iPod Touch, the Next Generation

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So, Apple unleashed a slew of hardware yesterday. The Macbook Air looks very interesting, and with its emphasis on wireless communications, it really has piqued my interest. (I hate wires of all sorts. Despise them actually…wish every cord and wire and cable would evaporate instantly.) The Air doesn’t sport cables other than a power cord. Bravo! It sports Bluetooth, 802.11n, and some nifty software. What it doesn’t support is true mobile connectivity…so, it is truly a portable, not a mobile computing device. A bit of a letdown. Integrated mobile access through ATT would have been a great addition. Perhaps the next rev.
However, I think that the most overlooked event of this edition of the Macworld Expo was the upgrade to the iPod Touch. With the advent of location awareness through Skyhook Wireless and their excellent wiFi Access Point location database, and the inclusion of a mail client on the device, the Touch just changed who and what it is.
Previously, sporting WiFi and the excellent mobile Safari browser, the Touch was a great info-tainment device. But with location awareness and the new mail client, the Touch has jumped the chasm into a mobile computing device. For all of the Apple fans and folks who post to sites like MacNN who were clamoring for a tablet computer, Apple just surpassed your expectations by delivering a micro-tablet. It sports a touch screen interface, internet access, media players, e-mail, and location-sensitive mapping. That is HUGE. It allows access to Word, Excel and PDFs, and carries calendar and addressbook info.

It doesn’t come with an integrated phone. So it doesn’t come with a carrier contract. What a relief.

So, here you go…everything that the iPhone has with none of the drawbacks (and twice the storage). The Touch is now hot. The iPhone is still cool, but the Touch is hot.

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