The iPod Touch: A Promise of New Features and Experiences

The upcoming Apple Arcade subscription service is a promising addition to the Apple ecosystem, allowing users to seamlessly switch between their iOS devices, Macs, Apple TVs, and even play offline. This feature is particularly exciting for travelers who can now enjoy their favorite games and content without worrying about battery life or data connectivity. The iPod Touch, with its new 256GB storage tier, is also getting a significant upgrade, finally surpassing the 160GB model that was previously available. This increased storage capacity means that users will have more room to store their music, apps, and other content.

Augmented Reality on the Go

One of the most exciting features of the new iPod Touch is its support for augmented reality (AR) applications. The device's 8-core infusion processor makes it capable of handling demanding AR experiences, such as Plan Tail, a plant-in-a-pot app that allows users to see their plants in 3D space from different angles. While the 4-inch display may not be ideal for immersive AR experiences, there are still plenty of educational and entertaining apps available that can make use of this technology. From interactive learning tools to games that bring fantasy worlds to life, the iPod Touch is poised to become a hub for AR enthusiasts.

A Missed Opportunity: Biometric Authentication

Despite its many updates, the new iPod Touch still lacks one crucial feature: biometric authentication. The absence of both Face ID and Touch ID means that users will have to rely on passcodes or other non-secure methods to protect their device. This is a significant oversight, particularly in an era where biometric authentication has become the norm for smartphones. The iPhone SE, which shares some similarities with the iPod Touch, offers a faster camera and 4K video recording capabilities, making it a more attractive option for users who prioritize these features.

The Enterprise Use Case

While the new iPod Touch may not be the most exciting device for individual consumers, its updated features make it an attractive option for businesses and organizations that value portability and accessibility. The device's compact size and iOS compatibility make it ideal for use in warehouses, retail stores, and other environments where mobility is key. Additionally, the iPod Touch's 256GB storage tier provides ample space for storing and accessing files, making it a practical choice for enterprise users.

A Value Proposition

Despite its limitations, the new iPod Touch still offers significant value as a standalone music player or portable gaming console. At just $1.99, it is one of the most affordable iOS devices available, making it an attractive option for those who want a compact and portable device without breaking the bank. The upcoming Apple Arcade subscription service also promises to enhance the user experience, providing access to a vast library of games and content that can be enjoyed across multiple devices.

