“Updated” 8GB iPod touch has lower price, not better gaming

Apple spent a lot of time during the September iPod event talking about how the iPod touch was a great gaming device. However, in an effort to bring down the price on the 8GB model, Apple left it saddled with last year's graphics capabilities. Plenty of holiday shoppers might not know or care about the differences, but it does create additional splintering of Apple's mobile platform at a time when the uniformity of the platform is seen as one of its biggest assets.

iFixit first discovered during its teardown of the third-gen 8GB models that the internals are identical to a second-gen one. An Apple spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the only thing "updated" about the 8GB iPod touch is the price. While Steve Jobs said that the $199 price point was important to put the iPod touch in the hands of more users, it seems unnecessary to create a disparity in the capabilities of iPod touch models from the same generation.

During the event, Apple had demoed some of the blazing fast, detailed graphics that are possible with the updated PowerVR graphics core that powers the iPhone 3GS and the new 32GB/64GB iPod touch models. Those models also have an updated ARM processing core, which runs at 600MHz (that number hasn't been confirmed for the iPod touch, but performance seems to be inline with the iPhone 3GS). Initial speed tests confirm that the iPod touch models with updated hardware perform much faster that last year's models, just as the iPhone 3GS outperforms the iPhone 3G.

It's true that developers can design games to use OpenGL ES 1.1 for older hardware and OpenGL ES 2.0 for devices that support it. However, it does create additional work for developers, who then have to create additional artwork and then tune performance for two different devices. It's only a matter of time before doing the extra work isn't worth the time or money, and developers start targeting the newer hardware to make the best experience.

Below, you can see a demonstration of the difference in performance between an OpenGL ES 1.1 device (the iPhone 3G) and an OpenGL ES 2.0 device (the iPhone 3GS) by iPhone developer Tap Tap Tap. The difference is quite striking, and you can see why developers would be keen to tap the power of the newer hardware.

Tap Tap Tap demonstrates the vast improvements to graphics performance in the updated hardware (here, iPhone 3G vs iPhone 3GS, but the comparison should hold for 2g vs 3G touch).

Ultimately, when shoppers go out to buy an iPod touch, many won't really know the difference in capabilities, and may just be drawn to the $199 price tag. But given the huge boost in performance and capacity, the 32GB model represents a much better value. Making a model that is sure to sell in large volumes with older-gen tech will only impede the progress of developers trying to squeeze the most performance out of the hardware—always a goal of game developers on any platform. Apple claims to be getting serious about gaming on its mobile platform, but limiting the graphics to shave a few bucks from the entry-level price seems like a few steps back.