Like a character in the Marvel universe, nobody stays dead forever. Well, surprise, surprise. Apple has revived updated the iPod touch, the only portable music player left in its product line-up. OK, so it wasn’t really dead in the first place, but truth be told, the venerable touchscreen iPod hasn’t received much attention since 2015.
It’s no longer such a common sight to spot someone with a dedicated portable music player nowadays, aside perhaps audiophiles with premium Hi-Res Audio players. The smartphone has taken over as the single gadget that does everything—including play music and videos. On the flip side, seeing that device makers like Sony still makes them, there’s still a little space in the universe for them.
Apple thinks so too. Hence, the surprise updated iPod touch. Making a debut in 2007 as Apple’s first all-touch iPod, you can think of the iPod touch as an iPhone minus the cellular guts.
So, the iPod touch today remains fundamentally unchanged. It’s a great music and media player, it’s powerful enough for the best iOS games, it’s awesome for browsing the web, shooting photos and videos, and pretty much everything else you’d do on a smartphone.
Aesthetics-wise, it’s wholly unchanged from previous too. The design is familiar—sleek, with rounded corners much like the iPhone 6. It retains the 4-inch Retina display (640×1136) that pushes 500 nits peak brightness, and 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera on the front. On the back, there’s an 8MP f/2.4 single camera with LED flash.
It features a physical home button but minus Touch ID. No Face ID either, so authentication is solely via old school passcode.
On the bottom, you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack, Lightning port and a single down-firing speaker.
The big change lies under the hood. Powering the new iPod touch is the powerful Apple A10 Fusion Chip that also powers the old iPhone 7. Sure, it’s several generations behind the current silicon that’s on the iPhone XS/XS Max/XR but it’s still plenty of performance for a dedicated media player.
In fact, the A10 Fusion offers up to 2x faster performance and 3X better graphics performance than the previous generation. It also enables support for AR games—a big focus for Apple.
The new iPod touch now offers 32GB, 128GB and 256GB storage options.
In terms of battery life, Apple claims the iPod touch will return up to 40 hours of music playback time, or eight hours of video playback time, same as the previous generation.
In the connectivity department, the device comes with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi?Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 wireless technology.
Audio formats supported includes AAC-LC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2, Protected AAC, MP3, Linear PCM, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX and AAX+).
A huge benefit of the new iPod touch is that it tips the scales at only 88g, a featherweight compared to modern smartphones.
Out-of-the-box the device runs iOS 12.
Pricing and availability
The new 2019 iPod touch comes in Space Grey, Gold, Silver, Pink, Blue, and (PRODUCT)RED. It is priced at USD199 (~MYR836) for the 32GB, USD299 (~MYR1,255) for 128GB, and USD399 (~MYR1,675) for 256GB.
For more information, visit apple.com/my/ipod-touch
