[The Godfather]

With everybody expecting an A6 device sometime this year, will the iPod Touch get an update?
With no competition in the category, does the market deserve an A5 or A6 iPod Touch?
With iOS also in the pipeline, will it pressure Apple to make it underfeatured so that it gets supported by the iPod Touch?
With a very popular A4 market base in the iPod Touch, will game developers make their games sophisticated enough to require an A5 iPT?

[cgc]

Yes, iPod touch will get updated to A5...maybe A6 but I wouldn't count on that.

[The Godfather]

Will the iPT get A5 before or after the iPad gets the A6?

[imitchellg5]

I think it's the end of the line for the iPod touch.

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

I think it's the end of the line for the iPod touch.

Why do you say this? If people don't want a phone, and an iPad is too big, why wouldn't they want the Touch?

Steve

[imitchellg5]

Because smartphone penetration is so deep.

[Nergol]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Because smartphone penetration is so deep.

Lots of Touches get sold to, or for, teenagers or even younger kids. Parents don't generally want to pay $80 a month for a data plan for a 12 year old (and especially to risk a careless child running up huge overage charges). $200 at Christmas every other year, and letting the kid use wifi, is a lot more doable. That's one of the motivations behind iMessage. Unlimited texting, all through free wifi. Kids love it, and it's easy on Dad's wallet. Same for FaceTime, though I'm sure I'd rather not know what a bunch of hormone-pumped adolescents are showing each other with that.

Beyond this, kids are tough on their possessions. They abuse them, drop them, or forget them constantly, and things get swiped out of school bags all the time. A stolen, scratched, smashed, barfed-upon, or otherwise abused Touch is bad, but not a tragedy. Ever lost or destroyed an expensive phone before your upgrade time came up and when you were still under contract? And I don't mean a warranty thing like a dead screen, I mean something that was clearly your own fault. Carriers subsidize iPhones (and I'm sure the nicer Android phones too) to the tune of hundreds of dollars per unit. They really don't like the idea of replacing them after a couple of months. They make it costly to do that. You can buy insurance, and add another ten bucks or so per phone, to your monthly bill - if the carrier will even let you do that. I can't speak for other carriers, but Sprint doesn't insure iPhones - they tell you to just go get AppleCare. This makes giving a kid an expensive phone a big gamble. Many think it's better to just give them a cheap flip phone and a Touch.

Long story short, I have no doubt that the Touch has a big enough market for it that its here to stay for a long time to come.

[Big Mac]

Yeah, the touch certainly isn't EOL. It's an important part of Apple's business. It's just not going to get the frequent updates received by the other iOS lines, but it will get bumped up eventually.

[The Godfather]

It seems that as it is only 1.5 generations behind, the iPT's A4 will be good for iOS 6 at least.

[The Godfather]

Anyone pinning for an updated iPod touch with updated CPU and ram, with exactly the same other specs and case as the 2010 iPod touch?