Full US with roads and point of interests, restaurants etc. takes up a little less than 1GB on my TomTom. That is not "tremendous".
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Firmware Hints at New iPod Touch?
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Just speculating, but I'd expect to see most of the non-phone features the iPhone has that make sense for 3rd party developers to use:
GPS: now that the app store exists, GPS will be useful even when off network, as soon as companies start releasing GPS apps with the ability to
store maps on the phone and not have to be network connected.
mic: note taking, possibly games (ala the Nintendo DS games that use a mic)
built-in speaker: ditto above
the camera is a bit more iffy.. not really sure how much sense it makes to put that in there, honestly, unless it were front-facing which I doubt they'll do before they do it in the iPhone.
and bluetooth, I doubt because its functionality is already so limited in the iPhone.... being useful for mono headsets and little else.
GPS: now that the app store exists, GPS will be useful even when off network, as soon as companies start releasing GPS apps with the ability to
store maps on the phone and not have to be network connected.
mic: note taking, possibly games (ala the Nintendo DS games that use a mic)
built-in speaker: ditto above
the camera is a bit more iffy.. not really sure how much sense it makes to put that in there, honestly, unless it were front-facing which I doubt they'll do before they do it in the iPhone.
and bluetooth, I doubt because its functionality is already so limited in the iPhone.... being useful for mono headsets and little else.
You can connect it to your car's speakers the same way people connect iPods to listen to music.
It would be attractive if iPod can keep on playing music in the background while GPS is providing turn-by-turn directions. Of course, music would have to mute while GPS is talking. Otherwise, I still need a real GPS for the car. It is harder to justify the price of expensive electronics unless they merge the functionality of some equipment you were going to buy anyways.
Yeah, speaking as someone who used to work for an online mapping company, I've found that most people vastly overestimate the amount of storage space needed to store road maps. Street maps used by these programs are just line vector data and street names (and street names tend to be highly compressible because of non-localized redundancy), the amount of data required to cover even a very large area isn't that large at all.
If you were talking about bitmap satellite maps with various zoom levels, then yeah that would be huge, but you don't need satellite maps for turn-by-turn GPS (in fact, satellite maps are counter-productive for driving GPS systems).
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no it is not. Apple develops software for both. But iPhone is too much popular, exposed to public that's why touch isn't look like major. But they use the same platform.
arn said:
no it is not. Apple develops software for both. But iPhone is too much popular, exposed to public that's why touch isn't look like major. But they use the same platform.
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September also happens to be when Sprint will launch their WiMAX service starting with Baltimore. I think it would be great to have built-in single-chip WiFi+WiMAX broadband without any pesky recurring monthly fees. That way you only use (and pay for) wide area data when you need it. This is what Sprint has been saying WiMAX will be: pay for an hour, day, week, or month as you need it, without any contracts. Plus it could bypass Apple's exclusivity and dependency on AT&T. Put that on the top of my list for September!
Sousa203 said:Well of course there's a new touch coming out in September. It was either that or a price cut. Apple had to after the release of the 3G iPhone because it just didn't make sense that the watered down version of the iPhone cost less than the actual thingI think that the new touches will either see a price drop of about $100 OR they will drop the 8GB touch and sell the 16GB version for $299 (about the current price of an 8GB touch). No matter what happens, september will the be the month to get a new touch and it's gonna be awesome.
p.s.
don't forget about the other ipods in the lineup. They're up for review too...
September also happens to be when Sprint will launch their WiMAX service starting with Baltimore. I think it would be great to have built-in single-chip WiFi+WiMAX broadband without any pesky recurring monthly fees. That way you only use (and pay for) wide area data when you need it. This is what Sprint has been saying WiMAX will be: pay for an hour, day, week, or month as you need it, without any contracts. Plus it could bypass Apple's exclusivity and dependency on AT&T. Put that on the top of my list for September!
Apple will maintain a single connection to your iPhone/iPod touch from their servers. Third party apps are allowed to use that connection to push very specific types of notifications (buttons, sounds or text) from those servers to your iPhone/iPod touch.
This allows you to be notified of activity in an app - say an IM client - without having to have the app running in the background.
Please:
1. External music controls (volume, pause)
2. Better Safari experience
3. Longer battery life!
1. External music controls (volume, pause)
2. Better Safari experience
3. Longer battery life!
Other, of course, than being able to make phone calls and access to always on data.
No, because the Touch is up for a price/performance recallibration anyway. If it gets no new features, or doesn't take a price cut, it'll start to look very stale. The cost of adding features is probably less than that of lower the sale price given that the parts are already being used in the phone, so development costs are lowered and economies of scale kicks in.
There is a clear difference between the iPod Touch, and the iPhone : one is a phone and the other isn't. That's the only difference there needs to be.
My bargain basement Jensen GPS has a 1GB SD card to hold everything, so that's about what it takes to hold all of those maps. The insanity of it is they can't update it, so I'm stuck with those maps forever. Not bad for $100 almost 2 years ago, but still.
Anywho, back to GPS on the iPod Touch: Why? I don't own a Touch, but I don't see it being something needed on a device that's really an iPod with a few enhancements. I get the attractiveness of GPS, but I don't think the extra cost would be worth it to people who want just an iPod. Since some have been wrong, no, you don't need the Internet for any GPS stuff. You only need it for updates.
To the person who suggested a data-only 3G or EDGE deal with the iPod Touch: Dude, that's an iPhone without voice. Once again, maybe something that would be a good idea, but not very realistic. Apple really isn't into making products THAT similar to each other. It would also keep the Touch from being as thin as it is and would limit the extra memory (as would GPS).
Why bother if all you're doing is asking a question that was answered only a few posts earlier?
My thoughts
I would like to see the Touch have Bluetooth, camera, speakers, and use 3G data access for online stuff and GPS. I really don't want to store too much support stuff on the Touch so that is why 3G for GPS use. 32MB is probably more than enough for quite a few people if you do not need file storage.
My daughter has a 16GB Touch and she always complains about no speakers and no camera. And when we are out, no online to watch youTube. She's 12.
I gotta appease her now or I will pay in a very few short years with teenage angst. So, my wishlist, above, will make her (and me) very happy.
And, she will stop taking my iPhone when we are in the car (scares the h**l out of me).
Mike
I would like to see the Touch have Bluetooth, camera, speakers, and use 3G data access for online stuff and GPS. I really don't want to store too much support stuff on the Touch so that is why 3G for GPS use. 32MB is probably more than enough for quite a few people if you do not need file storage.
My daughter has a 16GB Touch and she always complains about no speakers and no camera. And when we are out, no online to watch youTube. She's 12.
I gotta appease her now or I will pay in a very few short years with teenage angst. So, my wishlist, above, will make her (and me) very happy.
And, she will stop taking my iPhone when we are in the car (scares the h**l out of me).
Mike
Wait? So if I want my Touch to beep when I have a meeting or something, I'm supposed to lug around a set of portable speakers just to hear it?
She's 12 and she's complaining that she has a $400 techie's dream? Wow, if I was her age I'd be happy with an iPod Shuffle and a chocolate bar.
Just that little thing and bang! you get into the GPS market too.
That small machine that does GPS and much more... too easy to sell.
hopefully it'll have everything the iphone does with more memory so people like myself who have a real cell carrier can have a nice device without giving up good cell service.
AT&T sucks.
AT&T sucks.
With the data networks well in place, a data-enabled Touch would actually make a lot of sense. Some of us just don't want a phone built into the device but would be just as happy with a go-anywhere data connection for sure.