Touch-screen iPod to take center stage
Apple will at last unveil a touch-screen iPod with a 3.5-inch display at its media event Wednesday, sources have confirmed, some 20 months after Think Secret first broke word of the device's development. — The new iPod will feature similar dimensions …
Context & Ripple Effects
The confirmation lands one week after reports of a major Apple event on September 5th, and closes a long loop for Think Secret, which broke word of the touch-screen device's development some 20 months earlier. Engadget and vnunet have both picked up the beat, though their framing leans toward internet-radio features rather than the confirmed 3.5-inch touch display.
Two threads make the timing pointed: iSuppli's July data showing the iPhone outsold every other smartphone model in the U.S., and Apple's August 31 decision to stop selling NBC television shows on the iTunes Store for the upcoming season — meaning any new iPod ships into both a proven touch-interface market and a content catalog with a fresh hole in it.
First-order effects
- Apple brings the iPhone's multi-touch interface to its core iPod line on Wednesday, giving buyers a full-screen device without a phone contract or AT&T attachment.
- Rival portable-media-player makers — whose click-wheel-era menus were already being undercut by the iPhone — now face the same interface at iPod pricing.
Second-order effects
- A touch-screen iPod without carrier subsidies pressures the iPhone/AT&T exclusivity equation from inside Apple's own lineup: customers who want the interface but not the phone plan have an off-ramp.
- Content partners read the NBC withdrawal against a refreshed device launch — Apple enters the holiday selling season demonstrating that hardware demand can absorb disputes over store inventory.
Third-order effects
- If the touch interface becomes the standard across the iPod line rather than a halo variant, the click-wheel becomes legacy hardware and the iPod converges with the iPhone into a single touchscreen platform family.
- iSuppli's July smartphone numbers plus a touch iPod suggest handheld devices generally are drifting toward the same large-screen, app-capable form factor — a structural shift in what a 'media player' even is.
The trend: Multi-touch is propagating out of the phone category into Apple's whole portable-device line, collapsing the distinction between iPod and iPhone around a shared touchscreen platform.