At the iPhone media event this morning, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s VP of marketing, unveiled the latest line of iPods, featuring a whole new 4 inch iPod touch and a redesigned iPod nano.
The fifth gen iPod touch borrows a number of features from the newly announced iPhone 5, namely a 4 inch 1136×640 pixels display, a taller design, thinner form factor and improved battery life.
Here’s a list of new features and improvements:
Taller 4-inch display
The device features a 4 inch 1136×640 pixels Retina display, just like the iPhone 5. The display is powered by the same in-cell technology as the iPhone 5, which binds the touch sensing and the display layers together.
The homescreen now shows 5 rows of icons as opposed to the earlier 4 rows. The 16:9 aspect ratio means that app developers would have to tailor their apps for the taller display, unless they want their apps to run in a letterboxed mode.
Improved physical design
At just 6.1mm the iPod touch is one of the slimmest devices we’ve ever seen. The device weighs 88 grams and has an anodised aluminium body with a brushed finish. For the first time ever, the iPod touch is available in a variety of colours.
A5 Chip
The iPod touch has of late been a generation behind the iPhone when it comes to the CPU, and this year is no exception. While the iPhone 5 is powered by an all new A6 chip, the iPod touch 5G, under the hood, runs on Apple’s relatively older dual core A5 chip. It’s still an upgrade over the earlier generation of iPods though, enabling 2x CPU speed and 7x graphics.
Battery
The battery inside the 5th gen iPod touch can power 40 hours of music or 8 hours of video, which is slightly better than the previous generation.
iSight Camera
The iPod touch features an all new 5MP iSight rear camera, which has backside illumination, a 5-element lens and a Sapphire crystal lens cover. The iSight camera supports 1080p HD recording, along with video image stabilisation and face detection.
Even the front camera has been upgraded. Apple calls this the “FaceTime HD” camera, which supports a 720p resolution, backside illumination and face detection. Along with hardware upgrades, iOS 6 also enables a new Panorama mode, letting you shoot 360 degree views of your surrounding by simply swiping the device across horizontally or vertically.
Siri
Apple also announced that Siri would be a part of the fifth gen iPod touch, packing in all the improvements it received in the past few months.
Availability
The iPod touch 5G would be priced at $299 for the 32GB version and $399 for the 64GB version. It will be available in five colors, with pre-orders starting September 14th.
Apple would also keep the older 4th gen iPod touch around, retaining its $199, $249 pricing for the 16GB and 32GB models respectively.
