iPod Touch Desparately Seeking Wireless

Interesting metrics from AdMob, reporting a huge spike in wireless activity after Christmas attributed to the iPod Touch. While the iPhone may get most of the media coverage, there are now zillions of Touch users like me downloading iPhone apps and searching for wireless spots! According to AdMob, "the iPod Touch is now the #2 device in the AdMob network with 4.7% share."

Luckily, there are some great apps that download data to the Touch, so are valuable even when you’re not on the net:
• NetNewsWire from Newsgator lets you read your RSS feeds. Often it’s just the abstracts, but some authors include the entire article in their feeds.
• The New York Times app downloads all their daily high interest articles, including some photos! Great stuff! Wish more newspapers did this.
• The BBC Reader app downloads its web pages so you can read them anytime.
• Instapaper allows you to download pages for reading later.
• So does Evernote, and it's easier to use.
• Air Sharing lets you download anything for reading later; I use it to keep a PDF of my new Yaesu VX-8 ham radio handie-talkie. It does so much that I need to review the manual a lot!
• Both eReader and Stanza give me access to my ebooks. I just finished "Travels with Charley," by John Steinbeck (great book by the way!)

But nothing beats being on the net, so I was glad to find out my DSL provider AT&T provides me free wifi at Starbucks. However, taking 5 minutes to log in was quite a pain until I found out about Easy Wifi. This great app allows me to store my user ID, then log in with one click even before I order my vente soy extra hot latte!

Good enough but life is sometimes even more than Starbucks! Wandering the country virtually on JiWire looking at wireless points, I ran into a mention of iPass. Their iPass Connect product looks like it would expand my access points to many hotels, airports and other spots for just $6.95 a month. It’s worth a try so I signed up. We’ll see how it works out.