iPod touch showing up in stores, gets unboxed

So much for "a few weeks" -- just eight days after being announced, Apple's new iPod touch is showing up in Apple Stores, the support page just went live on Apple.com, and you know it's already gotten lovingly unboxed. Big ups to jmobley for doing the honors -- check out the rest of his Flickr set at the read link.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[qjohnson @ Sep 14th 2007 4:08PM]

first!

[humpty @ Sep 13th 2007 6:19PM]

Yawn....

-too big for an mp3 player.
-not enough gb for a movie player (or mp3)
-no communications
-no point to this

... but, its shiny!

[Simon @ Sep 13th 2007 6:23PM]

lol, i was just about to comment 'yawn' myself...anyway, i agree about the lack of storage, and two handed use is just not ideal for an mp3 player.

Ratings are not what my life is all about.

[Paul @ Sep 13th 2007 6:41PM]

You shut up! It is the most artistic, beautiful, majestic paperweight anyone could ever want!


Plus I hear it allows for time travel or some such thing.

[zip22 @ Sep 13th 2007 6:49PM]

-barely taller than an ipod classic
-highest flash capacity around (iaudio and the creative zen are the only ones to match it)
-wifi

[paloooz @ Sep 13th 2007 7:11PM]

Two handed use? I use my iPhone single handedly. Is something different about this one? I mean, I can even type text messages with one hand while driving (though I probably shouldn't) and I don't see how this one would be any different.

[perfectionist @ Sep 13th 2007 7:14PM]

Sandisk Sansa View also matches it in capacity.

I'm just not liking the lack of Notes on the Touch, though. Eee for me!

[peternj @ Sep 13th 2007 7:35PM]

You can't be serious. This is 10 years ahead of anything else. It has Wifi and Starbucks! It has wires that stick out of your ears making you able to pick up signals from outer space.

And Blue tooth is for Windows anyway, thank God Job's has saved all of us from having to sync headphones.

And wires are useful for scraping off grease before you put your breakfast on the screen.

the iPod touch is the friend of all infectious diseases. This is wonderful news.

[Grant @ Sep 13th 2007 7:52PM]

I would agree with you mostly,
because it's taller than i would like for PMP, and 16GB is paltry, but then again, the thing has a wifi browser, so the screen size is better for browsing and video.

with that size screen and a wifi radio, your going to need all the battery life you can get, which makes SSD almost a necessity for this, and 16GB is the new high limit for anything portable with solid state, so unfortunately it's not so much the player as the technology which is the problem.

I've heard the gripe that 16GB is not big enough for a movie player but thats completely untrue, if you properly encode your videos at the right bit rate/size you can fit quite a bit on a 16gb player. of course if you think your going to fit an entire season of the sopranos on the thing your insane, it's still 16gb.

[Urza @ Sep 13th 2007 8:32PM]

Just because it has the best memory of any flash based device does NOT mean it has a lot of memory. That's like saying 5 bits is a lot of memory because it's the most I can store on the fingertips of one hand with a sharpie.

Video is big. If you want something to be a good portable media device, it needs to accommodate lots of video, and lots more music. My music wouldn't fit on that thing, and I am generally considered a music snob who likes a very, very small amount of music. If you start throwing video on there too, you'll have a hell of a problem. You're talking maybe 20-30 TV shows at a decent resolution (and I'm considering 'decent resolution' for something this small as a bit lower than VGA). Yea, that's a decent amount, but then you have no room for anything else. Once you put your music onto that thing, you can maybe fit enough video that you'll only need to rotate it every day.

Good memory for something that's going to be playing video, music, and everything else is _at least_ 40 gigs. I would say you'd probably want 80 or above. Which they could do easily if they weren't so damned obsessed with flash memory. I don't get it. What's the appeal? I've taken my 3rd gen ipod jogging with me without problems, dropped it and it didn't miss a beat, so it can't be shock messing with the hard drive. I've also had that same iPod for about 6 years now, so it can't be lifetime of the device. I think it's just so they can save space (though not really - 80GB worth of flash chips would be HUGE), and have an excuse to charge massive amounts by claiming it's the most memory you can get...on a flash device.

