Steve Jobs says iPod touch is for games, not pictures

Opinions seem somewhat split on the upgrades Apple made to its iPod line yesterday. A particular point of contention, though, is the lack of significant hardware upgrades to the iPod touch line. Expectations were high for the inclusion of a camera in the device, but Steve Jobs says that the camera was left out to make the iPod touch an inexpensive, affordable gaming device.

In an interview with The New York Times, Jobs reiterated that Apple sees the iPod touch primarily as a gaming device. Therefore, the goal with the latest revamp was to bring the cost down as low as possible—during the event yesterday, the company announced that the lowest-end iPod touch was now going for a mere $199.

Originally, we weren’t exactly sure how to market the Touch. Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine. We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.

That’s certainly sound logic, but it doesn’t entirely explain the lack of camera hardware. For a counter-example, the Nintendo DSi, one of the top-selling portable gaming platforms, includes two cameras and two screens for $170. Let’s not forget that Apple managed to add a (admittedly limited) camera to the iPod nano without affecting the price. We find it hard to swallow the claim that Apple couldn’t include one camera and one screen for $199, or even the $229 that an 8GB iPod touch cost just days ago.

It also appears—though it hasn’t been entirely confirmed—that the “new” 8GB iPod touch may not have the upgraded processor and graphics capabilities that the iPhone 3GS and 32GB and 64GB iPod touch models have. If gaming was a top priority, it seems as though the 8GB model could have gotten the bumped SoC without much trouble, considering that it didn’t get a doubling of capacity that the other models did.

Though people may be using the iPod touch for mobile gaming, plenty of people use it for so much more. When we asked our readers to weigh in on the situation, 62 percent said they were upset about the lack of camera hardware, and 59 percent said that it would keep them from buying one of the new models (another 20 percent said it wouldn’t keep them from buying, but they weren’t happy about it). That’s a pretty significant majority, and if that keeps potential buyers away, that’s a serious problem. Only 12 percent seemed happy with the upgrades Apple announced.

While iPod touch users likely carry a cell phone with some kind of built-in camera or use a dedicated digital camera, those images can’t be used with the variety of built-in and third-party iPhone OS applications, such as Twitter clients, image-editing apps (I use these on my iPhone all the time), Flickr apps, MobileMe, e-mail, etc. As Phil Schiller said of the iPod touch during yesterday’s media event, “All this power in this amazing little computer, and it fits right in your pocket.” We think plenty of users would like to combine that power with the convenience of quick snapshots—even if they aren’t the best quality, in many cases iPhone snaps are good enough.