Apple Refreshes The iPod Touch With A8 SoC And New Cameras
by Brandon Chester on July 15, 2015 11:54 AM EST- Posted in
- Apple
- iPod Touch
- Mobile
Today Apple released a new version of the iPod Touch. The previous model of the iPod Touch was released back in 2012, and over time it has seen a few changes with the addition of a 16GB model without a rear-facing camera, and then the camera being added back to it further down the road. This 2015 model of the iPod Touch is an evolutionary improvement, but still the biggest improvement to the product that we've seen in quite some time. To see what has changed, you can check out the chart below for a comparison of the 2012 iPod Touch and this new 2015 edition.
| iPod Touch (2012) | iPod Touch (2015) | |
| SoC | Apple A5 2 x Cortex A9 at 800MHz |
Apple A8 2 x Typhoon at 1.1GHz |
| GPU | PowerVR SGX543MP2 | PowerVR GX6450 |
| RAM | 512MB LPDDR2 | 1GB LPDDR3 |
| NAND | 16/32/64GB | 16/32/64/128GB |
| Display | 4.0" 1136x640 IPS LCD | |
| Dimensions | 58.6 x 123.4 x 6.1 mm, 88g | |
| Camera | 5MP rear-facing 1.2MP front-facing |
8MP F/2.4 rear-facing 1.2MP F/2.2 front-facing |
| OS | iOS | |
| Other Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, Lightning connector | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, Lightning connector |
| Price | $199 | $199/249/299/399 |
By far the biggest improvement with the 2015 iPod Touch is the adoption of Apple's A8 SoC. This brings the internal hardware of the iPod Touch up to par with the iPhone, which is something we haven't really seen since the third generation iPod Touch as the fourth gen didn't have the 512MB of RAM of the iPhone 4, and the fifth gen used Apple's A5 SoC while the iPhone 5 sported A6. Along with the obvious improvements to performance that Apple's Typhoon cores bring when compared to the dual Cortex A9 cores in A5, there's also a doubling of memory and significant increase in memory bandwidth. Moving to A8 also brings Apple's latest ISP, which allows for features like slow-mo video recording and larger panoramas which were not possible on the previous iPod Touch. Interestingly enough, the iPod Touch is like the iPad Air 2 in that it's limited to 1080p30 video and 720p120 slow-mo, while the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus can record 1080p60 and 720p240 video.
As for the cameras themselves, the 5MP rear-facing camera of the previous iPod Touch has been bumped to an 8MP sensor. It's likely that we're looking at the same F/2.4 sensor with 1.1 micron pixels as the iPad Air 2, but this would require a deeper look to confirm. The front camera is still 1.2MP, but it has the wider F/2.2 aperture from the front cameras on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Apple's A8 ISP also enables features like single-shot HDR for photos taken with the front-facing camera.
Other changes include a new 128GB capacity, and the addition of 802.11ac WiFi connectivity. Apple's listing for Bluetooth 4.1 support also confirms that their Bluetooth software stack has been updated to that version.
As far as the design and form factor of the iPod Touch goes, the 2015 model is unchanged from the 2012 model. Apple has revamped the selection of colors you can choose, but the chassis itself is exactly the same. This means that's we're still looking at a 4" 1136x640 IPS display, rather than the 4.7" or 5.5" displays found on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Buyers interested in the iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle should note that the new colors for the iPod Touch have also been brought over to Apple's other iPods as well.
Despite its improvements, the 2015 iPod Touch maintains the same price. It starts at $199 for 16GB, with a $50 increase bringing you to 32GB, an additional $50 to get 64GB, and another $100 to get 128GB. This makes the 128GB model the same price as two of the 16GB models, which is a lot of money for some flash memory.
