The iPod has come a long way since 2001. The second generation model sitting on my desk doesn’t have a color screen, weighs enough to be used as a self-defense aid and does little else than play music (though block breaker was a pretty cool feature at the time).
My iPod Touch on the other hand is an astonishing technological feat rivaling that of the iPhone. However, there are definitely a few major features that iPhone users enjoy that I miss out on. Fortunately, several app developers are on the task of closing this feature gap and have significantly extended the functionality of the iPod Touch.
Today we’ll look at ten apps that help make your iPod Touch a lot cooler by mimicking some of the basic features found on iPhones.
Why Not Just Get an iPhone?
If you’re an iPod Touch owner, odds are, you really wanted an iPhone but were ultimately forced to settle for less (not always the case, but true for so many). This is an all too common story due to the several hurdles that stand in the way of many would-be customers who would gladly fork over $300 for a shiny new iPhone.
The biggest hurdle for many US inhabitants is AT&T. This story typically goes one of two ways. One group of people has finally decided that they don’t care who their carrier is as long as they can have an iPhone. Unfortunately though, they’re trapped in a multi-year contract with another carrier and refuse to pay the cancellation fees for early termination.
The second group of people loathe AT&T and will never switch. Some of these people have just had bad experiences, others have never even tried the carrier but abstain because of poor reviews from friends and family.
One final group of iPod Touch owners simply refuse to pay for data plans from any carrier. Simple flip phones void of apps, touch screens and full-featured web browsers make phone calls just fine for half the monthly fee.
Whatever your reason may be for not getting an iPhone, the truth is that an iPod Touch is an awesome alternative. It does nearly everything the iPhone does with only a few notable exceptions.
Let’s take a look at a few of the major missing features along with ten apps and/or devices that you can use to address the problem.
Phone Calls
The first and most obvious feature is the ability to make phone calls. The iPhone is a phone, the iPod Touch isn’t. It’s as simple as that. Neither the hardware nor the software were built with this intention in mind, so can it be done?
Let’s talk about hardware first. The most recent models of the iPod Touch feature support for the Apple mic/remote headphones, meaning that they can in fact handle both the audio-in and audio-out aspects of a phone conversation. The bonus is that these calls can often be made completely free of charge and void of any contracts.
Unfortunately, the iPod hardware doesn’t have cellular capability so the software solution will have to be VoIP. With the options below you’ll essentially be making phone calls over your WiFi connection.
Skype
“With Skype on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, you can make and receive calls, and instant message anyone else on Skype, wherever they are in the world. You can also save on international calls and text messages to phones. Skype is free to download and easy to use.”
Price: Free
Skype
Acrobits Softphone – SIP phone for VoIP calls
“Use your iPhone [and iPod Touch] to make inexpensive calls over the internet anywhere. Call International destinations for pennies a minute. Call friends on the same network for free. Save on roaming charges by using the Softphone to make calls while abroad. Set up multiple SIP accounts and switch between them depending on who has the best rate for your call destination. Make calls through your office PBX, using your business number from anywhere.”
Price: $7.99
Acrobits Softphone
iCall Free VoIP
“Selected as a New York Times App of the Week, iCall is used by over 4,000,000 people worldwide. iCall is changing the way people around the globe communicate. iCall allows you to make and receive phone calls over 3G and WiFi, even when you don’t have a cell signal. Never pay a roaming charge again!”
Price: Free
iCall Free VoIP
fring
“fring is a multi-award winning mobile application that lets you make free voice calls, free video calls and live IM chats directly from your iPhone and iPod touch. fring operates as your mobile social hub. Communicate with your friends from fring and other favorite social services including MSN Messenger, GoogleTalk™, Twitter, Yahoo! , AIM, ICQ, all through one central profile, using your iPhone and iPod touch’s internet capability.”
Price: Free
fring
Text Messaging
Another basic phone feature not found on the iPod Touch is text messaging. This feature can be even more important to many users as text messaging continues to become more popular than even calling.
Fortunately, there are a plethora of texting apps available for the iPod Touch that allow you to send free texts to whoever you want. Here are a few to try out.
Textfree Unlimited
“Yep, send and receive unlimited free texts from an iPod touch or iPhone to any US mobile phone. No catch, no hidden anything, no yearly fees!”
Price: Free
Textfree Unlimited
AIM
AIM doesn’t just do instant messaging, it also supports Facebook chat and SMS texting as well. It’s an awesome all-in-one messaging solution that gives you access to tons of your friends across various networks, all free!
