Apple Announces New iPod Touch: A10 SoC Inside
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 28, 2019 5:00 PM EST
It’s been 4 years since Apple last updated the iPod lineup with the 6th generation iPod Touch in 2015. Today Apple did the unexpected and released a hardware refresh of the dedicated media player.
In an age where everybody uses their phones as music and media players, I think it’s fair to say that the market for dedicated devices such as iPods has shrunk quite a lot. Nevertheless, Apple wants to cover this niche with the new iPod Touch and advertises it as the cheapest iOS device one can get.
The new iPod touch is now powered by Apple’s A10 chipset and features the same 4” 1136 x 640 pixel display as its predecessor, promising a relatively meagre 800:1 contrast ratio and a 500cd/m² maximum brightness.
One great benefit of going for an iPod Touch is the fact that it’s almost half the weight of modern smartphones. At 88g it’s a relatively featherweight device.
Other than the SoC, the only other apparent upgrade to the hardware is the addition of 802.11ac WiFi, although Bluetooth remains at version 4.1.
Apple has also upgraded the storage option, but disappointingly the smallest model is still only 32GB and comes at a price point of $199. Upsell variants at 128GB and 256GB come at $299 and $399.
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tipoo - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
The market for this is probably as a kids gaming system where there's no older iPhone for parents to hand down, but...Not even TouchID? That was out in 2013, what's the amortized cost of a TouchID 1 sensor by now?199 could be worse, but quickly doubled with NAND.
foobaz - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
If it can't play Opus files, I'm not interested.Wooloomooloo - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Plenty of apps on the App Store can play this obscure lossy format, or you can convert it.Jhlot - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
32GB for $199 pass, $299 vs tablet, pass.sorten - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
It's insane. What is that, $40 at retail? $25 for Apple?sorten - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
edit : was replying to smilingcrow's comment about the cost of the storage upgrade. Speaking of retro things, this comment system ... LOL.smilingcrow - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
$200 to add 224GB of storage is very retro. Is this a tie in with Stranger Things series 3?Alistair - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
Almost exactly 10x the current price of storage for SSDs. 9 cents per gigabyte, not 90 Apple...s.yu - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
If you're in Shenzhen somebody could get it upgraded for very cheap.Hxx - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
lol 200 for a 32gb media player. This is crazy talk you can get a tablet for this price and a nice one at that.