MacInTouch reviewed the original iPod Touch in 2007, concluding that the device — essentially an iPhone sans phone and camera — served as a feature-rich iPod and the least-expensive way to explore the revolutionary "multitouch" interface that made the iPhone so famous. The "iTouch", as it's sometimes dubbed, had the interface, operating system and most of the hardware of the iPhone, while bypassing the 2-year AT&T contract, a $1680 pre-requisite for the iPhone in the U.S. The original iPod Touch lacked email and applications (other than Web apps via its Mobile Safari browser), and it had other deficiencies, as well: no volume buttons, no speaker, no camera and no Bluetooth, although it featured WiFi networking, along with USB. As a media player, this iPod Touch was limited to 8 or 16 GB of storage vs. the iPod Classic's 80 or 160 GB capacity. Today's second-generation iPod Touch improves a bit upon the original hardware, but it was the 2008 introduction of Apple's iTunes App Store that has turned the device into a full-fledged mobile computer with tens of thousands of third-party applications available. To date, the iPod Touch is the only device other than the iPhone that works on Apple's mobile application platform. And that is the reason to buy one.

The second-generation iPod Touch (available with 8, 16 or 32 GB of memory) adds external volume controls and a speaker for sound effects. It also has a faster processor, although Apple doesn't mention this in any of its marketing materials. We found that applications launch faster, Safari displays web pages faster, email fetches faster and everything feels quicker. When running the same apps side-by-side with an iPhone 3G, the second-generation iPod Touch was a clear winner — faster and more responsive. (It probably doesn't hurt that the iTouch doesn't have to run the cell phone communication software in the background like iPhone does... but that software spends most of its time idle on iPhone anyway.) The speaker is hidden inside the headphone jack. It has a much smaller opening to broadcast its sound than the iPhone, so it's a lot quieter. But it's adequate for casual gaming, and makes the alarm and timer functions useful, finally. The iPod Touch makes a pretty good alarm clock; just make sure the volume is turned up before you go to bed! The newer iTouch has a lower-capacity battery than the original, yet claims longer life — 36 hours of music vs. the original's 22 hours, and 6 hours of video playback vs. 5 hours. We didn't perform an exhaustive test, but we did watch TV shows for a couple of hours on a plane flight (with the volume up to overcome aircraft noise) and noted the battery indicator was still more than half-full at the end. This follows the trend of Apple's previous iPods; with time, more power-efficient electronics enable longer operation with smaller batteries. While the second-generation iPod Touch adds Bluetooth hardware, you can't do anything with it yet. Apple says the upcoming OS 3.0 will enable it to support stereo Bluetooth headphones. Third party developers will be able to use it, too — for multiplayer games among iPods, exchanging virtual business card, or whatever else they think up. This flexibility limits interoperability, though; it doesn't use the standard Bluetooth OBEX protocol for sending data objects, so it won't work with non-Apple devices. Additionally, the new iPod Touch supports the Nike iPod Sport Kit, which previously worked only with the iPod Nano.

As before, the iTouch display is remarkably bright and crisp with 167-pixel/in. resolution (a finer dot pitch than Apple's desktop displays use). Though the iPod Touch can't play HD video like a desktop Mac, its display is only a quarter the size of HD, so this isn't really a deficiency. Apple's iTunes Store includes iPhone/iTouch-compatible files along with HD video downloads, and we watched TV shows purchased from the store.

Games, first introduced in different form with the iPod Video in 2005, have really come into their own on the iPod Touch platform. Some game developers have even programmed their games to use higher-quality graphics on the faster second generation iPod Touch. Games range from traditional phone/PDA games, such as Bejeweled, to novel interfaces that exploit iTouch's unique motion sensor and multitouch screen, such as Rolando, Radius and Bloom. Many games have free "light" versions, with more levels or features in the paid versions.