring out the tip on that two-martini business lunch. Everyone needs one once in awhile -- the calculator, not the martini.

Photos, videos and music

The iPod includes a great photo viewer for finding and quickly displaying image files for clients. It also offers relatively high-resolution playback of videos, whether commercial, instructional, artistic or just plain fun.

And the music software is great for listening to audiobooks and language tapes -- being a recent Paris transplant, I can attest to this! -- and frankly, there's a lot of learning that can take place during the inevitable downtime between business meetings or flights.

Calendar

While Apple handed iPod users a major blow by disabling the write functionality in its calendar app -- you'll need an iPhone for that -- the scaled-back software on the iPod Touch is still a useful tool for taking your desktop timetable on the road -- even if you can't edit or sync it on the fly.

Hacking the iPod

That limited functionality brings me to my next point: This gadget could be so much better if Apple just let us play with it a little bit. And while the company has announced plans to offer a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch next year, there's nothing out yet, at least not officially. I decided it would be fun to see how much more business functionality I could get out of the iPod Touch after applying a few much-touted hacks.

Note: If you have to tell the CFO you plan to hack your iPod, you're not likely to get an OK. And besides, why risk invalidating your warranty? So don't try this at home. All I'm pointing out is how much potential the device has, and how much more value it will offer, once new apps are created. And they will be created.

Having a hacked iPhone, I lifted a lot of the applications I already own directly from that device and transferred them to the iPod Touch. Some preferences files and bundles needed to be moved as well. Once installer.app was on my iPod, hacking it took only a few minutes. Here's a sampler of what I added, which should give you an idea of how powerful this device could grow to be.

The first thing I added was the Notes application from my iPhone. This is a simple, yet extremely elegant program that allows you to take notes using the keyboard on the iPod. It will also sync with the Notes in Leopard. Apple should have included it in the iPod Touch as a default application.