Anyone's best guess says the new touch will be updated in September. And there's good chances for it having 64GB, mic, camera?, faster processor, more RAM. We really don't know yet, all we can do it guess.
It will probably be faster, have a vibration option, louder speakers, and MAYBE a camera or microphone. All guesses, I have no idea.
Most likely it will be based on iPhone 3Gs. So take out the components from the original iTouch/Phone devices and replace with 3Gs components. iTouch 1st and 2nd "gen" (redesigns, really, ala DS to DSlite), iPhone and iPhone 3G all used an ARM 11 CPU, PowerVR MBX-lite GPU, and 128 MB RAM. Remove all that, and replace with ARM Cortex A8, PowerVR SGX, and double the RAM (256 MB). That's what we pretty much are assured will be in the 3rd "gen" (or, if you use "gamer speak", a true "next gen") Touch. The other stuff, like cameras, mics, digital compasses, force feedback/vibration, etc. are all up in the air. Of those extras, though, I'd rather the digital compass, cameras, and vibration as those would be directly implemented in most games. The mic probably won't happen for very good reasons on Apple's part (selling mic/headphone combos separately, and not wanting to cut into iPhone sales).
I wonder if it'll have a faster processor than the iPhone 3GS like the 2G had a faster processor than the iPhone 3G? Or maybe the 2G Touch was just an experiment to see the effect on battery life?
It should be on par with the 3GS but lacking anything phone related, rumble would also be a nice extra for us ipod users. I doubt I could afford to buy a 3g touch anyway so I thank apple for making the 2g touch slightly faster then the older iphones to help keep up.
I thought it might actually be cheaper, as prices for all the ipods have always been going down with each new model
I find it a little bit hard to believe that it will be cheaper because I'm pretty sure there will be cameras and a faster processor. I don't know, just guessing.
I don't know how Apple handles trade ups. I do know that they sell refurbished units, so there has to be some mechanism for them to take back older iPods...but I don't know if they allow trade ups or just handle the units that they'll refurb as "donations for recycling". Regardless, you could always sell on ebay or the like. 1st "gen" iTouch models have been going for upwards of $150 or so there depending on condition, with 2nd "gen" models going up to $200. This is for the 8GB version, and used models btw. Which is really odd, as Apple sells factory refurbished 8GB 2nd "gen" models for ~$180. But, what the hell...there's a sucker born every minute and apparently they shop for used iPod touches on ebay.
As far as I know, you can give it to them and they will scrap out the old parts. You will get only a 10% discount on your next iPod purchase.
If it gets a camera, that'd be amazing (although I'd be sad because I probably wouldn't be able to get it) but IMO that'd be a poor decision on Apple's part. They are making the iPod Touch far too like the iPhone and although that's good for iPod Touch owners, it honestly makes the iPhone look useless because of it's hefty contract. If they add a camera and microphone, an iPod Touch would be LITERALLY an iPhone without the phone. I think a faster processor and more RAM is inevitable but along with a few minor changes like a better speaker, I don't see much else coming our way.
