iPod Touch Becoming Youthful Pathway to iPhone

Ed Sutherland ()

iPod Touch3

The iPod touch, Apple’s game machine, is becoming Cupertino’s way to introduce younger users to the iPhone. The phone-less iPod represented more than 40 percent of the devices running the iPhone OS software sold through September, according to researchers.

The iPod touch is “quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users,” announced mobile analysis software firm Flurry. The study also suggested young iPod touch owners are using the device for games and social-networking. Flurry found 42 percent of the iPod touch sessions include social-media while gaming is 49 percent of the device’s sessions.

“When today’s young iPod touch users age by five years, they will already have iTunes accounts, saved personal contacts to their iPod touch devices, purchased hundreds of apps and songs, and mastered the iPhone OS user interface,” the study said. This will allow “Apple to seamlessly ‘graduate’ young users from the iPod touch to the iPhone,” according to Flurry.

The report said the strong growth of social-networking and gaming usage on the iPod touch “reflects the strength of the iPod touch Generation’s influence among its peers.”

Although the numbers were encouraging for Apple, they all served as a warning for competitors. “For OEMS hoping to challenge Apple, we believe an even greater sense of urgency must be adopted,” the report advised.

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[Via 9to5Mac and AppleInsider]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • iGenius

    “Flurry found 42 percent of the iPod touch sessions include social-media while gaming is 49 percent of the device’s sessions.”

    Ed – Get your facts right, fer chrissakes. The Flurry graphs show nothing of the sort.

    Instead, they show that of ALL social-media sessions, 42% were accomplished using an iTouch, and for ALL gaming sessions, 49% of the gamers were on the Touch.

    The graphs say NOTHING about the proportion “of the device’s sessions” being used for a particular purpose.

    I no longer trust your writing. Your “facts” are too often just…wrong.

  • Jamie

    Not sure if I care if Ed’s facts are correct. His conclusion is spot on. My nephew is barely 10 years old. His parents are willing to let him save up for the iPod Touch (using his Christmas money). Of course, they consider him a bit too young to be allowed to have a cellular phone account, especially with the expensive AT&T data plan etc. But having an iTouch means he doesn’t have to pay for any phone plan. He has a fully functional pocket computer, and it’s WiFi capable.

    When he’s old enough (maybe by his early teen years), he dreams of upgrading up to an iPhone. Hence Ed’s original conclusion seems accurate to what I’m seeing. My nephew is a typical suburban kid, they live in a nice gated community, parents have upper middle class income. At ten years old, boys like him are allowed to have iPod Touches.