
New iPod touch - jameshk
http://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/
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mythz
Sweet glad to finally see iPod Touch getting some modern love, just wished
they came with bigger screens.

Does Android have a comparable device? i.e. Internet/Music sans-phone in your
pocket that's great at capturing quality vids/pics?

Edit:

The Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 looks close:
[http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-
camera-2](http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-camera-2)

~~~
adrusi
I'm sure the Android ecosystem has many equivalents, but they'll never be very
high profile. The cellular hardware inside phones doesn't add too much to the
cost, so customers are better off just buying a phone and not putting in a SIM
card.

I'm pretty sure Apple sells the $200 model of the Touch at a bit of a loss,
which they can do because people who buy and iPod Touch rather than an iPhone
will probably buy a lot of music, and most of them will buy it through Apple
(or subscribe to Apple Music).

The only other smartphone makers that have significant music services are
Amazon and Google. A non-phone phone doesn't really make sense in the Nexus
line, which is meant to be a demonstration of the core "Android experience".
In Amazon's Fire lineup, it doesn't really make sense because it's too similar
to their existing products. Actually you could argue that the Kindle Fire is
the equivalent to the iPod Touch in Android world.

~~~
stephen-mw
I very much doubt Apple sells anything at a loss. It's really not their style.
Their margins are the envy of the entire industry, and Apple takes home 90% of
cell phone profits[0]

The fact that they can create a phone/device with "inferior" tech and sell it
at blockbuster margins proves to me that most people aren't interested in
specs, but rather the whole experience and ecosystem. This is something Apple
understands well and invests heavily in experience.

[0] [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/dominant-apple-takes-90-of-
sm...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/dominant-apple-takes-90-of-smartphone-
profits.html)

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andyjohnson0
Interesting that the landing page describes colours, screen resolution, even
the CPU architecture and speed - but not the storage capacity. I have >100GB
of music on on old iPod Classic and capacity is the most important factor for
me.

~~~
frobaldo
[http://www.apple.com/ipod/compare-ipod-
models/](http://www.apple.com/ipod/compare-ipod-models/)

16 - 128GB in price ranges of $199 to $399

~~~
agumonkey
Haa 49$ for a 2GB screenless player. I wonder how large is the profit on this
one. And I thought Sandisk were mean to charge 40$ for a 4GB Sansa Clip.

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dchuk
Interesting that it has the same design aesthetic as the 6/6+ but has a
smaller screen (4"). I bet a lot of people would want an iPhone the same size
as this thing.

~~~
cgriswald
No, it has the same design aesthetic as the iPad Air. The sides are rounded in
a "quarter pipe" versus the "half pipe" completely rounded edges of the 6/6+.

~~~
glhaynes
This is interesting. I wonder how that decision was made.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Because it's the same design it's basically always had? Apple is _far_ more
conservative with iPod Touch redesigns than iPhone. It's generally just
updating the back and colors slightly to match it with current aesthetics.

~~~
glhaynes
It's just interesting to me that the iPod touch (which many people think of as
"an iPhone minus the cellular chip") follows the design cues of the iPad
(which many people think of as "a big iPhone, often minus the cellular chip").
There certainly doesn't seem to be any one right answer so I think it'd be
interesting to hear how Apple decided on the rounding they use on the various
models.

~~~
Artemis2
Well, the iPod Touch really is a smaller iPad when you think of it. These two
are a lot closer than they are to the iPhone.

~~~
glhaynes
I don't know. An iPad with cellular is hardware-wise arguably more similar to
an iPhone than to an iPod touch. Software-wise, it doesn't have Phone.app, of
course.

So I suppose that's maybe the key: whereas iPads and iPod touches are always
meant to be held at arms length, iPhones are additionally expected to be held
against your ear and are shaped slightly differently because of that
additional use case.

Or maybe it'd be hard to make a "half-pipe" from aluminum on a device as thin
as an iPod touch.

Or maybe it's all just arbitrary and everything in life is random and
meaningless.

~~~
Artemis2
> Or maybe it's all just arbitrary and everything in life is random and
> meaningless.

The recent evolutions of Apple's design often make me think that.

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djcollier
Is there even still a market for such devices? While $200 dollars may be a lot
less than an unlocked iPhone, its certainly not cheap. Plus you can get an
iPhone 6 at that price if you are willing to get into a contract.

~~~
coob
Kids under 10 that want to play iOS games.

~~~
robmcm
Or Siracusa...

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gambiting
It's weird that they are stuck to the 4" screen size with the iPod Touch. I
fully expected them to make one the size of iPhone 6, like every previous iPod
Touch.

~~~
stephen-mw
Some of us prefer this screen size. I'm actually holding off until the 6s to
see if they launch a model with a small screen.

~~~
gambiting
Oh absolutely, I can see that people still prefer that screen size, I'm just
surprised that Apple decided not to go with a larger size on the iPod Touch.

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alwaysdoit
Does this make it a reasonable development device for iOS?

~~~
jameshk
That's what I'd use it for. Apple sells them at WWDC for betas, I believe.

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andrewljohnson
I wonder if they will ever put the GPS in the iPod, or if they consider that a
big differentiator for the iPhone.

~~~
morty16
I think the GPS receiver comes "for free" with the phone hardware (the
DSP/antenna package).

So, I doubt it, just because it wouldn't add much and would cost significantly
more (both in components and battery life).

With this kind of device, you're only online when in wifi, so location-aware
services are limited too. i.e. what would you do with the GPS info? Maybe
photo tagging?

~~~
andrewljohnson
I make Gaia GPS, so I care about people being able to locate themselves on a
downloaded map, while offline.

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ericwood
I feel silly for being excited about this, but I'd _love_ it if they carried
over these color options to the new model of iPhone. The blue is very sleek.

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Phogo
I want 160gb classic back!

~~~
sizzzzlerz
I totally agree. Mine is still going after 5 years of use so I'm expecting to
have to replace it any time now. The 128G option is acceptable but, since I'm
touching that now, I'll have to thin my library a bit. Still, its better than
the 64G and smaller.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Do you truly need your entire library on your device at any one time? 160GB of
songs is roughly 111 days of continuous listening (assuming ~1MB/min, but I do
admit that number goes up with higher bitrate content). Nobody truly needs
that much music at any one time.

~~~
maxerickson
The point is to not have to manage it.

~~~
mynameisvlad
The point is flawed. If you aren't going to listen to 90% of your library, why
even waste space for it? For that 0.00000001% chance when you remember you
loved Fall Out Boy as a teen and want to relive those memories?

~~~
glomph
Right but the alternative is to have to go through and decide what music I
might listen to.

~~~
mynameisvlad
I mean, there are smart playlists that can be based on last played date (eta:
or ratings, or play count, for that matter. Honestly the iTunes smart
playlists are a powerful but hugely underused feature), and iTunes fully
supports selective syncing where you can just sync certain playlists you like
and the smart playlist, and nothing else. iTunes was built as a music
management system. Regardless of the crud that has been added on since, that's
still what it is at its core.

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gesher
Didn't see that one coming.

Except, there was this: [http://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/10/new-ipod-touch-
nano-shuf...](http://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/10/new-ipod-touch-nano-shuffle-
july-14/)

