“Have you had a chance to touch the new iPod touch? It’s a beautiful gadget–slim, shiny, with the comfy, curvy feel in your hand like it just belongs there. When you’re holding the iPod touch, it’s impossible to be jealous of fellow subway denizens clutching Nintendo DSes, Sony PsPs, or for that matter, iPhone 3Gs. Because even though it’s not a smartphone, the touch is a portable entertainment and communications device par excellence. It does the Web. It does email. It does IM,” Leslie Ayers writes for Mac|Life.
Ayers lists five reasons the iPod touch blows the iPhone 3G out of the water:
1. Cost
2. Form factor
3. Sound: built-in speaker and volume buttons now standard
4. Apps mostly the same as iPhone (except GPS)
5. Battery life
Full article here.
Let’s not get too carried away: until Wi-Fi becomes ubiquitous and unless iPod touch grows GPS, it has no chance of making iPhone irrelevant for most people.
The Touch is great…if you already have a cellphone. If you don’t, then the iPhone is better. Everything you need in one device, as opposed to two devices.
Now, here’s something interesting, I have both an EDGE and a 3G iPhone. After I upgraded, my EDGE iPhone essentially became a Touch. Shortly after getting the 3G iPhone, I realized that my cell signal in my house was weaker than my old EDGE model. I wanted to test the signal, so I switched the SIM from the new iPhone to my old one. My old EDGE phone informed me I needed to connect it to my Mac to re-activate it. Voila, reactivated and now I could compare signal strength.
After testing was done, I switched the SIM back to my 3G iPhone, and it works like normal, 3G and everything, but no reactivation required, like when I moved the SIM to the EDGE phone originally.
I then checked my AT&T;account, online. Interestingly, my data plan was also switched to $20, and has stayed that way for close to two months. So, I have a 3G iPhone, but I’m on the EDGE plan, but with 3G. Not bad!
Does the iPhone spell the end of the iPod?
Does the iPod Touch make the iPhone irrelevant?
I think we should have an agreement viz:
All months with 30 days = iPod makes iPhone irrelevant
All months with 31 days = iPhone ditto for iPod
February: All stories about other phone manufacturers “responding to” iPhone
February 29th: All stories about Microsoft announcing Zune progress on iPod/iPhone “killer”
WiFi VOIP/iChat on the Touch would make it a killer free communication device for every young teen to keep in touch with their friends. Apple can’t put it on their halo iPhone so the Touch will never see it either. Too bad. It’s what everyone wants.
Won’t even consider buying an iPhone until AT&T;is not the sole carrier.
Not everyone lives in a freaking city or stays in one all the time. Why is it that some people can only look at “this is how it is where I am, so it must be this way for everyone”? (“For everyone that matters” is the suggestion there.)
I don’t make that many phone calls but without the data package the iGadget wasn’t worth the price outlay. I had an iPod and a phone already. Access to the internet wherever I go was the clincher. I can go on a road trip and surf from my car…while at the same time eliminating having a pile of gadgets to haul around.
If you stay in a city and the Touch is all you need, good for you.
The Zune makes both the I-Phone & I-Touch irrelevant. Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Uhmmm… I kinda sorta think the reason Apple makes both is because they both have their advantages. It’s silly to get into a battle about which Apple product is better than the other… buy whichever one suits you, but buy one or the other. They’re both great.
what i want is a wimax to wifi router in my car, then I will drop ATT and get a cheapo cell phone, then use GrandCentral to route calls to both (presuming that some reasonable VOIP/WIFI solution eventually makes it to iPhone)
I’ll tell you why the Touch will never make the iPhone obsolete–
Because it’s not a phone.
They are different products, that cater to two different demographics–Those who need a phone, and everyone else.
iphone contract – $2,200 ($199 iphone, data plan, unlimited text)
ipod touch plus verizon – $1940 (touchscreen phone, data plan, unlimited text, ipod touch, basic gps)
$260 difference (3 devices vs. 1 device)
Let’s play out some scenarios
@home
-no real need for internet, email, or internet use since computer is near by, besides using skype, need to make calls, text messages. iphone wins.
@work
-same as @home. Need phone for communication. iphone beats ipod touch
traveling in car
-can play music with ipod touch and iphone. no wifi puts ipod touch out of business. iphone can use exact gps, plus phone features. iphone beats ipod touch
airplane
-no communication needed. ipod touch wins…(till you land)
showing off to friends
-ipod touch comes close, but gps, maps, and phone features make iphone winner
walking to class
-iphone does everything ipod touch does, plus adds phone. iphone winner.
In conclusion, people who are dawging on the iphone are just jealous they are stuck with verizon or sprint. you will have two thing in your pocket, and I will have one.
Voip on the ipod touch. Come on! realistically? too much trouble to go through and have to have a wifi connection.
I have used both, and having an ipod touch will only make you more pissed you don’t have the phone features.
let’s break this down
1. Cost – CANT COMPARE BASE PRICE. PHONE VS IPOD
2. Form factor – WOW, A SHINY SILVER BACK
3. Sound: built-in speaker and volume buttons now standard – HOPE THAT SPEAKER PHONE WORKS WITH CALLS…OH WAIT..
4. Apps mostly the same as iPhone (except GPS) – NOT HAVING GPS WITH MAPS = SUX
5. Battery life – TURNING IT TO AIRPLANE MODE MAKES THE BATTERY LIFE ALMOST THE SAME.
might as well compare the zune vs. iphone
touch YES — iPhone NO
Since there is ZERO AT&T;service where I live – and ZERO 3G signal in my entire state from AT&T;- I have the best of what is left to me: an iPod touch 2 and a Verizon cell phone. I can see my calendar, listen to music, and still call AAA when my car breaks down.
Dick