Rumour vs reality: the iPod touch is born

After all the hype and expectation, Apple's sixth-generation iPod is finally among us. Some of the rumours proved true, others less so:

Widescreen: check
Touchscreen: check
Wi-fi enabled: check
Web browser: check
120GB memory: no, far from it. The maximum is 16GB (but the iPod classic has been boosted to 160GB)
Internet radio: no

The new iPod is also the most tangible evidence to date of the tech industry's big c-word, convergence. Easily be mistaken for the iPhone, the iPod touch also shares many of its features. It's not hard to see these two product lines merging in the not-too-distant future.

Memory remains the weak point of both devices, preventing either from taking the place of the original iPod line, but that is likely to change. The first iPod arrived in October 2001 with a capacity of 5GB, which had been quadrupled nine months later.

Comments

[Mario]

The 16gb max is for the new nano i believe....

[Benjamin]

No the 16GB is actually the largest iPod Touch thats available.

[Nick]

No, it's not. 16GB is the max for the touch and 8GB is the max for the nano.

[chart]

8G or 16G, author is correct

[Sebastian]

You're terribly wrong if you think the iPhone and iPod touch product lines are about to merge anytime soom.

Apple did something very wisely: They created the iPhone, which is a cool thing, but not available to everyone. A lot of people have phone contracts and aren't flexible with switching, a lot of people (in the US) can't use AT&T because of AT&T not supporting all the US, and iPhones are difficult to localize all over the world. You have to set up contracts, etc.

The iPod touch is the solution: It's cheaper than the iPhone, it's easy to launch it everywhere (it just has to be delivered, no contracts have to be signed), we can buy it even though we have a mobile phone contract running and Apple doesn't need to provide us with a reason why we should use an expensive iPhone contract if we want to use the cool technology that's behind it.