Regardless of what people may think, sometimes I actually like to be proven wrong.
As the picture above will readily attest, the iPod Touch is now on sale in Portugal, even if some of the documentation is supplied outside the box.
The photo above was taken in a Vobis store at lunchtime. I returned there at 19:20 to talk to one of the attendants and ask about Leopard and any other Apple software (I also want a copy of iLife’08), and he told me the following:
- They have not received anything but the current batch of iPods for two months now.
- The only packs of Apple software they ever got were Tiger boxes that came in the same shipment as the display Macs.
- They sold nearly all iPod Touches and most nanos in six hours.
And no, I didn’t buy it – I am sticking to my approach of not buying 1st generation Apple products for as long as it is tenable.
Mind you, if there is new hardware in January, I’ll probably break that rule given that I have yet to find a decent PDA or its modern equivalent, a decent (10” or larger) and affordable web pad or e-book reader.
Plus the thought of spending Eur. 300 (or 400) on something that doesn’t have a removable battery that will have a limited life span (whether due to the non-replaceable battery or to Apple’s tendency to cannibalize its own portfolio) wasn’t something I could consider a wise investment.
I also called two FNAC stores to check, and guess what – no Leopard, either (not to mention that it takes a while to explain what I want, and whether or not they actually have it in that store).
Meanwhile, in one of those bouts of karmic interconnectedness of all things that usually only happen in a “Douglas Adams”:Wikipedia:Douglas_Adams novel my wife came in and literally dropped a 60GB “PS3”:Wikipedia:PS3 on my lap as I was preparing to publish this – so I guess not buying anything whatsoever today was a pretty good idea overall.