In Conclusion

The new iPod Touch is a promising device that offers significant updates and improvements over its predecessor. Its support for AR applications, increased storage capacity, and enterprise-friendly features make it an attractive option for businesses and organizations. However, the lack of biometric authentication and outdated camera capabilities hold it back from being a truly compelling device. If Apple's gaming service turns out to be a success, this new iPod Touch will be right at home as a portable hub for gamers and enthusiasts alike.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin this video we unbox and review the seventh generation iPod Touch it comes with brand new features but is it enough check out our full video after this brief word from our sponsor repairing and upgrading your Apple products is easy with iFixit all-in-one fix kits iphone fix kits have everything you need to replace a cracked screen or a dying battery the kit includes a custom driver steel bits opening tools and more and Mac fix kits let you replace your MacBook Pros battery upgrade the RAM or swap in an SSD both kits include all the parts and tools you need and are backed by an industry leading warranty plus each kit includes a free illustrated step-by-step repair guide to show you the way click the link in the description to get your all-in-one repair kit today and special things that I fix it for sponsoring 905 Mac on YouTube how's it going folks jeff benjamin with the 905 Mac we have the iPod Touch 7th generation in our hands right now I'm gonna go ahead and take the wrapper off here this is gonna look very familiar to anyone who's unboxed an iPod Touch before because it is essentially the same although you do see the new iOS 12 centric little stickers spring board sticker on front now the seventh generation iPod Touch starts at $199 for 32 gigabytes of storage there's a 128 gigabyte option and a new 256 gigabyte option that'll set you back 399 bucks all right so here's what you've been waiting for opening up the case of the 7th generation iPod touch and here's what it looks like with that iOS 12 springboard sticker let's peel that sticker off thumbs up for Curtis slow motion alright so let's get the rest of the sticker off here just pull like that and that will fully reveal the 4-inch display on the iPod touch alright so here's a side view but let's go ahead and get this thing out of the case so just pull up like this and remove now below that you'll see the design by Apple in California text and just remove the little plastic piece to reveal the full contents inside so on top you'll see the iPod Touch getting started guide and then you'll see a lightning cable and headphones and that's it so let's look up close and personal this lightning cable is just your typical you speed a two lightning cable connection and then you have ear pots almost set air pots but their ear pots and they have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack in tow so these are wired headphones all right so you get the getting started guide kind of gives you some information not that you really need it and then like I always say if you're having trouble sleeping keep that regular story information right here next to your nightstand and you'll be good and then finally the beautiful Apple stickers all right so one of the first things is gonna pop in your head when you hold this thing for the first time is just how tiny it is especially compared to modern iPhones the iPod Touch is available in six different colors I chose the blue color I thought that looked the best what do you guys think all right so let's break down some of the devices features on the rear you have an 8 megapixel camera with camera bump and you have a flash and a microphone in between the two on top you have your sleep wake button on the bottom you have your speaker lightning port in 3.5 millimeter headphone connection on the left side you have your two volume buttons on the front you have your 1.2 megapixel FaceTime camera same camera from the last generation and you have a physical pressable home button along with those beautiful reflective chamfered edges on the side that give you that jewelry like look and that's one of the design elements that I think I miss most about modern iPhones all right so let's go ahead and fire up the iPod Touch and see what's new so first and foremost you get a faster processor and more RAM for the first time you get 2 gigabytes of RAM in an iPod Touch previous model had only one gigabyte of RAM and you get a faster iPhone 7 era 8 infusion processor so here's the new iPod Touch next to the iPhone se I wanted to compare these 2 devices because they're obviously very similar and form-factor both of them 4 inch displays although the iPod is obviously thinner so comparing these two devices from a performance standpoint I ransom some metal benchmarks here and while the iPod Touch is definitely faster in some respects it doesn't blow away the a9 processor in the iPhone se like you might expect in fact the Geekbench scores are really within striking distance of one another and I find that interesting because I remember the 18 fusion benchmarks on the iPhone 7 being a lot better in as you can see here they were so that tells me that Apple held back a bit with the 8 infusion inside the iPod Touch and probably for good reason given the smaller battery inside the smaller chassis one of the benefits of the new hardware is support for a group FaceTime video calls with over 30 participants now with the older hardware you could join a group FaceTime but only as an audio participant and of course that new 8 infusion that extra gigabyte of RAM is going to give you much better gaming performance and I did notice that none of the stutters that I used to experience with my 6th generation iPod Touch occur here on this 7 generation model in basic things that you tend to take for granted like quickly switching between two games is so much better here on this iPod Touch because of that extra memory the Achilles heel of prior iPod Touch models has been lack of memory and this goes a long way towards fixing that and you're gonna need it because coming this fall Apple arcade launches with over a hundred new games that are playable be a one single subscription so that means you're gonna be switching between titles a lot so you're gonna need that extra RAM but Apple arcade is a promising upcoming subscription service that allows you to jump between all of your iOS devices your Mac your Apple TV and you can play offline which is obviously important when traveling with the iPod touch and for the first time the iPod touch supports a art because of its eight infusion processor ara requires at least in a nine processor in the last iPod Touch was an Apple a8 hence the lack of support alright so here is an example of an AR application this is called plan tail and they are of course stands for augmented reality so it's not full on virtual reality what everything in your environment is different but it admits your environment so you can see amazing stuff like this have full on plant in a pot in 3d space you can actually walk around this thing and see it from all its