[ukickmydog (NDF - Earth) @ Sep 13th 2007 9:07PM]

All i see is crying and whining about storage, lets think about it for more than 2 seconds now, if apple was dumb enough to put a HDD in it, we could say hello to about 2 hours battery life. But since SOMEONE had foresight, they went with SSD(which is by far more expensive per GB than a HDD), and with a screen that big, it has 22 hours battery life w/music and 5 hours for video, that's pretty good, but it'll get better in the next few years

[Gerald Tan @ Sep 14th 2007 4:02AM]

The iPod Touch is good, but has anyone had the thrill of feeling/owning a first generation iPod? I actually have one SEALED in box, sitting in my drybox.

Sure, the iPod Touch may be a technological marvel but I am sure nothing beats the nostalgic feeling of being able to own one :)

I can send you pictures if you want, and offers for the 1st gen ipod are being taken in too.
Or, the iPod Touch would be another not-so-good alternative to the first gen ;)



Gerald
[e-mail]

[TimAlia @ Sep 19th 2007 10:34PM]

The iPod Touch is an awesome device from what I've heard. I ordered my Ipod touch on September 9th, so I should be able to say more about it in about a week. I couldn't believe Apple didn't use a hard drive for the touch. That was kind of dumb...but when I think about it a little harder, it seems like apple doesn't think that they'll have any more ideas for the "next big apple electronic!"; so they might use the hard drive for the next iPod touch, that way it's a new, improved, better, incredible new product. Apple's motive is not to be the necessarily the "best" company, but to be the "coolest" company. So if they hold back on some products, they'll have their ideas for the next big product. I think apple is just being smart...we're being impatient. (and believe me...I'm with you)

[Xavier @ Sep 13th 2007 6:20PM]

So where is the wifi store upgrade for my iPhone? and my $100 apple store credit?

[Leandro Almeida @ Sep 13th 2007 6:24PM]

Xavier, Please, would you tell me if you can read PDF files on your Iphone ??? I wonder if I will able to do it on the Ipod Touch. thanks.

[Xavier @ Sep 13th 2007 6:35PM]

Yes, I can, I just sent myself a 9 page PDF file and opened it in mail. It did take about 15 seconds to render the 9 page file though.

[spass @ Sep 13th 2007 6:43PM]

PDF files read just fine, but only of you are online.
Transferring your ebooks, storing them locally and access them online is not an option.

This is actually a big shortcoming, one of the reasons that stopped me from getting the iPhone.

[Quoc Nhan @ Sep 13th 2007 6:20PM]

awesome! but I dont need it

[Alan Partridge @ Sep 13th 2007 6:26PM]

When can we expect the Engadget review of the new iPods?

[Grant @ Sep 13th 2007 6:23PM]

Hey guys,

so im in uk, think its possible i might recieve it next week? lol i would actually be over the moon! i can't wait - such a sleek, sexy looking device :D its gonna rock

Cheers

[Big John @ Sep 13th 2007 8:58PM]

I'm in the US and mine is still listed as not yet shipped. Good luck tho!

[Wes Joyce @ Sep 13th 2007 6:22PM]

That better mean that they ship out the pre-orders early!!!!!!!!

[Mike Jenkins @ Sep 13th 2007 7:52PM]

Yeah!! I ordered mine from the online Apple store expecting to get it when stores did but so far... nothing!!!

[Dom @ Sep 13th 2007 6:22PM]

Can't wait for mine to get here!

[Jason @ Sep 13th 2007 6:22PM]

Bahhh... they haven't showed up in Colorado Apple stores yet.

Boo!

[Harold H @ Sep 13th 2007 6:23PM]

It looks like the headphone jack is recessed like on the iPhone.

[iJuleguy @ Sep 13th 2007 8:24PM]

It doesn't.

[zip22 @ Sep 13th 2007 6:49PM]

its not
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9772175-1.html

[Jake Miller @ Sep 13th 2007 6:24PM]

YAY! I sent this in!

[Ellianth @ Sep 13th 2007 9:29PM]

I just baked cookies. Want some?

No really, have one!! :p

[Dias @ Sep 13th 2007 6:23PM]

Already?

Good, I hope people complain enough to force Apple to release firmware update to fix that sucky Calendar. 5 min after they release this firmware, I'll be in nearest Apple Store with $$$.

[KratosAurion @ Sep 13th 2007 6:25PM]

still 16gb?

[Paul @ Sep 13th 2007 7:07PM]

Yes, unfortunately, they were going to up it at the last second, to a capacity that their customers with actual music/movie collections could use...but they decided instead to tell 'em to "Fuck off"

[Homeboy @ Sep 13th 2007 6:32PM]

What I hate about the iTouch is the deliberate crippling by apple. No notes and no third party applications.

