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The pending demise of Apple’s iPod touch

Thursday, July 12, 2012 · 3:34 pm · 32 Comments

“In a recent article by Evan Niu of The Motley Fool, he suggested that the iPad Mini rumors might finally be real. He cited at least three different sources, that indicated that a 7 to 8 inch iPad could be introduced as early as September or October of this year,” Chad Henage writes for The Motley Fool. “The challenge for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is, what to do with the iPod touch if an iPad Mini is going to come to light.”

Henage writes, “Some estimates say Apple could sell as many as 35 million of these new tablets at $299 in 2013, though some cannibalization of the 10 inch iPads would definitely occur. There’s one big problem with Apple producing a 7 to 8 inch tablet, and that is the price point [at which] the company already sells the iPod touch… In the same way that the iPod Touch has destroyed the market share of click-wheel iPods; it seems the iPad Mini, if it comes to light, is destined to kill off the iPod touch.”

Read more in the full article here.

Categories: News

Tags: 7.85-inch iPad, iPad, iPad mini, iPod touch

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Comment Feed

32 Comments

rp

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:40 pm · Reply

you can’t stick something with a 7.85″ screen in your pocket.
Some want the features of an iPhone without the monthly contract.
- GregoriusM
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:43 pm · Reply
  
  Agreed.
  - Laughing_Boy48
    
    Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 7:38 pm · Reply
    
    Absolutely no reason for the iPod Touch to disappear. It’s true it hasn’t been upgraded recently, but I thought a number of these Touches are being used in retail businesses. Removing the Touch from the iPod lineup only leaves the Classic and Nano (I don’t count the Shuffle). The Touch needs a faster processor and some GPS and it would be a terrific product.
    - smitty
      
      Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 10:21 pm · Reply
      
      More like the impending price drop of the iPod Touch
      - Cubert
        
        Friday, July 13, 2012 - 7:43 pm · Reply
        
        +1,000,000
- Michael
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:55 pm · Reply
  
  I agree, although I also tend to think that Apple will rebrand the iPod touch as an iPad nano or something. The iPod brand is on its way out, it might make sense to expand the iPad brand.
  
  iPad nano 8gb at 149, iPad mini 8gb at 249, iPad 16gb at 499
  
  and the iPad 2 discontinued.
- Tom
  
  Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 7:49 am · Reply
  
  I don’t see the problem. You can get an iPhone without contract from Apple.
The Mac That Roared

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:48 pm · Reply

See? Told ya. I’m wasn’t the only one thinking this. It makes a lot of sense and it needs to happen. The iPod Touch has become the “middle child” of the IOS family and giving it a new form factor puts is more squarely between the iPhone and the iPad – where the Touch was always tryng to be. I think the smaller form factor makes sense for a phone but not for a mobile gaming device which is what most kids use the iPod Touch for.
- The Mac That Roared
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:50 pm · Reply
  
  Sorry for the spelling.
- GregoriusM
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:53 pm · Reply
  
  “See? Told ya.”
  
  That’s just one man’s opinion.
  
  And kids would rather have the 7.85 inch coming than the 4″ touch coming that Mom and especially Dad want, in my opinion.
Ballmer's left nut

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 3:57 pm · Reply

Having a 7.85″ iPad mini will immediately douse any pretensions Android might have of taking over the tablet space. The $299 price point will kill any and all Android tablets stone cold dead, much like the cheaper version of the iPod mini (when it was introduced) killed off the cheaper MP3 players leaving Apple to monopolise the field.
Richard

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 4:06 pm · Reply

My grandkids would disagree, the current size of the iPod touch makes it a great gaming device, akin to the form factor of the DS and PSP, that fits their small but growing hands. There is a stack of expensive, once-used game media gathering dust in their home now that they discovered free and near-free game apps in Apple’s App Store.
- Joe Montoya
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 4:35 pm · Reply
  
  I agree with @Richard. My 19 year old uses his iPod Touch in his car. His whole music library is on the iPod without the cel phone contract. My 7 year olds prefer my old iPhone 3G (repurposed as an iPod) over the iPad for games and using it as a camera. Portability is an important thing. If Apple drops the price of iPod Touch, they’ll still have a winning product for a long time.
Hugh

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 4:15 pm · Reply

Apple would be wise to let the market make the decision on the iPod Touch. I intend to buy one when, or if, they come out in September, because it will run the software that I need, and is the size I want.
Hugh
- deanbar
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 6:15 pm · Reply
  
  Me too, I’m waiting for September/October like you to replace my old one I passed onto my wife when I got my first iPhone. Only one earphone works now so looking forward to what I hope will be a new model.
- Tom
  
  Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 7:53 am · Reply
  
  I think the market already decided. Last quarter, Apple sold 35 million iPhones, 15 million iPads and just 4 million iPod Touches.
peterblood71