Price: Free
AIM
Textie
“The creators of Tweetie and Borange are proud to present Textie Messaging, the unlimited texting app for iPhone and iPod touch. If you and a friend both have iPhones but are still paying to text each other, we definitely recommend you try using Textie Messaging instead–and communicate for free.”
Price: Free
Textie
Camera
Despite unceasing customer demands, Apple has yet to put a camera in the iPod Touch. It’s interesting to note that if you pay $149 for an iPod Nano, you get a neat video camera, but if you fork out the extra dough and pay $199 for an iPod Touch, you get zilch.
This is definitely a temporary problem. With Apple promising to sell millions of FaceTime compatible devices, you can bet they’re going to start sticking cameras in both iPod Touches and iPads sometime in the near future (likely in the next couple months).
In the mean time, iPod Touch owners will have to remain without a solution for taking pictures… or will they?
DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition
This handy app allows you to control your Canon EOS or Nikon DSLR camera. You can “instantly adjust its settings, fire the shutter, review images, even get a live viewfinder preview.”
Technically, this app allows you to take pictures using your iPod. However, this is ultimately nothing like having a built-in camera (cut me some slack, it’s all I could find). Most people don’t have a 5D lying around and even if they do you still have to connect the camera to your computer making this solution not very mobility-friendly. But for any photographers out there, this is definitely a pretty neat app!
Price: $19.99
DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition
Internet Access on the Go
The most significant annoyance I run into as an iPod Touch owner is simply the fact that I often can’t connect to the web when I’m outside of my house. Fortunately, I live in a major city and hotspots are plentiful, but there are still lots of dead zones where I simply can’t connect.
The best way to rid yourself of this problem is to pick up a personal mobile hotspot such as the MiFi. These awesome little guys provide wireless Internet access to any Wifi enabled devices from anywhere that you would normally have cell service.
As another option, Sprint is rumored to be releasing a new product called “Peel” that is essentially a mobile hotspot wrapped in an iPod Touch case. This would allow iPod Touch owners to seamlessly experience the same kind of freedom that iPhone users enjoy.
Unfortunately, these options all come with fat monthly fees (my research indicates around $30-40/month on the low end). Since many iPod Touch owners see having no contract or monthly fee as a major bonus, this will likely still leave a large part of the market sticking to pure WiFi.
For these users, the best you can do is download an app to help you find local WiFi hotspots so that you can easily know if the place you’re going will have coverage or not.
Wi-Fi Finder
“Quickly and easily find FREE or paid Wi-Fi when you travel with the JiWire Wi-Fi Finder for iPhone and iPod Touch. Download all of the locations offline, so you know how to stay connected when you are on the road. ”
Price: Free
Wi-Fi Finder
Spots – The WiFi Hotspot Directory
“Spots is a fast and beautiful hotspot directory containing half a million hotspots worldwide. Since Spots works offline, you can find hotspots from the included database. Spots does not use Wi-Fi to scan for nearest access points, nor does it contact any web services.”
Price: $1.99
Spots
Conclusion
Unfortunately, the iPhone will likely always remain at least a little cooler than the iPod Touch. However, apps like those found above will continue to push the bounds of the iPod making it ever closer to an all-in-one media and communication device free from any contracts and not tied to a specific service provider.
Leave a comment below and let us know what apps you use on your iPod Touch to make it feel a bit more like an iPhone!
Our Sponsors
Almost. I won’t pay for *any* phone plan until they drop to a reasonable price. I want data and maybe a few monthly voice minutes for $20-$30 a month.
Whatever your reason may be for not getting an iPhone, the truth is that an iPod Touch is an awesome alternative.
Virgin moble 25 a month unlimited text web and data with 300 talking min
I’m sick of people complaining about phone plans. You think you have it bad? You should see what we have to put up with here in New Zealand :/
I have an iPod Touch because when I got it the iPhone wasn’t available in NZ, and it was out of my budget anyway. But I am planning on getting an iPhone 4 because of the convenience of having 1 device and the fancy features like 3G (I don’t have a 3G phone yet), GPS and the 5MP camera.
Great article too. When I get my iPhone I’ll probably use Skype a bit, and I’ll have to give Textie a try out
$20-30/month? LOL
Cheap cheap cheaper.
can you text people with out ipod touch/iphone with the app textie
thts just for texting i already have textfree and line2 i thought it will show like the features the
i phone carries.
djducky
I use textplus 4 for free and it works awesome! I showed someone my iPod touch and she said ” why do I have a phone?”
