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Nearly all iPhone users have iPhone 3.0, but only half of iPod touch users have upgraded

Monday, December 21, 2009 · 12:36 pm · 37 Comments

“According to numbers compiled by online advertiser Chitika, only 55 percent of iPod touch users have paid the fee to upgrade their devices to OS 3.0 or higher. Nearly 95 percent of iPhone users have made the free upgrade,” Brian Garner reports for AppleInsider. “These numbers were based on the sampling of traffic across the Chitika advertising network.

“Apple released iPhone Software 3.0 in June, adding MMS, cut/copy/paste, landscape keyboard, and Spotlight Search among others. To upgrade the iPod touch’s OS, one must pay $5 to $10, depending on the time at which they purchased the device,” Garner reports.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Those 5% of iPhone users who haven’t upgraded are either app developers who need to test their apps for iPod touch users or they own a Gateway.

If you install the iPhone 3.1 Software Update for iPod touch, you’ll get every previous update, including the following features:

• App Store
• Genius
• Contacts search
• Mail improvements
• Podcast downloading from the iTunes Store
• Parental Controls
• Shake to Shuffle
• Safari improvements
• Home screen shortcut
• New languages
• Autocorrect on/off
• Landscape Keyboard
• Multicalendar capability

How to install:
1. Make sure you are using the latest version of iTunes and connect your iPod touch to your computer.
2. When iTunes opens, select your iPod touche under Devices in the Source List on the left.
3. In the Summary pane, click Check for Update.
4. Click Download and Install (US$4.95). Do not disconnect your iPod touch until the update has finished.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "James W." for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

37 Comments

« Previous 1 2

HolyMackerel

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 3:46 pm · Reply

How to upgrade your iTouch for free:

Connect your iPod touch to a Mac that has had the v3 software downloaded for another iPod or iPhone. Let it reformat your device, it also updates the software. Place it back in your original Mac and sync. You have the new software and your files back on.
Jafo

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 3:54 pm · Reply

Sounds like a lot of iPod touch users are SMART enough NOT to upgrade to 3.0 or higher and not get confused by removed functionality and weaker WiFi signals. Is copy/paste really worth this inconvinience AND the $ 10?
@b

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 4:06 pm · Reply

“OTOH, there’s no compelling reason for her to have the update, since she won’t use most of the features – she just turned 3 years old!”

Why would you buy a glass-coated iPod Touch for a three-year-old child?

There are much better (and cheaper) educational toys for you to spend money on, and much better methods to educate her, I.M.O.
b

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 4:15 pm · Reply

@ @b,
you’ve got a point, but it was one of those free offers when I bought a mac, so why not? We have no other real use for it, since the rest of us have iPhones. She actually uses it to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Mary Poppins on long car trips…

@ HolyMackerel
How does that work? if you Restore it, it downloads 2.2.1. How do you “let it reformat your device”?
Macduff

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 4:16 pm · Reply

@ HolyMackerel. Great info but I figure most people are that incensed that they ignore your words of wisdom. Oh well, if they do it’s their loss. @ b. Err, do I read right? You have a 3 year old daughter who has a touch and you allow her to log on to YouTube. All I’ll say is there’s some serious shit shown on YouTube that I wouldn’t want my 3year old seeing.
bkire

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 4:18 pm · Reply

Cubert wrote,

“iStepChild,
Because of the Sarbanes-Oxley statute, Apple is forced to charge iPod touch owners due to accounting regulations.”

I’ll say again, there is a big difference between (1) what governs the price point, if any, for iPod touch software updates, and (2) when and how much of that price point is credited to the income statement (i.e., revenue recognition). (1) is governed by Apple business decisions made by management, (2) is governed by GAAP and to some extent, indirectly by SOX.

I’m not making a personal attack, I just believe that Cubert’s statement above is incorrect. I would then ask Cubert to site his/her source (site what section of SOX forces Apple to charge iPod touch owners). If Cubert means that Apple is forced to recognize revenue a certain way for iPod touch update sales (which I would then agree with that statement), well that’s a completely different matter than Apple charging for iPod touch updates to customers in the first place. If in Apple’s wisdom, management wanted to charge nothing to iPod touch users for upgrades (just like they decided to provide free updates to iPhone users), then revenue recognition would not apply here.
b

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 4:31 pm · Reply

Macduff, great point. To be clearer, she uses it via the “history” or the bookmarks we’ve set up. I realize she could go into other areas, but she’s really not unsupervised, being only three.
bisse

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 5:05 pm · Reply

This report seems not take into account the number sold after the release of 3.0
The number of iPod touch sold continue to increase and thus the number of iPod touch users which have upgraded to 3.0 from an earlier os version is probably much higher.
If the last 6 month account for 25-30% of all iPod touch sold only one quarter instead of 55% of iPod touch users have upgraded.
The Other Steve

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 5:44 pm · Reply

@iStepchild
Yea, I was pretty pissed when I bought an iPod Touch for my kids a couple of months AFTER 2.0 came out and I had to pay extra for the 2.0 upgrade.

The people at the app store (not Geniuses) told me that the Touch was never meant to be an app device, just an iPod with a touch screen and that the Touch would never come installed with OS 2.0!
dukemeiser

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 6:04 pm · Reply

I’m still using 2.2.1 on iPod Touch. There was nothing I needed in the 3.0 update that was worth $10, so I’ll just wait for 4.0.
Macduff

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 8:10 pm · Reply

@b. Happy to hear you are responsible parents. I was just worried that your youngster would end up watching something she shouldn’t. No offence was meant, merely concern.
mike

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 8:57 pm · Reply

just goes to show Apple customers can be cheap bastards too…

its like 10 bucks or somethin….

Maybe some people (older customers, women, who knows) just don’t know how to activate it in iTunes.
Occasional Poster

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 9:23 pm · Reply

The iPod touch reaches out WAY BEYOND the typical Mac user and we know who “they” are. In that world, you don’t fix what ain’t broke, you don’t try to upgrade a working machine, paranoia lives there for a reason!
J

Monday, December 21, 2009 - 10:46 pm · Reply

I’ve just updated my iPod Touch a few months back, and I think it’s worth every penny. A day’s meal might cost even more nowadays… http://no-spamming/
Ted

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 10:01 am · Reply

How do you tell what version you’re running? When ever i plug my pod into itunes, it doesn’t say i should upgrade?
Blitzteh

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 12:03 pm · Reply

Actually there are free software in the Internet that you could download to get version 3.0 for free, that’s what I did and it works I even get updated to 3.1. Maybe most itouch users are aware of that.
Lara

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 7:22 pm · Reply

the 3.x OS is a memory hog, that’s why. I have a first-gen iPod Touch and an iPhone 3G, and after updating my iPhone from 2.x to 3.0, seeing how much more RAM it needed, I just decided to stay with the 2.x on the iPod Touch. I have to reboot my iPhone on a regular basis because it’s so damn fuckin unresponsive doing simple typing or whatever.