There is no hard evidence that a substantially different iPod is in the works at all. Patent applications have shown up showing various unusual features, but applications in that family have shown the proposed interfaces used on notebooks, phones, iPods, and nondescript tablet-like devices. No one outside Apple really knows what products will eventually get these features, or even if the features will turn up in production hardware at all.
The speculation for early next year has mostly been about phones. There isn't anything special about February in particular, although the Macworld show in January is often used for product announcements.