What Steve Jobs didn’t tell us about the new iPod touch
On Tuesday, the rumor mill kicked into high gear as “sources” stated that troubles with the camera module in the iPod touch could prevent the mothership from immediately selling the device. With the event over and nary a camera equipped touch anywhere in sight, hardware analysts pour over guts of the device that Apple did ship for portents of devices that may yet come.
According to iFixIt, Tuesday’s 8GB iPod touch is identical to Wednesday’s model in every way but one with the device’s MSRP shedding $30 and landing at Phil Schiller’s $199 “magic price point” (49 minutes 30 seconds). There isn’t a faster processor inside this model, but the lighter price is akin to Apple having pouring gasoline on it — sales are going to skyrocket.
However, the lads at iFixIt found more than just more flash memory inside the 32 and 64 GB iPod touches:
• Both the 32 GB and 64 GB sport a faster processor with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, a cross-platform API for full-function 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems
• According to Apple, the new touch is up to 50 percent faster
• The Broadcom chip inside the mid and high end touches supports 802.11n wireless in addition to 802.11a/b/g
• It’s claimed that there’s a 6 x 6 x 3 mm space inside the new touches — just enough for a camera module
$10 every year forever…
The existence of faster yet unactivated 802.11n networking inside the new touches makes me suspicious that Apple will be back in six months or so to collect a tenner for a firmware update that activates this “new” feature. That would be very, very Apple like and I’m sure they’ll have an equally Applesque reason why we shouldn’t hate the bastards for making us part with yet another $10.
Nevertheless, did Apple really intend on releasing a camera-equipped iPod touch and then nix the idea after technical problems cropped up? Or, did the higher ups decide for political and marketing reasons to maintain a feature gulf between the unwired iPod nano and über connected iPhone 3GS?
Still, the 800 pound gorilla on stage with Steve on Wednesday was the Mac touch, Mac tablet, iPod touch on steroids or whatever it eventually gets named. Maybe that device will have the still and video cameras, as well as the faster networking that we all really, really though would arrive this week…
What’s your take?
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September 12th, 2009
Have you always been this cheap, Ronald? Software cost money to develo. Why do you expect it for free?
The US government’s accounting practices will not allow Apple to give away free software, so you must be charged. The iPhone owners have that price folded into the ISP charges as a deferred payment. But, an iTouch doesn’t have an ISP, so you have to pay for any added benefits.
Of course, you are so smart that you could learn how to turn on access to “N Wi-Fi.” It probably wouldn’t cost you more than a couple thousand bucks to do it, so go ahead.
We’ll wait for the real thing and pay that outrageous $10.
September 13th, 2009
The iPod touch OS update is now $5.
If that’s a problem, maybe you should plaster more ads on your rants.