What Do You Want To See On the 2G iPod Touch?
by Eric March on June 16, 2008 at 11:14 am
Ooh, starting the spec pieces early, am I? But is it really that early? Although it’s far from even being announced, much less on the radar, September isn’t that far away, and as many of you already know, that’s the time frame we can expect the next Apple Event to take place — the one that will detail the next generation of iPods.
This is when we’re going to see what Apple is going to do with the Classic, Nano and Shuffle lines — but more importantly to us, the second generation iPod Touch. With its introduction last September 5th, Where do you see Apple taking the 2G Touch? What new features do you think it will have? What would you like to see?
My predictions:
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with A2DP Profile. Although 2.0+EDR made its way to the iPhone 3G, A2DP was conspicuously missing. Thinking about it, it would make sense to include the A2DP profile on the iPod Touch to give it a selling point and differentiate it from the iPhone — and with the Touch being a dedicated PMP without having to concern itself with a phone 3G chipset, battery life won’t be as much of an issue here, which is always a concern of The Steve’s. Apple would love nothing better than to sell both an iPhone and iPod Touch to the same people, and this would give those people with a hankering for wireless audio streaming a good reason to do so.
- The addition of a 64GB model. This one is a bit iffy; will they bump up capacity this year or wait ’til next? Either way, with the prices of flash memory continually on the decline, a 64GB model isn’t as far fetched as it once might have been, and it would give Apple a leg up on the (distant competition, since there are currently no 64GB flash-based PMPs on the market. I’m not sure whether they’re going to want to eliminate the 8GB model unless they slide the pricing scale downwards.
- The new 2.0 firmware, minus the iPhone stuff. This one is pretty much a gimme. I suspect they will also not carry the enterprise features over either, since the Touch would not be considered an enterprise-level device.
- No GPS. Sorry, but it seems unlikely Apple will carry the iPhone 3G’s GPS module over to the Touch. This would both be for battery life reasons, and to maintain some clear delineations between the iPhone and the Touch in order to keep the two devices as distinct and desirable to their individual markets as possible. And of course to give people one more reason to buy both in order to get the best of both worlds.
- Better battery life in the same form factor. The iPhone 3G is 0.8mm thicker than its progenitor, but it also contains more new hardware. The Touch isn’t really going to have any more hardware taking up room, but it will likely have the same higher-efficiency chips and/or improved battery (depending on how they squeezed that extra performance out of the 3G) so count on a few more hours of audio and video in the same 8mm form factor.
- New case. I debated this one. The iPhone 3G’s case was retooled in order to increase the reception of its various antennas, which some users complained about on the previous model. It was a legitimate reason to redesign things a bit. The Touch has no such issues with reception though, as it only has one radio (WiFi). If the new Touch is going to have Bluetooth, it might need that new shell after all. What’s more, a new chassis will allow Apple to offer the device in both black and white (and any other colour). It’s possible to do that now by changing the colour of the bezel, but with the larger screen and all, this can’t be pulled off as well as it was with the iPod Classics and kin. (You will note that the white 16GB iPhone 3G still has a black bezel.) It would also bring it in line with the iPhone aesthetic from which it is descended.
I may have missed one or two things, but that is where I see the second generation iPod Touch possibly headed. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this story, join the growing number of subscribers to our RSS Feed for live updates!Related Stories:
Posted in Hardware Related
June 16th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I expect far less than what was mentioned above. It isn’t an iPhone, it is an iPod. Bluetooth on an iPod? Don’t see that happening. If anything I expect an improved casing, more gigs, thinner (maybe), and maybe something in the hardware design to separate it from the “iPhone look”
June 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The main reason I figured they might include it with the next iPod is pretty much exclusively for A2DP. Wireless audio streaming is growing in popularity — bluetooth headphones and streaming audio to remove devices around your house is getting pretty popular and is something I could see Apple adding to the next iPod Touch in order to make it a more attractive option. I could be wrong, but were I The Steve (and I am certainly not — I’m not even Fake Steve) I’d seriously consider it.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I can’t say I really care. My iPod Touch was a Christmas present and I most CERTAINLY won’t be getting a new iPod for a very long time.
Battery life is the big thing. Music and video playback is fine, but web browsing is horrible. I find I get 2 hours if I’m lucky. This is a jailbroken 1.1.1. I know they’ve improved battery life in the newer revisions, but I’m waiting until 2.0 to upgrade. I am most likely going legit as I already know several apps in the appstore that I want. (A C64 emulator… and SUPER MONKEY BALL!)
Wireless audio would be amazing, but again, the battery life would be an issue.
Don’t really care about space. I see folk saying about the “low” space on the iPod, and when I said about buying it folk tried to convince me to get a regular iPod with 250 gigs etc… (Completely missing the point that I was getting a Touch BECAUSE IT ISN’T JUST AN MP3 PLAYER! I almost couldn’t live without it now.) I have a 16 gig. So 14.8 actually with the stupid way they do space on these things. And I have trouble keeping it full, even with video on it. I have several feature length videos, over 1000 mp3’s, a web server with over a gigabyte of stuff etc… And I still have 100 megs free. I occasionally have to remove a couple of things if I have an especially big podcast to fit on there, but that’s because it’s not normal. I have 100 megs free right now. When I’m caught up on “Smodcast” that’ll clear 100 or more. Several episodes of “Robot Chicken” etc…
One thing I WOULD like to change: The way photos are stored. The current system is ridiculous. I would carry photos around, but 655k PER PICTURE is ridiculous. The iPod photo viewer is awesome, but taking up over a 1.3 meg for a mere 2 pictures means it’s largely pointless if you want to lug around a big photo collection. I’d like too, but it’s just not worth wasting the space on.
