Apple breaks silence - denies claims of wireless iPod, kinda
Apple doesn't feed the press many scraps, if any, and they rarely - if ever - comment on unreleased products. Apple Taiwan, however, has broken the silence by denying claims of Apple sending staff to major Asian markets to demonstrate these rumored wPods. So no, they didn't exactly deny claims that the devices exist - just claims that they're getting trained on how to use and sell them.
Speculation has been heating up about a wPod in light of Microsoft's announcement of Zune, an iPod competitor, that could feature wifi. Yes, I know wifi is an announced feature, so in all likelihood it should feature wifi, but in the tried and true Vista spirit of scrapping announced features, it sounds like Microsoft has already dropped video support from Zune. With the way things are going, they'll be lucky if the device ships with the ability to play music.
But I digress. Back on the topic of wifi and everyone's favorite little white music player, we very well might not see it in the next version. Apple hasn't been publicly hip on the idea (though Jobs did say video wouldn't happen either), it's tough to build in and, perhaps more importantly, it eats batteries for breakfast. The iPod already receives criticism for its 14 hour battery life (with only 2 or 3 hours of video) in light of competitors like Sony who get upwards of 20 and 30 hours, so adding a juice-hungry feature like wifi is no small step for a device like this.
Regardless, we'll see what we can see in the upcoming months, as the iPod is definitely ready for a refresh. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to buy iTMS music from the palm of your hand soon enough.
