The iPod Touch is a converged device; a portable media player and a basic PDA. At the moment it appears to be the younger (and neglected) sibling to the iPhone. It also appears at first glance to be more expensive than the iPhone:

iPod Touch 8GB costs $299, 8GB 3G iPhone to cost $199
iPod Touch 16GB costs $399, 16GB 3G iPhone to cost $299
iPod Touch 32GB costs $499, no 32GB iPhone yet.

Of course the 3G iPhone comes with a two year contract which costs at least $70 per month (without any text messaging package). That means after two months the a 3G iPhone will cost more than the same capacity iPod Touch.

Two weeks ago I was almost sure there wouldn’t be a price cut for the iPod Touch, now I’m not sure.
The iPod Touch is an important device, it is the next generation iPod, a true portable media player with a wide screen and closer to a PDA than any other iPod before it. With the next firmware update, which unfortunately is not free, the SDK will be added. Now third party developers can legally write applications for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. I know of at least one commercial developer with several applications which run on everything from Palm to Blackberry to Symbian devices. They are now developing for the iPhone as well. This will bring some world class applications to both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by mervyn