various angles immediately the 4-inch display on the iPod Touch is a little less than ideal for AR content but it's cool nonetheless when you go to the App Store you'll notice that there is a plethora of educational related AR applications which sort of goes hand in hand with the ipod touch when you remember that it's the cheapest iOS device starting at $1.99 but that doesn't mean that that doesn't mean that there's not other types of AR apps out there yeah we're just gonna pretend that that didn't happen now like I mentioned there's also a new 256 gigabyte storage tier and that means that the old iPod Classic the 160 gigabyte version is finally bested by an iPod with more storage now I understand there will be some use cases for that amount of storage but in my opinion in general you'd be pretty crazy to pay $400 for an iPod especially when you consider that virtually nothing else about these devices has been updated for instance the camera is the same 8 megapixel camera from the last generation with the same slow eff 2.4 aperture and it's stuck at 1080p capture now take the iPhone se which it itself isn't a spring chicken but it comes with the 12 megapixel shooter with an F 2.2 aperture that's much faster and it shoots in 4k so I know iPod owners aren't buying these things for the cameras but you have to consider that a refurbished iPhone se might prove to be a better overall value now an inferior camera is one thing but the outright lack of any sort of biometric authentication is another obviously there's no face ID but there's no touch ID either and I feel like that is a huge missed opportunity to make this device so much better you're gonna see this screen a lot that is if you even choose to use a passcode whereas the three-year-old iPhone S II has touch ID which removes so much friction from the experience now I realize that there is still much demand for the iPod Touch otherwise Apple wouldn't have even bothered updating it the enterprise in particular whether it be warehouses or retail operations among others have found a good use for the iPod Touch and no doubt they will appreciate this update and I don't want to be naive I know some general consumers will appreciate this update as well they like having a standalone music player and I think it's an excellent first iOS device for kids especially with smaller fingers and smaller hands you can see how much bigger the iPhone 10s max is comparatively and there are some accessibility use cases for the iPod Touch well remember this device starts at just $1.99 brand new so you have to temper your expectations however I think there were a few missed opportunities most notably the lack of touch ID is the only new iOS device that doesn't have some sort of biometric authentication so you have to consider this you can get a use iPhone se that isn't that much slower than this iPod Touch and in my opinion it makes for a better device with a better camera and most importantly touch ID but if you're specifically looking for a standalone music player or a standalone portable gaming console gaming device this upcoming Apple arcade subscription service could if it's any good and obviously the jury is still out on that one but if Apple's gaming service turns out to be a hit this new iPod Touch is a good way to get in the game it's the most portable iOS device that Apple makes it's relatively cheap it has enough RAM finally and it has an ample amount of processing power but if you're just looking for a small portable general-purpose iOS device I think you should strongly consider the used iPhone se instead what do you guys think let me know down below in the comments section this is jeff with a nine-to-five mac special things to iFixit creator of the iphone fix kits and macbook pro fix kits for sponsoring 9 to 5 Mac on youtube head over to iFixit using a link in the description and get your all-in-one repair kit today youin this video we unbox and review the seventh generation iPod Touch it comes with brand new features but is it enough check out our full video after this brief word from our sponsor repairing and upgrading your Apple products is easy with iFixit all-in-one fix kits iphone fix kits have everything you need to replace a cracked screen or a dying battery the kit includes a custom driver steel bits opening tools and more and Mac fix kits let you replace your MacBook Pros battery upgrade the RAM or swap in an SSD both kits include all the parts and tools you need and are backed by an industry leading warranty plus each kit includes a free illustrated step-by-step repair guide to show you the way click the link in the description to get your all-in-one repair kit today and special things that I fix it for sponsoring 905 Mac on YouTube how's it going folks jeff benjamin with the 905 Mac we have the iPod Touch 7th generation in our hands right now I'm gonna go ahead and take the wrapper off here this is gonna look very familiar to anyone who's unboxed an iPod Touch before because it is essentially the same although you do see the new iOS 12 centric little stickers spring board sticker on front now the seventh generation iPod Touch starts at $199 for 32 gigabytes of storage there's a 128 gigabyte option and a new 256 gigabyte option that'll set you back 399 bucks all right so here's what you've been waiting for opening up the case of the 7th generation iPod touch and here's what it looks like with that iOS 12 springboard sticker let's peel that sticker off thumbs up for Curtis slow motion alright so let's get the rest of the sticker off here just pull like that and that will fully reveal the 4-inch display on the iPod touch alright so here's a side view but let's go ahead and get this thing out of the case so just pull up like this and remove now below that you'll see the design by Apple in California text and just remove the little plastic piece to reveal the full contents inside so on top you'll see the iPod Touch getting started guide and then you'll see a lightning cable and headphones and that's it so let's look up close and personal this lightning cable is just your typical you speed a two lightning cable connection and then you have ear pots almost set air pots but their ear pots and they have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack in tow so these are wired headphones all right so you get the getting started guide kind of gives you some information not that you really need it and then like I always say if you're having trouble sleeping keep that regular story information right here next to your nightstand and you'll be good and then finally the beautiful Apple stickers all right so one of the first things is gonna pop in your head when you hold this thing for the first time is just how tiny it is especially compared to modern iPhones the iPod Touch is available in six different colors I chose the blue color I thought that looked the best what do you guys think all right so let's break down some of the devices features on the rear you have an 8 megapixel camera with camera bump and you have a flash and a microphone in between the two on top you have your sleep wake button on the bottom you have your speaker lightning port in 3.5 millimeter headphone