Waiting for the iPod touch 5 release date to emerge so you can buy one? Think again. Even as the “crippled fake iPhone that could(n’t)” appears set to enter its fifth year of existence, that doesn’t mean that it’s currently or ever has made sense to buy one. Here are five reasons why the iPod touch 5 is a stupid product, buying it is probably a bad idea, and why your money should go toward an iPhone instead.
The iPod touch should never have existed: Apple launched the iPhone on one carrier per country with the false expectation that consumers would by and large be willing to switch to it. After massive blowback over its long term AT&T exclusivity deal between the original iPhone’s introduction and launch, which Apple by then couldn’t get out of, Apple countered with the iPod touch as a stopgap. It wasn’t a phone, had no way of getting on a network unless you happened to find wifi (never a given outside your own home), and didn’t even come with an email client (take a hint: Apple didn’t want you buying this device). Buying an iPod touch mean you still had to carry a third party cellphone in your other pocket. Geeks championed the iPod touch because it was something they could hack the code of without screwing up their phone, and dogmatically attempted to convince the mainstream that the iPod touch was superior to the iPhone. But that didn’t change the fact that the iPod touch was originally only intended as a music and video player, a way of giving a pretend-iPhone experience to those who were so entrenched with the likes of Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint that they were never going to buy an iPhone during the AT&T exclusivity era.
The stopgapping continued: because Apple was stuck in that long term AT&T deal forever, it grudgingly gave each iPod touch a few more pretend-features than the last. Nevermind that checking email on an iPod touch can only be done from home or starbucks; those who bought one demanded to be able to pretend they had email on their iPod touch, and so Apple went ahead and included the Mail app in future releases. This kind of give and take has gone on for years, but it hasn’t changed the fact that the iPod touch is a brick as a network device as soon as you leave your house and can in no way qualifies as a mobile communications device.
iPad teaches a lesson: with the original iPad, Apple offered it either with or without a cellular 3G internet antenna built in. Only a fraction bought the 3G model. A year later with the iPad 2, Apple offered the same choice. This time the vast majority of buyers (around seventy percent) went for the 3G model. In other words, early adopters learned the hard way that an iPad without 3G is brick once you leave the house. iPod touch users can save themselves that headache by simply buying an iPhone instead. Bonus fact: many iPod touch users literally don’t know what they’re missing. Many or most have no idea that in contrast, the iPhone can access internet and email anywhere and anytime there’s a cellular phone signal available.
iCloud: Apple’s new paradigm (and every other major tech company’s paradigm) centers around online storage and the idea of automatically distributing your content to all of your devices over the network. This means that the iPod touch 5 will be an even worse choice than in previous years, as the concept of a “mobile” network device which has no network access outside of hard-to-find wifi makes less sense than ever.
Carrier expansion: when the original iPod touch debuted, Steve Jobs quipped (perhaps without meaning to) that it was “training wheels for iPhone.” In other words, Apple only released the crippled product as a way of getting customers or carriers like Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile onto the iOS and App Store platforms while they were still waiting to buy their first iPhone. Verizon now has the iPhone. T-Mobile is being acquired by AT&T, which already has the iPhone. Do the math: the original reason for the iPod touch to have existed is quickly going away. Whatever reason you ever had for considering one is fast fading as well. Just because Apple might release a stupid product like the iPod touch 5 doesn’t mean it’s not a stupid idea to buy one. Next time around, consider buying a real iPhone, not Apple’s own crippled in-house iPhone knockoff. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.