Yesterday was the big Apple iPod announcement event for 2010.  There has been oodles of coverage of the event.  I was surprised that the iPad didn’t get an OS update and was pleased to see buttons back on the Shuffle.  The Nano is ok although I am not sure losing the slim rectangular shape and click wheel is a good idea, only time will tell.

The real interesting device was the iPod Touch.  I have a second generation 8GB iPod Touch which I bought off of Craig’s List before I committed to the iPhone.  I was unsure about only having a touch screen key board so a used iPod Touch let me test it out without committing to a two year contract for the iPhone which I eventually did.

I like the Touch and actually use mine quite a bit even though I have an iPhone.  I was looking forward to the new Touch, in particular for the rumored camera feature.  Having an HD video camera would be nice, the camera in my 3GS is so-so at best.

Today I was speaking with my co-worker Nick and we were talking about the Touch and my desire to have one, even though I don’t need it.  Nick mentioned that if it had GPS, the Touch would be perfect.  It got me thinking – why did Apple leave out the GPS?

If the Touch had GPS then it could:

  • Geo tag photos and video
  • Enable navigation with Google and/or Bing Maps (there is nothing worse than using my iPhone for GPS only yo have a call come in)
  • Possibly replace dedicated GPS hardware
  • All the location based services that Apps offer

I am sure there are other uses too but these came to mind.  Lack of GPS is really the only short coming that I could see.

I was hopeful that the rumors about the new Apple TV would be true and it would be a screen-less iPod Touch for the TV.  While the new Apple TV has some pretty cool features, I don’t see much differentiation over comting products from Roku, Western Digital, Boxee and others.  Each of these streaming devices seems to have one limitation or another.  I haven’t seen anything that says the new Apple TV supports UPnP which both my Xbox and WDTV Live do support.

I am disappointed in the Flickr support from the WDTV Live so was hopeful that the Apple TV would be more compelling than it is.  As it is, if I had to buy something right now, I think I’d get the Roku HD for $69.