iPod touch with two cameras, Retina Display said to arrive soon - Page 2

lol, Apple blew it with the retina display.

you must be in orbit because I'm seeing some serious retrograde thinking here. Just dodge the plasma bursts from the sun when you get too close.

The Retina Display and dual cameras is ok, but I need 128GB RAM first & foremost in the next iPod Touch.

Looks like you may soon get your wish as it appears that the venerable iPod Classic has reached the end... leaving a perfect space for an iPod Touch 128gb,

Son, do you have any idea how much you would pay for that?

http://dramexchange.com. Please note Gb and GB are different by a factor of 8x.

I guess you meant 128GB of NAND Flash. Even so, do you have any idea how much you would have to pay for that?

Morrisons, the UK supermarket chain, is slashing the price of 3rd generation iPod shuffles down to £20 and 4th generation iPod Nanos to £60 ahead of restocking of new iPod models.

http://technologme.com/new-ipod-shuf...ing-soon/2404/

So are you saying the 64GB NAND Flash modules still haven't fallen in price to that of last year's 32GB modules? I am hoping they have. Am I dreaming outside the realm of reality?

Unorthodox? It's 4x 480x320, which has been a standard phone display resolution for years.

Did you bitch about Palm when they went from 160x160 to 320x320 back in the day, or were you still in kindergarten?

Indeed, but given this comment from Apple:


it's clear that an iPod touch with a camera does not need to exist for the first statement to be true.

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I have a cell phone for making calls and a Touch for everything else. It works out fine, isn't too much to haul around, and best of all, it's cheap. To get your phone to do a lot of other things involves quite a bit of compromising. Separate the two and the compromises are less severe.

After all, there is one part of the equation that presents complications when you're talking miniaturization - us as in you and I and every other human on the planet. Sometimes it's not a case of the smaller the better.

I can't imagine that if phones with screens larger than the Touch are coming to market, such devices that follow the Touch approach (leave out the phone) are far behind. Apple has never been about getting into a spec war but this is one spec that the company should heed. Size matters when it comes to screen real estate and long before we get to the fall of 2011, the 3.5" screen on the Touch is going to seem rather anemic, considering all the options that will enter the market.

I understand why Apple has not altered the screen size on the iPhone. For a do-all device of that sort, it would be decidedly awkward to go larger. But there is no reason for having to carry around an oversized phone to be able to enjoy a lot of the functionality of your typical smartphone with a larger screen. For less than the cost of buying just the Streak, imagine if you could carry a very compact cell phone for making calls and a larger device for everything else. Then something similar in size to the Streak makes a lot of sense.

I think this is going to be a rather awkward update cycle for Apple to manage.

The shuffle will probably get a complete overhaul - I'm guessing it will gain a screen and be marketed as a clip-on badge for wearing digital photo's and album art with very minimal touch screen navigation. I can see them reducing the colour choices to basic silver to emphasize personalisation through the album art. It could have a slightly larger surface area than the second gen shuffle and be as thin as the screen and headphone jack allow.

iPod nano swaps the scroll wheel for a back (home) button and gains touch functionality but maintains a similar menu system that it currently has to differentiate it from the iPod touch. The screen curves so it is flush with the glass surface. Apple uses the millimeters it gains behind the screen to improve the camera and allow low resolution stills.

iPod touch gets front and back camera and a redesigned enclosure. Maximum capacity upped to 128GB. Retina display is deemed too expensive for this update. Clever game developers start using partial obscuring of the front camera as a way of simulating a directional analog stick without covering portions of the screen.

iPod classic is given a mediocre spec bump to help close the capacity gap between platter drives and solid state drives. This is the last update the classic gets before it is officially replaced by the 256GB iPod touch in 2011.

They may do as they have done with the iPhone...keep the previous year's model around at the low price point and reserve the new features for the higher priced models. Also, if they don't increase capacities, they can take some savings from the likely lower prices for flash and use it to offset the more expensive display.

As for the 2nd part I marked...seriously? And how long have you been following Apple? Jobs would shoot any engineer who proposed such a solution!


