Hard Drive iTouch?

Guys, I know everyone wants a 160GB touch screen iPod, but it's been said many times by professionals that it would be completely impractical. The battery life would suck beyond all else, the speed would be pathetic, it'd freeze all the time, and the HDD would be constantly spinning, meaning a ridiculously short over-all life span.

It hasn't happened because it can't happen.

Guys, I know everyone wants a 160GB touch screen iPod, but it's been said many times by professionals that it would be completely impractical. The battery life would suck beyond all else, the speed would be pathetic, it'd freeze all the time, and the HDD would be constantly spinning, meaning a ridiculously short over-all life span.

It hasn't happened because it can't happen.

That's hogwash. No "professionals" have said anything of the sort.

No one knows why Apple chose to go with flash over HDD but the main reason seems to be size. Apple is obsessed with thinness and the Touch would have been as thick or thicker than the Classic if it had an HDD in it. There's no technical reason why they couldn't put one in there, it seems to be an aesthetic choice more than anything.

Won't flash be crazy cheap in 10 years?

Guys, I know everyone wants a 160GB touch screen iPod, but it's been said many times by professionals that it would be completely impractical. The battery life would suck beyond all else, the speed would be pathetic, it'd freeze all the time, and the HDD would be constantly spinning, meaning a ridiculously short over-all life span.

It hasn't happened because it can't happen.

Bull, look at the transfer times...the classic beats the sync times of the nano. Hard Drives slow? not really, at least not for iPods. iPods aren't exactly running state of the art processor speeds to require a really fast hard drive.

Its sad how people come around here claiming that hard drives are reliable and they are "crap". Hard Drives can last a very long time (passed the units battery life) if properly taken care of..which is how MOST of these units get damaged. Not saying there are lemons out there but I'd say a good chunk of hard drive failures are the user's fault.

Apple will not be releasing hd based touch models because of the size they are limited to and the battery life. Over time, seeing how trends are coming along, flash memory is increasing while the prices drop. The 32 gig flash drives are already out but they are expensive. We should see one of those in future iPod Touch and iPhone updates.

Couldn't agree more, I think it just comes down to how the owner treats their iPod. If they treat it like crap, then the HDD is bound to fail at some point in time before its life expectancy is reached.

That's a thoopid statement. If people are going to treat it like ####, the harddrive won't be the only thing to crap out (since harddrives are in all honesty quite durable) and it's their problem for abusing it anyway.

It's not a toy, it's an expensive piece of hardware (Even the Shuffles for some.) If you're going to treat it badly and can't afford a new one, it's not fair to say the rest of the world should suffer with the limits of flash just because you're a heavy-handed git.

That's a thoopid statement. If people are going to treat it like ####, the harddrive won't be the only thing to crap out (since harddrives are in all honesty quite durable) and it's their problem for abusing it anyway.

It's not a toy, it's an expensive piece of hardware (Even the Shuffles for some.) If you're going to treat it badly and can't afford a new one, it's not fair to say the rest of the world should suffer with the limits of flash just because you're a heavy-handed git.

My post was in no shape or form supporting flash or degrading HDD based iPod's. I was merely concurring with paranoidxe that most iPod HDD failure's were more than likely caused by users. Granted maybe a small percentage of HDD failure's is due to a bad drive making it into an iPod, but the majority fail due to abuse. I for one don't abuse anything of mine, to this day I still baby my 3G iPod, just as I have with my 5G iPod. So I think that you can dispense with the name calling.

Adding a hard drive is certainly feasible for the touch, but the real question is whether Apple wants to or not.

I don't personally see it happening, since it would muddy the waters around the classic. If they got rid of the classic, then it becomes more a possibility. If Apple added a 160GB touch, I couldn't think of a compelling reason for buyers not to go with a touch versus a classic.

Then again, only Steve Jobs knows what's going on, so you never know what he might pull out of his hat. If people complain enough, who knows, maybe he will add a hard drive.

And given how quickly Apple was able to go from 8GB max for the iPhone to 16GB for the touch from mid-summer until now, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple introduce a 32GB version early next year.

Ok, I apologise. I grossly misread what you put and had a general spat at the HDD haters through your post.

When I was saying 'you're', I was referring to anyone abusing their iPods - not you. Bad English on my part.

No worries, water under the bridge.

Guys, I know everyone wants a 160GB touch screen iPod, but it's been said many times by professionals that it would be completely impractical. The battery life would suck beyond all else, the speed would be pathetic, it'd freeze all the time, and the HDD would be constantly spinning, meaning a ridiculously short over-all life span.

It hasn't happened because it can't happen.

I find that to be utter bull.
The new classic has a whopping 160GB Hard Drive, and Apple designed a battery that can withstand around 9 hours of video and almost 50 hours of music. If Apple managed to do that, why can't they design a high-end battery like the classic in design for the iPod touch along with a bigger Hard Drive? Sure battery life won't be 9/50 hours, but it would be better than it is now.

Not trying to be the Dvorak type person but seriously, to power WiFi and a big screen? Give me a break.

Never going to happen. If they wanted it to ever be HDD based now would have been the time. But clearly Apple sees flash as the future.
I to am disappointed by this move, as are several people I know who won't be buying a touch as a result. I too passed on the touch and just got an iPhone instead.

Give it a few years and we'll have a 64+GB touch and iPhone and by then no one will even be asking for HDD's.

I remember someone saying that Flash is going to go waaayyy down. I mean like crazy cheap. I hope its like 2 years until this happens because I want it, just not now because I just bought my ipod touch. And I love it!

Listen: the problem here isn't technical. The problem is aesthetic. Apple won't put a hard drive in iPhone or iPod Touch because that would make it too fat. That's pretty much the beginning and end of the story.

I dunno man, the 5G 80s and new 160s were pretty "fat" (that's how anorexia starts) and noone really complained; we just noticed they were fatter than certain others, and still way thinner than older models with a fraction of the capacity. At least that's how I saw it; pretty much a consistent win-win in terms of size. I do think though that you'd need a flash drive for RAM *and* a hard drive, *with* next generation batteries to be competitive with what we have right now, and yeah, it totally CAN happen (there *is* always a future, you know)... but it's true, it'd still be "too fat" compared to the "precedent" set by the nano.

It probably really is just one of their stupid little neuroses, though I wouldn't rule out a change of heart at some point. Apple might need to "step backward" soon, there's always competition. And at the end of the day, a compact rectangle is a compact rectangle.

cxc273, i agree the touch was made for people not wanting the phone but the other cool stuff that it came with.

and thats very true.
i'll get a 4gig nano with either my classic or touch, because if i'm spending 250/300 on an ipod, i'm not going to have it ruined.