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 5:15 pm · Reply

iPods aren’t going anywhere. A dedicated portable music device is still a desirable thing. Even for the basic reason that you won’t be running down your cell phone on a long walk. The iPod Touch might just scootch on down to $249 or less, with a Retina Display. Apple could easily invigorate it’s iPod line anytime it wants to. You are paying for the smaller pocketable form factor.
- Rorschach
  
  Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 5:46 pm · Reply
  
  “The iPod brand is on its way out…”
  Only for those for whom music is of no real interest. Those of us who actually enjoy listening to music while doing things that don’t involve staring at a hand-held device think otherwise. I currently have somewhere around 30Gb spare on my iPod; that’s a 160Gb Classic, btw, and that’s not going to be spare for very much longer. A 250Gb iPod would be highly desirable.
  And to those about to come back at me and ask why I need to carry so much music around when there’s iCloud, or other streams, well streaming music uses data, of which there’s very little available from telcos these days, even if you can get data over a network when you want it, which I can’t.
  Streaming is useless when there’s no Internet available.
  And because I don’t want to phaff around having to keep making playlists; my pod is on shuffle, and the library is one playlist, set to play once, so it’s like having the best radio station you can imagine, with 13000+ tracks of your favourite music on it.
  Some of us just love music, it’s one of Apple’s underlying principles, after all. Otherwise, why have iTunes?
  - GregoriusM
    
    Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 8:54 pm · Reply
    
    Good answer!
derss

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 5:25 pm · Reply

Another nonsensical made up story.
- Tom
  
  Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 7:59 am · Reply
  
  I think he is asking the right question. The iPod Touch is the worst performing iOS product. There was a time when it sold nearly as many units as the iPhone; now the iPhone is outshipping it by 1:10.
iGads

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 5:28 pm · Reply

Evolution.
Rodney King

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 6:53 pm · Reply

Can we all get along?
Ansel

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 7:09 pm · Reply

Smaller, well engineered products, can still command or even be priced higher than their big brothers, because they are smaller ….

So being smaller does not mean you can’t have a bigger price …..

Apple may have a 7-8″ guy ready to go and if so it will take some ipodtouch and iPad sales but it will also increase Apple market share overall and that will be a good thing, due to halo effect, now more iMacs will be sold …..

It is all good!
Solid

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 8:19 pm · Reply

No, no,no,no, no,no!!!!!! I’m not going to strap a tablet to my hip when I work out. The iPod touch isn’t going anywhere. This analysis is stupid.
- Tom
  
  Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 8:07 am · Reply
  
  Should your current iPod Touch ever break in the future, you’ll be able to a get a contact-free iPhone for $199. iPhone prices are starting to down now, and they were the only reason why most people ever chose a Touch over an iPhone.
Roberto

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 9:19 pm · Reply

iPod touché
Teddy

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 9:49 pm · Reply

I see shirts with wide pockets coming into fashion.
- Derek Currie
  
  Friday, July 13, 2012 - 2:37 am · Reply
  
  …And Captain Kangaroo coats on everyone with giant pockets large enough to actually fit a ~7″ iPad. Right. (o_0)
Music Lover

Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 10:06 pm · Reply

Sure, the iPod concept, as it was originally conceived has evolved into so much more. The argument in these comments basicly boils down to form factor. What the device is called really doesn’t matter that much. There is no way that Apple is going to abandon the popular form factor of the iPod Touch and try to replace it with a 7-8″ tablet. We have a 3rd generation ‘Touch along with the cheapest cell phone that I could buy at Costco. I refuse to pay the outrageous contract rates required for an iPhone, as much as I would love to have the integration that the iPhone provides. The iPod touch remains one of the best kept secret weapons, and it has nothing to do with music. It is a killer mega-function WiFi device! Apple will, no doubt, sell scads of mini-iPads, filling another niche for consumers & businesses. I’m confident that Apple will continue to refine the iPod Touch, maintaining the same easily pocketable size, but adding a bigger retina display, more solid-state memory, and hopefully, GPS chips without having to pay the big bucks for cellular data capability just to have GPS capability. This last item alone could open up a whole new market for the iPod touch. Overnight they would blow away deadbeats like Garmin and other makers of clunky handheld GP units whose units are a decade behind the times. The iOS GPS HD apps already peel the skin off these guys for just a couple of bucks. Who else cringes at spending a whole day updating their Garmin with new maps via their abysmally slow servers and atrocious fragmented software? If Apple comes up with a new ‘Touch as I have described, I’ll buy one in a minute!
The Other Steve

Friday, July 13, 2012 - 2:30 am · Reply

A lot ifs and maybes on the iPad mini and price points for the two devices.
Apple knows what they are doing.
Derek Currie

Friday, July 13, 2012 - 2:33 am · Reply

oh look another ipod touch prophesy of doom almost exactly a year after the last ipod touch prophesy of doom with the ipod touch being the biggest selling of apple’s ipod series and the fact that it is nearly as powerful as an ipad and it still actually fits in your pocket unlike the stupid rumored ~7″ ipad i think i’ll get all worried now and fall asleep clutching my ipod touch as i dream of unicorns and day glow snowflakes
*HURL*
:-Q*********