a touchwheel touchscreen is not likely IMO

I believe a touchwheel touchscreen is possible although a seperate wheel and screen is superior. Although for it to be possible you would have to consider the size of the screen and text being displayed. And maybe the size of your thumb :P I already had a debate with a friend and this was my ammunition.

The current iPod interface is simple enough to navigate through song selection with limited information displayed. The most important information is aligned to the left of the screen.

Try this, take a post-it note and cover the screen so only the first three characters from the left are showing. Now try looking for the song you wish to here. I don't believe it's that hard considering you know what music you put on your iPod.

The brain reads words generally in chunks, and if you've ever taken a speed reading course, they teach you only to look at the top half of words to speed up the visual recognition process, the brain fills in the rest of the information.

Guess what songs these are showing only three character of the artist and song :P

U2 - Ver
Bea - Let
Led - Sta

Yeah those are simple but that's also because you know those bands and know the songs, same your playlist.

And if it's touchwheel touchscreen the movement of the thumb is predictable. So let's say your thumb moves around the screen in a circular fashion; at the worst point (which is when you thumb is at the top left hand corner) the user can still view 35% of a iPod screen. Although your thumb isn't going to be there all the time, it's going to be going around the screen and when it gets to the lower right of the screen you'll be able to see everything. Which could be comparable to a touch-and-choose, meaning you don't see the information for a second but get updated a second later.

I could go on about the interface and brain recognition but this post is getting long.

If you didn't get the songs I was thinking about they were
U2 - Vertigo
Beatles - Let it Be
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

nah a stylus would be a hassle and a pain. Imagine having to take the stylus out just to turn up the volume then having to put it back.

When I rub my thumb on the screen of my iPod its doesn't really get grubby, nor is it a matter of inconvenience, just useability. Which I believe still is acceptable as I outlined. That being said, obviously a seperate touchwheel and screen is better, but if the iPod were to get smaller than the room to allow a seperate screen and touchwheel, this could be a usable solution.

Touch screen will never happen. Touch wheel won't happen. Do you realize how expensive these things are to produce? Most of the designs are just wishlists that are not possible physically or are way out of the pricerange apple wants to be in. I design things like this on a regular basis for an electronics company. I have about 8 different products on the shelf next to my desk with touch screens on them. The cheapest touchscreen (just the clear panel) one was $125. Beef up the numbers to the hundreds of thousands that Apple will bbuy up front and the price would drop to around $75 a screen. Just the screen. Then you have everything else that's going in it. The touch wheel apple produced while not as expensive is still very expensive in terms of pricing parts. On top of all that, Apple isn't going to just give it away and they won't cheap out on the product for the sake of sales.

Expect function buttons that are driven by design, not technology. The only reason Apple has to release a micro is to lower price to help drive up overall sales and adding all these pricey and very unlikely features is just not going to happen.

Let's see the nintendo DS cost $199 (http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&dept=15&sku_id=0665000FS10051656&catid=22018&newdeptid=15) CDN, which has a colour touchscreen and another screen on top of that (256 x 192 pixels). Plus a processing unit that's powerful enough to do polygons and audio, wireless capabilities, a battery and various other components like buttons, speakers and such. Hmm, not bad for that price.

A 40gb iPod Photo costs $679 (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/71303/wo/Pe2NV34g2b0d3xXm9Y91oG7fgDt/9.0.11.1.0.6.21.1.5.1.1.0.0.1.0) CDN which as a plain colour screen (220x176 pixels), 40gb harddrive, battery, pretty basic processing unit and various other components.

Now I know hard drives are expensive, especially ones physically as small as the ones used in the iPod, but that's $479 CDN for that 40gb harddrive (as you said before, buying in bulk is cheaper). That's also not considering that the DS has a higher resolution colour touchscreen, an extra colour screen, a more powerful processor, and wireless capabilties. The iPod is using higher quality materials than the DS as packaging, but they're fairly basic shaped and I can't see them being too hard to manufacture.

So is a touchscreen possible in a HDD iPod.. I think it could be a consideration. As for the flash iPod... If they chose to market it as a cheap alternative, obviously they are going to use cheap solutions. But if they take the approach as a high-end flash player (which I don't think most companies have done before, except for maybe iRiver's N10, or B&O has a flash player) a touchwheel-screen would be a creative approach on that segment.

apple works the exact oppositte.

their itunes music store generates little to no profit. it is only a means to promote the sales of ipods. hell, it worked on me!