HardMac thinks they’ve got quite a scoop on their hands with this leaked illustration of what they say is a next-generation iPod Touch in a clear case. They claim their source is “very reliable.” I’m not sure I buy it.
Look, it’s all hearsay until Apple actually unveils something, but this “next-gen” iPod Touch doesn’t have a front-facing camera… and we’ve got very strong reasons to believe the next iPod Touch will have exactly that. We saw an LCD assembly unit for the next iPod Touch as recently as last month that had a FaceTime camera oculus, and Steve Jobs himself has said we can expect “millions of FaceTime devices” to ship this year. Since the iPod Touch is the only other iOS device we can reasonably expect this calendar year, a FaceTime iPod Touch seems like a lock.
Another point: it would be easier to put a forward facing FaceTime camera into the iPod Touch’s existing footprint than it would be to put the iPhone 4’s 5MP camera into that same footprint. In fact, the latter might be downright impossible… yet that’s exactly what this image seems to suggest.
Finally, if this is a current mockup according to Apple’s own next-gen iPod Touch specifications, then why didn’t they bother showing the iPod Touch running iOS 4?
It doesn’t quite grok for me. What do you guys think? Sound off in the comments.