That's what I'm hoping for! At first, it made sense to keep the touch the same size as the iPhone. Apple didn't know how many touches they'd sell or if the volume would justify a totally different set of components. Keeping them the same allows economy of scale. But I think each device now sells in high enough volumes to be able to sustain their own supply chains. There is no reason the touch needs to be the same size as the iPhone. Just keep the resolutions the same to ensure compatibility with app designs.


Or get a mifi from one of the various cell providers. Then you have total independence to choose whichever provider you want. Who ever has the best prices or coverage in your area. Change providers, but keep your devices. Even use the same data contract for your laptop and any other wi-fi devices.


Considering that the iPhone's capacities were not increased, I'd say there is a good chance the touch's won't increase either. Either because NAND prices have not dropped enough, or because things like the Retina Display cost too much and Apple had to "skimp" on memory to preserve their profit margins.

It’s not the truth. The App Store and iPhone 4 aren’t the problems for Apple and users you are trying to make them out to be.

As for the display resolution. It’s double the resolution of the previous iPhones. Pretty fraking simple math to figure out why that is ideal for devs.

Was a 3.5” 480x320 display standard back in January 2007 when Apple debuted it? Of course not, but it is now just like the iPhone 4’s display because they are selling by the millions, but that’s a moot point because your attempt to disparage the display because it’s not some wonky aspect ratio (like you did with the iPad not being 16:9) that works best for a larger display, is as usual, tired.

See, Apple is actually testing designs to see what works best, not what is the most available now off the shelf. Some companies go where the puke will be, not where it is.


PS: And soniera has been debunked. If you have 20/17 vision or worse the Retina Display’s pixels are smaller than you can differentiate from 12” away. Apple made no claims that people with excessively great eyesight that amount to 0.000001% of the population can’t technically make out the pixel demarkation points. 20/20 is considered “normal” vision, anything better than that is just gravy. What percentage of the world’s population have 20/20 vision of worse? Most of them. Gee, looks you are wrong yet again.

I'd be willing to pay another $100 - total $499 for a 128GB iPT model or $399 without the Retina Display. The higher NAND total is most important to me as I use the Touch primarily for playing music from my huge 2TB library. And I'm not looking at the screen a lot for that app. Have iP4 for Retina use.

If its mainly for playing music and you want 128GB, then why not get an iPod Classic with an additional 32GB and lower price point at only $249.

That's my reasoning as well. The question is, what does Apple think?

As much as some would argue that Apple should ignore other company's offerings, considering how wildly successful Apple has been while pretty much bypassing the whole netbook segment, letting competitors release devices with somewhat larger screens than the Touch with zero response seems like an arrogant, foolhardy approach.

There are tangible benefits from increasing screen real estate that great design absolutely can not compensate for. Competitors will continue to tweak their products and as they do, the Touch is in danger of becoming a poor alternative.

My 5 cents worth. Think Apple is setting up all the Telcos. With FaceTime, they can incorporate it in the new Touch, then iPad 2. Perhaps the new Shuffle will be a Facetime only, with iTunes for music and video. They only need to keep iphone going to cover
them for a year or two. Keep ANDROID And all the others to try
to keep the ATT's and Verizon's happy and preoccupied.
Why would any sensible person continue to pay for cell minutes?
Mobile hotspots will be cheaper to have. Free WiFi will probably be
available for most at home and work. Sprint will surely offer up inex-
pensive mobile hotspot from their WiMax just to make money off it.
Imagine. Buy an iPad outright for $ 500 or $600, or an Touch for
$300 or $400. Perhaps a FaceTime Shuffle for $100 or $200. And
just keep the iPhone to cover themselves until all pay per minutes
are done with. Apple makes a lot of MONEY off Hardware sales. Plus, all the other phone makers can't go there and compete at those prices.
The telcos will scream. But it won't be Apple's fault for taking us
to the future.

For FaceTime to work properly it'd still need a microphone, or the headphones with a built in mic.