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I WANT AN IPOD TOUCH 3RD GEN
Sunday - 9/20/09
iPhone


The new 3rd generation iPod Touch models were released September 9th and I am absolutely drooling over their specs. The 8GB model is pretty much the same as the old model, but the new 32GB and 64GB models are basically an iPhone 3GS without the phone or camera. Apple has one of the most powerful handheld gaming platforms out there.

As a programmer I can develop games at home with ease. A Mac Mini is a great development machine and is only $600. The developer's license is only $100 if I wanted to publish my own games.

The new iPod Touch models feature OpenGL ES 2.0 support, which means shaders! This opens up an awesome world of graphics. Recently, John Carmack annouced that id would be releasing a new game for the Apple App Store every other month. He even noted they working on porting the idTech 5 (Rage) engine to the 3GS, which would mean the new iPod Touch models as well!

Even though the specs of the iPod Touch are amazing, the Apple App Store is not. The App Store has over 65,000 apps on it, from which 21,000 are games. This means that there is a lot of garbage to go through to find games. When the new iPod Touches were announced Steve Jobs noted that it was primarily a gaming device. Maybe the App Store will start changing to help support larger developers. The iPhone market has not fully ripened yet, but I believe that things will be better in about a year. Big guys like id are taking risks that may pave the way for the rest of us.

iPod Touch 3rd Gen 32GB/64GB:
CPU: ARM Cortex-A8 (ARMv7) 833MHz clocked down to 600MHz
RAM: 256MB Shared
GPU: PowerVR SGX
Video RAM: Shared video ram, has full access to the 256MB RAM
Graphics API: OpenGL ES 2.0
Display: 3.5 inch, 480x320, 163dpi, Truecolor, 3:2 aspect, touchscreen
Stoage: 32GB or 64GB
Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, USB 2.0
Game Media: download
Price: $299 (32GB), $399 (64GB)

Playstation Portable (PSP3000):
CPU: MIPS R4000 at 1~333Mhz
RAM: 64MB
Video RAM: 2MB dedicated
Graphics API: PSPGL
Display: 4.3 inch, 480x272, 130dpi, Truecolor, 16:9 aspect
Storage: None on board, Memory Stick Duo, and Memory Stick PRO Duo
Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11b), IrDA, USB 2.0
Game Media: UMD, download
Price: $169

Frank
frank@floor84studio.com