Assuming the 2.0 software update includes the maps, mail apps etc… I’m happilly going to fork over my $10 come July 11th or whenever it is.
Jailbreaking is cool and all, but 90% of the stuff I have is pointless and on there for no good reason. Going legit has far more promise I think. Not to mention the bug fixes will be nice too. (1.1.1 certainly has issues.)
June 16th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Don’t count on the C64 emulator — or any emulator — turning up in the App Store. Although they haven’t come right out and said it, Apple isn’t at all keen on emulation. Besides the obvious “gray area” surrounding emulation, there’s also the fact that you would need to have a Mac/Windows conduit through which to install additional files — disk, tape, cartridge and ROM images in this case. A conduit means an open channel to the device, and Apple wants no such holes no matter how well intentioned they are.
Super Monkey Ball however, I want. Along with at least a dozen other cool apps that are going to turn up.
Space can be an issue for some. For me, I have a 32 gig model, and it still isn’t enough to house my entire MP3 collection (which, prior to my Touch, took up over 50 gigs on a 60 gig 5G Video.) Plus, more space is appealing to power users whether they think they’ll need it or not, so it’s a good selling point, especially for a flash-based device, which has a lot of advantages over hard-disk based ones.
Yes, the image storage thing is a pain — and I’d really like to see them change the way photos are copied too. This copy, shrink, compress the everliving christ out of deal just won’t stand. If I copy photos onto my device, I want them unchanged. Just leave my damn pictures alone and let me worry about how much space it takes up and whether or not I can zoom in far enough to count the pores in someone’s face.
And as for jailbreaking — there’s nothing saying you’ll give up the cool stuff on the App Store if you jailbreak. I’d like to enjoy the best of both worlds personally.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Hmm, personally i don’t want this thing to get any thinner. I think it could actually use an extra couple of mm’s.
For me, Trism is looking like the must-have item when the appstore is released.
I’m hoping for a few real time and turn based strategy war games too.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I don’t have my entire collection on there. That’s on a half terabyte external drive on my desktop:) I use Orb if there’s something I really want that I don’t have on the iPod, but that’s rare. The 1200 or so on my iPod are my top 1200 and I rarely listen to anything outside that anyway. (Hell, I rarely I listen to half of them.)
As for the photo thing, I have a major problem with mine anyway. If I want to copy photos to it I have to DELETE all existing pictures off the iPod THEN delete the ipod photo cache off my computer and have it recreate it. Otherwise it gets stuck syncing forever and never actually converts the pictures.
I fully intend to have the appstore and be jailbroken if the two can co-exist.
As for emulation, the individual working on the C64 is a registered developer I think. Had not thought of what you said in regards to that. Could kill it stone dead. In fact the other reason I’m interested is for a portable player for the High Voltage SIDS Collection, and that again would cause issues I think.
GRRR!
June 17th, 2008 at 9:45 am
The only way I could see an emulator of any sort being available through the App Store (ignoring for the moment Apple’s position on emulation in general) would be if it were self-contained and could download whatever files it needs to function over the air. I could, for example, imagine a dedicated SID player being developed and distributed through the App Store only if it either came with music files (and perhaps additional downloadable “packs”) or could browse and download music files online from a dedicated server.
A full-on emulator might be possible through the App Store only if it goes the Activision Classics or Blue Sky Rangers route and includes only a dedicated pack of licensed titles (or titles provided by the rights holders themselves) with no possibility to install new titles by the end user except by purchasing and/or downloading licensed add-on packs. Activision could certainly release their Classics bundle, as could the Blue Sky Rangers release the Intellivision Lives! collection, because each own the rights to the titles included in those emulators. Similarly you could see individual stand-alone emulated titles such as the quintet of Namco and Midway titles that have been making the rounds on PDAs and Smartphones for the past few years. Those are all nice and legit and Apple probably wouldn’t mind. Anything outside of those nice, tightly controlled confines though would probably send The Steve into convulsions of paranoia and insecurity.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Personally, I think they’ll announce a 64GB version with a better battery life, and upgrade all the current models to the same battery/processor (possibly dropping the 8GB one), whilst “coincidentally” patching the bootloader exploit used by WinPwn and disabling the ability to add earlier firmwares.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:56 am
It is doubtful they will be able to patch the bootloader unless they create a separate firmware upgrade path for first gen iPod Touch units that excludes the bootloader patch. It’s one thing to change the firmware on such a fundamental level for new hardware units because that’s all done at the factory level, but Apple won’t dare touch it in an OTA firmware upgrade for existing devices. That requires flashing the most sensitive portion of your device in a process that, should the slightest thing go wrong with it, will permanently and irrevocably brick your device in the truest sense of the word — as in, no restore mode, no recovery, have it replaced, because the core bit of firmware that tells it how to boot up to even enter restore mode is completely buggered.
See, if an ordinary firmware upgrade of the sort you’ve been downloading all along goes wrong, no problem — it still knows how to reboot and restore itself. But if the upgrade contains changes to the part of your firmware that knows how to reboot and restore itself, and it is unable to complete this process, it’s toast. That’s bad juju for Apple, compounded by the fact that you paid to have this happen. (Yeah, the chances are pretty slim that such a process would screw up, but you know it will happen to enough people to cause a huge stink.)
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hmm, true. I suppose it’s possible that they could patch the bootloader without the need to release separate firmware versions for first gen and second gen iPod Touches (like putting in some kind of hardware/firmware based blocker for the exploit), but I suppose that is quite unlikely.