All Articles Tagged ipod touch

Could all the rumors — and even Kevin Rose — have been right? Will we see a longer, widescreen iPod Nano that brings the candy-bar shape back? MacRumors rounds up some “leaked” “case designs” that suggest maybe they are — or merely that even the Chinese read Kevin Rose’s blog? Roughly Drafted, on the other hand points out that a new aspect ration for the screen might cause problems for existing iPod formatted videos and games.

Wilder still is the rumor that the next generation iPod Touch might just beef up its LocationServices with… GPS. Lacking the cell radio of the iPhone, it probably wouldn’t be aGPS (which uses the cell towers to pre-crunch, and thus really speed up, GPS location discovery), but it would certainly supercharge the current, WiFi only offering.

So, will we be seeing tall-boy Nano’s and GPS Touches? And more importantly, will they finally feature Phasers?! September cometh!

Internet superstar Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, Pownce, and Revision3 has a… er… spotty record at best when it comes to iPhone speculation. Still, we give him full marks for getting back on that rumor horse once again. This time, Kevin’s saying he knows that sometime before the end of September we’ll see:

• Firmware 2.1, debuting on the iPod Touch (which will get a minor facelift).
• iTunes 8.0 with “new features and functionality” he can’t get into.
• Price drops along the iPod line to keep them competitive with iPhone’s $199
• Rounded wide-screen nano, back in candy-bar form factor
• Mac OS X 10.5.6 to feature Blu-Ray support.

Rose, who’s locked in a battle with Barak Obama and Leo Laporte for the crown of top Twitter’er, asks that we follow him there, or on his own platform, Pownce, for more updates.

Our take? Last year’s big pre-holiday Apple event introduced the iPod Touch, which debuted the new 1.1 firmware, including the WiFi Music Store, so that’s quite possible. iTunes 8.0 is more opaque, however. If App Store integration wasn’t a big enough marketing excuse to make the full point jump to iTunes 8.0, what would it take? (7.0, for example, added CoverFlow and iPod Games).

iPod price drops before the biggest selling season of the year make sense, as Apple dropped the iPhone $200 at last years event. Likewise a new Nano.

Blu-Ray support — if it’s to include BD movie playback — is a bigger nut to crack, however, because the short sighted industry killers in Hollywood demands HDCP DRM compliance (i.e. hardware enforced, digital rights managed copy protection) over the full path, from player, through cables and graphic cards, into the monitor — and in the OS. This caused a bit of an internet brouhaha when Microsoft “caved” for Vista. Laptops and the iMac would be far easier to implement, but is there business advantage enough for Steve Jobs to feel like doing it?

(via MacRumors)

The iPhone might be the best iPod ever, but as Steve Jobs keeps saying, if no one else can compete with Apple, Apple will compete with itself. Witness a number of new iPod rumors that have just surfaced.

First up, iPhone Atlas brings word of a new iPod Touch. Seems the latest developer deep diving in the upcoming iPhone 2.0 code, in addition to cut and paste, has discovered strings for what looks like iPod Touch 2,1. To give perspective, the original iPhone and iPod Touch were 1,1, while the iPhone 3G is 1,2. A jump to 2,1 then looks to be an upgrade quite a bit more significant than what the iPhone just enjoyed. A replacement? An additional model? A twice-sized iTablet? And what will this mean for the similarly Mobile OS X powered iPhone?

Next up, iLounge says the next iPod Nano will shed its “phat” and grow tall again to accommodate an iPhone/iPod Touch wider-screen aspect ratio of 1.5:1 (bumped from the current 1.33:1). iLounge — and almost everyone else who picked up the story — headlined the form factor as “Zune-like”, for obvious link… er… attraction purposes. Well played!

Also, while rumors have swirled over multi-colored iPods being introduced in the next generation, which harken back to marketing mishaps like the Flower Power iMac of yore, MacObserver reveals a new Apple patent application for “computing device with dynamic ornamental [i.e. color changing] appearance”. Though supremely awesome in concept (Predator-like chameleon camo class awesome), iLounge claims any rumors of multi-colored iPods coming this year are inaccurate. Instead, each model will sport its own anodized aluminum skin, much like the old iPod Nano.

Lastly, Apple Insider says Apple is advising resellers to stock up soon, as iPod shortages this way come. Clearing out stock in preparation for another Special Event this autumn? The last one not only debuted the iPod Touch, but a new iPhone Firmware which included the WiFi Music Store, so we certainly hope so!

The New York Times is reporting that the iPhone started its life out as a “Safari Pad”. An Internet tablet if you will. Once Steve Jobs saw it, he used his panache and morphed it into an iPhone. The author also goes on to say that when he spoke to Steve Jobs at the recent MacWorld in January, he asked if there would be a larger form-factor iPod touch device. Steve Jobs replied,

“I can’t talk about unannounced products.”

I would personally love a tablet sized device that had Wi-Fi and a data connection a-la Amazon’s Kindle. What is in the future for Apple?

It’s a $20 upgrade to existing iPod Touch users - you can get

• Mail
• Notes
• Maps
• Stocks
• Weahter

The new software will be preloaded in new Touches, but the cost is disappointing to current Touch users.