If you look at the hardware and the OS the iTouch is a PDA but unfortunately Apple is holding it back, not taking advantage of it's full potential.

[ilh @ Sep 13th 2007 6:34PM]

They need to save something for those yearly updates of the tiniest thing, should be thankful there's been such a big update from the usual iPodness to this.

[byaah @ Sep 13th 2007 6:48PM]

Well if its that big of a deal to you, the massive iPhone hacking/modding community will be helping out with that. The iPhone apps should be able to be easily ported over to the iTouch. Its one of the main reasons I got mine.

[Jonathan @ Sep 13th 2007 6:32PM]

Hopefully this means we don't have to wait until September 28th for them to start shipping them out.

[Constable Odo @ Sep 13th 2007 6:33PM]

Let's have about 50 more unboxings. You can never get enough of this type of stuff.

In the reviews, the earphone jack is not recessed as is the iPhone.

Still 16GB. The larger storage version is coming out in a couple of months.

[Jason @ Sep 13th 2007 6:37PM]

You know this how? Highly doubtful Apple will double storage capacity before next year. We might see a 3G 16GB iPhone though before the end of the year.

[Constable Odo @ Sep 13th 2007 6:56PM]

It's pure speculation on my part. I only know that Samsung is already ramping up production of 32 GB NAND flash memory for somebody. I would only take a few months to get production quantity for a major client. I don't think it's a stretch to put it into the next version Touch. It will cost a bit more, but I'm sure an extra $100 wouldn't deter purchasers. My belief is that Apple will keep increasing memory as it becomes available and/or cost feasible.

[Alex @ Sep 14th 2007 3:18PM]

I can't see Apple releasing another Touch so soon. Look back and think of when they've updated any of their lines THAT fast THAT drastically? Firmware updates, sure, but not a memory increase on the iPod.

The way I see it, they'll wait till next fall (when they always update the iPod lineup) and depending on where the NAND flash market is, run 32/64GB or 64/128GB models.

[Constable Odo @ Sep 16th 2007 5:13PM]

You're right about the usual upgrade time, but I figured that was due to storage growth time intervals. If companies keep increasing storage limits quickly, I just figured Apple would need to keep competitive with other brands. I guess that's annoying for owners who just bought a device and a few months later feels left behind if a newer device has more memory. Just remember, it did happen with the iPhone. Well, it will when the rumored 16 GB model iPhone hits the streets shortly. The 4 GB iPhone is already history.

I admit I don't really know anything about Apple's future products timeline. It's just pleasurable for me if I guess correctly. Then I can say I'm savvy enough to figure out industry trends.

[lawschoolbound @ Sep 13th 2007 6:34PM]

this thing would be awesome if it had email and calender input, or better yet if it was open to 3rd party apps. Being on a college campus all day I don't need data service, just wi-fi. I would love to have this and just a basic phone but as it stands now its just too crippled a device.

[Brian @ Sep 13th 2007 6:36PM]

I can confirm that Apple is starting to get the first Apple.com pre-orders ready for shipping. Many should be getting them next week.

[Xman @ Sep 13th 2007 8:46PM]

How can you confirm that? What does "the first pre-orders" mean?

[nightmaremike99 @ Sep 13th 2007 6:38PM]

With the use of cover flow, I have noticed that I started adding cover art to all the music that I have ripped from my cd's. I think a cool feature they should include is being able to find album art on the internet, take it and use it as the album art for that cd. I do the same thing now (with the copy and paste method) but if they did something so it would automatically get it that would be awesome. I can't wait to get my hands on this.

[jjlange @ Sep 13th 2007 7:01PM]

In iTunes, go to the advanced menu and choose "Get Album Artwork."
If your albums are correctly titled, you should get album art for almost all of them automatically. (you do need to have an iTunes account for this to work)

[nightmaremike99 @ Sep 13th 2007 8:45PM]

Thanks I'll try that.

[Jason @ Sep 13th 2007 6:38PM]

Ya, people at ilounge are already reporting that their order status is changing for shipment.

Those that ordered in the first few hours anyway. Others have been told that the waiting list is long long long.

[Mike Jenkins @ Sep 13th 2007 8:16PM]

I ordered as soon as I could access the Apple Store page, which ended up being atound 5:30 EDT, do you think I will be getting mine? Unfortunately the closest Apple store is too far away otherwise I would cancel my order and go buy one.