connection on the left side you have your two volume buttons on the front you have your 1.2 megapixel FaceTime camera same camera from the last generation and you have a physical pressable home button along with those beautiful reflective chamfered edges on the side that give you that jewelry like look and that's one of the design elements that I think I miss most about modern iPhones all right so let's go ahead and fire up the iPod Touch and see what's new so first and foremost you get a faster processor and more RAM for the first time you get 2 gigabytes of RAM in an iPod Touch previous model had only one gigabyte of RAM and you get a faster iPhone 7 era 8 infusion processor so here's the new iPod Touch next to the iPhone se I wanted to compare these 2 devices because they're obviously very similar and form-factor both of them 4 inch displays although the iPod is obviously thinner so comparing these two devices from a performance standpoint I ransom some metal benchmarks here and while the iPod Touch is definitely faster in some respects it doesn't blow away the a9 processor in the iPhone se like you might expect in fact the Geekbench scores are really within striking distance of one another and I find that interesting because I remember the 18 fusion benchmarks on the iPhone 7 being a lot better in as you can see here they were so that tells me that Apple held back a bit with the 8 infusion inside the iPod Touch and probably for good reason given the smaller battery inside the smaller chassis one of the benefits of the new hardware is support for a group FaceTime video calls with over 30 participants now with the older hardware you could join a group FaceTime but only as an audio participant and of course that new 8 infusion that extra gigabyte of RAM is going to give you much better gaming performance and I did notice that none of the stutters that I used to experience with my 6th generation iPod Touch occur here on this 7 generation model in basic things that you tend to take for granted like quickly switching between two games is so much better here on this iPod Touch because of that extra memory the Achilles heel of prior iPod Touch models has been lack of memory and this goes a long way towards fixing that and you're gonna need it because coming this fall Apple arcade launches with over a hundred new games that are playable be a one single subscription so that means you're gonna be switching between titles a lot so you're gonna need that extra RAM but Apple arcade is a promising upcoming subscription service that allows you to jump between all of your iOS devices your Mac your Apple TV and you can play offline which is obviously important when traveling with the iPod touch and for the first time the iPod touch supports a art because of its eight infusion processor ara requires at least in a nine processor in the last iPod Touch was an Apple a8 hence the lack of support alright so here is an example of an AR application this is called plan tail and they are of course stands for augmented reality so it's not full on virtual reality what everything in your environment is different but it admits your environment so you can see amazing stuff like this have full on plant in a pot in 3d space you can actually walk around this thing and see it from all its various angles immediately the 4-inch display on the iPod Touch is a little less than ideal for AR content but it's cool nonetheless when you go to the App Store you'll notice that there is a plethora of educational related AR applications which sort of goes hand in hand with the ipod touch when you remember that it's the cheapest iOS device starting at $1.99 but that doesn't mean that that doesn't mean that there's not other types of AR apps out there yeah we're just gonna pretend that that didn't happen now like I mentioned there's also a new 256 gigabyte storage tier and that means that the old iPod Classic the 160 gigabyte version is finally bested by an iPod with more storage now I understand there will be some use cases for that amount of storage but in my opinion in general you'd be pretty crazy to pay $400 for an iPod especially when you consider that virtually nothing else about these devices has been updated for instance the camera is the same 8 megapixel camera from the last generation with the same slow eff 2.4 aperture and it's stuck at 1080p capture now take the iPhone se which it itself isn't a spring chicken but it comes with the 12 megapixel shooter with an F 2.2 aperture that's much faster and it shoots in 4k so I know iPod owners aren't buying these things for the cameras but you have to consider that a refurbished iPhone se might prove to be a better overall value now an inferior camera is one thing but the outright lack of any sort of biometric authentication is another obviously there's no face ID but there's no touch ID either and I feel like that is a huge missed opportunity to make this device so much better you're gonna see this screen a lot that is if you even choose to use a passcode whereas the three-year-old iPhone S II has touch ID which removes so much friction from the experience now I realize that there is still much demand for the iPod Touch otherwise Apple wouldn't have even bothered updating it the enterprise in particular whether it be warehouses or retail operations among others have found a good use for the iPod Touch and no doubt they will appreciate this update and I don't want to be naive I know some general consumers will appreciate this update as well they like having a standalone music player and I think it's an excellent first iOS device for kids especially with smaller fingers and smaller hands you can see how much bigger the iPhone 10s max is comparatively and there are some accessibility use cases for the iPod Touch well remember this device starts at just $1.99 brand new so you have to temper your expectations however I think there were a few missed opportunities most notably the lack of touch ID is the only new iOS device that doesn't have some sort of biometric authentication so you have to consider this you can get a use iPhone se that isn't that much slower than this iPod Touch and in my opinion it makes for a better device with a better camera and most importantly touch ID but if you're specifically looking for a standalone music player or a standalone portable gaming console gaming device this upcoming Apple arcade subscription service could if it's any good and obviously the jury is still out on that one but if Apple's gaming service turns out to be a hit this new iPod Touch is a good way to get in the game it's the most portable iOS device that Apple makes it's relatively cheap it has enough RAM finally and it has an ample amount of processing power but if you're just looking for a small portable general-purpose iOS device I think you should strongly consider the used iPhone se instead what do you guys think let me know down below in the comments section this is jeff with a nine-to-five mac special things to iFixit creator of the iphone fix kits and macbook pro fix kits for sponsoring 9 to 5 Mac on youtube head over to iFixit using a link in the description and get your all-in-one repair kit today you\n"