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Larger iPod Touch In Apple's Future?

Posted by samzenpus on from the is-there-heat-in-taco's-future dept.

Ender_Stonebender writes "TechCrunch is reporting that three independent sources have mentioned to them a large form factor version of the iPod Touch, with either a 7- or 9-inch screen, to be released fall of 2009. The device is expected to have access to the iTunes App Store. Beyond that, everything about it appears to be pure speculation."

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:An 'on/off' switch would be nice. by S'harien · · Score: 2, Informative

    Press the power button on the top, it should go right to sleep. You don't really power it down much, but if you needed to then hold that button down for about 10 seconds, it'll ask you to confirm and then actually shut off. There is a built-in speaker, but it has a low max volume and is basically not useful for much besides hearing alarms. Watching movies or listening to music through it is painful.

  2. Re:I don't see it by DiLLeMaN · · Score: 2, Informative

    Appstore items are binaries for the ARM architecture that runs the iPhone/iPod Touch. Dashboard widgets are HTML(like)/Javascript contraptions running on PPC and x86 machines.

    Apple already has a central repository for Dashboard widgets, so why would they move all that to iTunes?

    OTOH, if they limited iPhone-apps-on-Dashboard support to recent Macbooks, they'd only have one architecture (x86) to worry about, for which they already have the ARM emulation software running (iPhone dev kit), the touchpads already do multitouch, and AFAIK those machines also have an accelerometer on board.

    It's a stretch, though, and a large one at that.

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  3. Re:Mmm, pixelly resolution goodness... by fermion · · Score: 2, Informative
    The same issue came up as mac screens moved from the original fixed resolution and screen size (9"512X342, 72 DPI) Macs to a more dynamic situation. There were many ways to deal with this. In particular, games that assumed a fixed resolution would run in a window contained on the larger screen.

    The challenge of the tablet mac is allowing iPhone and iPod applications to run, while the device itself run the normal Mac OS X WIMP interface. Not necessarily all programs, but not the PDA like interface used on the iPod Touch and many netbook. Virtualization will allow this, and iPod applications will run in a window.

    In terms of resolution, this should not be so hard. Mac OS ran on a 12", 1024X768, only about twice the touch resolution. So, if we assume the 7", screen, we have something that the interface has run on, so it is just a matter of using the Atom or similar processor.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  4. Re:7 or 9 inch iPhones by Azarael · · Score: 2, Informative

    They already do through iTunes, there just aren't a ton of them yet.