price cut?

[tomacco]

there was a report around early feburary that there would be a $100 price cut on the 16gb and 32gb model within the next two months. has anyone found out if there is any truth to this report?

i've been looking at getting a 32gb model and amazon currently offers a free 1gb shuffle with a 32gb purchase. should i just buy that now instead of waiting?

[kornchild2002]

Apple is pretty tight lipped when it comes to this type of stuff and they normally don't put their iPods through official price reductions. The 32GB iPod touch was released only 2 months ago so I don't see it going through a price reduction. Now, some places may sell it for less than $499 but that is up to them. I don't see Apple lowering the MSRP of the iPod touch at all.

The new iPods should be coming out around September/October of this year so you can kind of use that as a guideline. So that means that the new iPods should be out in about 6-7 months. I don't know if Apple would put the iPod touch through a price drop (or release an updated model) when the 2G iPod touch is just around the corner. If you have the money then I say that you should get it now especially since Amazon is giving you a free 1GB iPod shuffle, you could use the shuffle while exercising or take it places that you don't want your iPod touch to go.

Just remember that it is hard to predict these things and that there are about 10 Apple rumors released a week, half of them dealing with the iPod touch. You can never really trust those Apple rumor websites. The iPod touch was rumored to come out in 2005, that was when Apple released the 5G iPod. Then the iPod touch rumor surfaced in 2006 yet Apple released the 5.5G iPod instead. Finally the iPod touch rumor came back in 2007 and they just happened to be right. So take all those rumors with a grain of salt as most of them are BS.

[DerekVOF]

Rumors are just rumors. No one knows what Apple is going to do before they do it. I don't think anyone on these boards even predicted a 32GB model for several more months at the earliest. Most rumor sites are like 10-20% accurate (although their time frames may be off by years, like with the iPhone).

As for a 2G iPod Touch, you never know - since the firmware is upgradeable, the only difference may be a new firmware and more storage. Don't forget that Apple's last "upgrade" for the iPod shuffle was different colors :D

[tomacco]

thanks for the great response.

seeing as how the 2g ipod touch is coming out in 6-7 months, what'll be the main difference between that and the current ipod touch? i assume they'll be coming out with a bigger flash storage (64gb)?

[kornchild2002]

thanks for the great response.

seeing as how the 2g ipod touch is coming out in 6-7 months, what'll be the main difference between that and the current ipod touch? i assume they'll be coming out with a bigger flash storage (64gb)?

Well, as I said, Apple normally updates their iPod models once a year (around September or October of every year) so they could release a 2G iPod touch. However, no one knows if that will really happen given that the iPod touch is different from their other iPods. Also, no one knows what the differences will be either. I do imagine that they will use a more efficient processor, possibly longer battery life on a single charge, and higher storage capacities. That is about all I see Apple doing with hardware improvements. I could be wrong though and Apple could very well come out with a whole new design featuring a true upgrade.

You could wait another 6-7 months for a new iPod touch (or an upgrade to the previous model as Apple has done that before when they released the 5.5G iPod instead of the 6G iPod or the iPod touch). I don't see much changing if anything really. 32GB of memory should be more than enough to carry around one's "best of" playlist along with 5-7 full length movies and over 30 music videos (concidering that the "best of" audio playlist is about 3,000 songs long).

Just keep in mind that flash memory (or SSD) is still rather expensive. A 64GB iPod touch would cost at least $499 if not more. Flash memory prices keep coming down in price as capacity increases but it is still damned expensive for anything 16GB and larger. I think that an affordable 64GB iPod touch won't really come out until 2009, that is when flash memory prices are expected to go down as it is gearing up to be the replacement for hard disk media in portable devices and many notebook computers.

[touchy]

I've found the best technique in figuring out Apple's product plans is to think "What's the most effective way they can p*ss off current customers?"

And then double it, rofl