Great article, love the interest in apps that I can get once I get one. certainly bookmarked this. For someone like me who doesn’t have a mommy and daddy to be paying all my bills I would rather have extra cash in my pocket by having a cheap but cute looking cell phone and a ipod touch. I recently went to see how much it would cost to get a iphone (or any smartphone) from verizon since i am due for an update and found that after paying the huge price tag for the cell phone iteself you not only have to pay the $30 data package but also if you go over the Gigs you use you have to pay for that too. And when asked about what I can do about stopping the phone before it goes over they simply told me I would have to set some profile thing online for my cell with their company to track my data so I won’t go over. Does anyone realize how many pages people look up online for a short time!?! yeah, so i went to look for a target pay as you go phone but still their deals are a bit much as well with little as 300 mins a month. So thank you for your article, even tho some info is a little out of date due to the new ipod touch it certainly help me decide that the ipod touch is for me. thanks
i tried finding text message+calling app for my ipod touch on the app store. but i couldn’t find some of them. i want an apps which does not require a charge to the credit card because mine is ipod
i this so stipd
I was looking up information like this about the ipod touch because unfortunately I’m only a teenager and my parents don’t allow me to text yet because of the prices you have to pay and we can’t afford it. I heard some of my friends say that they texted using their ipod touch and thought “Wow! This would be perfect for me if it didn’t charge you!” But how does it work? Do they charge at all? Please answer these questions. I just made a quick skim through this webpage so I didn’t read all of it but please help and recommened apps that would be great for when I get my new ipod touch. Thanks!
Do some research. Hell read the article. If you really cared whether its free or not you’d actually do read it.
uhhhhhh you can download the textie or the text free nlimited….. – bye!!
how do u get the free wi-fi . texing and calling on your ipod touch
This is really helpful for people who are open minded that knows their way around mobile technology and honestly knows that having an iphone 4 is a freakjhjfhgd RIP OFF!
I use textfree and it’s 100% totally free and works great. I deffinantly recommend it.
I’m 13 and heres my question. Okay, for christmas im getting the 4G Ipod Touch and does’nt it already come with messaging, and call capaility?
Sorry, i ment *Capability.
No, but there are plenty of apps to make it function like that I recommend just getting 1. Skype for video chat 2. Textfree for texting and 3. Voip for calls
i wont one please
anyone know if you have a ipod touch whether or not you can put you texts convo’s on facebook and such? Like on damnyouautocorrect.com?
So this is what it’s going on… I am deciding in either getting an Ipod 4th generation or an Iphone for my birthday. I already have a cellphone and the fee is $60/monthly. Which is of course, difficult for my parents to pay it and sometimes I need to wait a couple of weeks to have service again. So, I don’t know if I should get an Ipod 4th generation and download the free txt app, and from what I read you can also free calls app? but you need to have internet in order to be able to use it? and where I live I don’t have internet cause the modem broke, so I was also wondering if with the Iphone you can also do the same thing? So maybe I could desconnect the actual phone I have and only use the Ipod or Iphone to communitcate… So, what do you guys think would be better?
Why would you need another phone if you had an iphone?
Hey,
it’s hard to choose between iphone and ipod.
iPhones and iPods generally look similar, but in terms of features
iPhone gives you;
-net everywhere (dataplan contract with telco)
-phone (imho terribly expensive if not used only for sms and a few 1 minute calls)
-awesome compact computer
iPod gives you
-awesome compact computer (with wifi capability)
But:
IF you want to use those awesome applications actually you are paying with battery lifetime. Having an iPhone it will put you in the situation where you wont use the apps because you don’t want to loose your only communication device. So
if you want to use that computer you loose contact with the world.
iPhone or iPod in 2011 – the best option is to have a cellphone (should be able to send and receive sms and should be prepaid so you see costs and telco cant bill you €$£¥*) and an ipod that you can actually enjoy because its a full featured computer, photo camera, voice capable, smooth display, THIN delice.
get a google voice number than use it on the itouch the 4g now has a built in mic
google voice has free u.s. calls compatible with your regular phone too so when you have cell service but not wifi you can still make and recive calls.
voice.google.comm
get a google voice number than use it on the itouch the 4g now has a built in mic
google voice has free u.s. calls compatible with your regular phone too so when you have cell service but not wifi you can still make and recive calls.
voice.google.com
I just got every single free app on this page and hopefully they all work
Does anyone know of a free app for my Itouch (no phone) that works globally??