In any case, the new iPod Touch is definitely a welcomed improvement over the 2012 model. This update means that the Apple A5 SoC no longer exists in any iOS products, with the exception of the Apple TV which has no app store. A8 represents an enormous leap over A5 in every respect, and users will definitely notice the improvements in speed when running iOS 8 and soon iOS 9. I'm not sure of exactly how large the market for a device like the iPod Touch is with how ubiquitous the smartphone has become, but with Apple updating the line there's obviously some group of users who are interested in a product like the iPod Touch. For those users, the 2015 iPod Touch appears to be the best model yet.
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jimjamjamie - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
Wow, seems like a nice and fairly inexpensive way to get into the apple ecosystem. I might end up getting one of these.Spectrophobic - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
I'm surprised they haven't plastered that stupid Hi-Res Audio sticker on these yet, though they might be missing a criteria for that certification (I'm guessing software bottleneck).Kinda disappointed they're still marketing the iPod Touch as a tiny kids tablet instead of a DAP that can also stream music, play video, and use the occasional iOS apps. All they had to do is allow 24/96 FLAC support (for the silly Hi-Res sticker), ditch the speakers (and perhaps the camera?), and add a line-out port.
But that'll probably never happen...
GC2:CS - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
I expected something like an A7, maybe shrunken down to 20nm to help with smaller battery.Yes A8 is a lot more efficient than A7 so the battery will be spared even more, but it's definitely costly to put in such state of the art chip.
Why ?
Maybe they aren't planning another update for three years ?
And yet A8 is definitely more power hungry under load than A5...
And those numbers ?
6x the CPU and 10x the graphics ?
Like that implies that it is actually faster than A8 in iPone 6 ?
According to official numbers:
iPhone 4S = iPod touch 5 in perf
iPhone 5 = 2xCPU/GPU of 4S
iPhone 5S = 4x CPU/GPU of 4S
iPhone 6 = 5x CPU and 6x faster graphics than the iPhone 4S.
Something doesn't add up here.
The A8 makes quite a lot of heat in iPhone 6 already, yet they put it into an much cheaper, smaller iPod touch, despite their strict thermal targets and it is supposedly faster than the one in iPhone 6 ?
This is just... Wrong.... Unless there is something interesting hidden within.
Jon Tseng - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
@GC2:CS Remember the iPhone 6 also saw a resolution bump so GPU hardware was pushing more pixels to get to the 6x faster graphics. Maybe if you normalise for lower res screen used in the iTouch that helps bridge the gap between 6x and 10x...WinterCharm - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
It's not running wit the overhead of cellular stuff, I think?name99 - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
The A8 is there because they want to switch to h.265 as cleanly as possible as soon as practical.And A8 does not, in my experience, "generate a lot heat in the iPhone 6". Are you are talking about constant 3D gaming?
tipoo - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
I think he meant how the clocks dip in games, as showed by Anandtech a while back. It's nowhere near as bad as most SoCs though with their more ridiculous clock speeds, but it's there. I didn't know of any heat issues though. I think a further refinement of the A8 would do just fine in the Touch chassis.GC2:CS - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
I meant that if the A8 in iPhone 6 outputs x (eg. "a lot of") amount of heat, if the chip in the iPod touch is the same, it's going to be much hotter (eg. "Too much heat") because of smaller chasis... And I don't think Apple would do that in such way.So well I suppose that A8 in the touch may have lower TDP or put another way, it may be better in some ways compared to the "regular" A8.
Then the touch is dirt cheap for an iProduct. Why whould it have a better chip than an iPhone ?
On the other hand after iPhone 5 introduction the iPod touch 5 got much better A5 than iPhone 4S, shrunken down to 32nm.
So what Apple had done actually ?
tipoo - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
Sometimes simple and regular refinements to a manufacturing process produce less heat and wasted energy by the end of a generation of chips than at the start. That and some minor architectural tweaks could bring the heat output of A8 down significantly.Remember the start of 45nm vs it hitting maturity? By the end it was so mature it could be more efficient than the next process down!
tipoo - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
Oh, it's also underclocked, so there that ishttp://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/new-ipod-touc...