We’re looking at taking advantage of Apple’s Back to School promotion and getting my brother an iPod Touch to replace his video iPod (which, by the looks of it, he punched in the face).  anyway…

Are we due to see any hardware upgrades to the Touch, especially in the wake of the 3GS?  I tried to do a quick search here on the forums and go back over WWDC coverage to look for rumors/speculation, but I couldn’t really find anything.  The Mac Rumors’ Mac Buyer’s Guide (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iPod_touch) makes me hesitant, but I was wondering what you all thought.  I’m not so concerned about the lack of compass and/or video features, but everyone seems to think the 3GS is much zippier, which is appealing for playing games and getting between apps, starting up and shutting down.  Or is this not a big deal; has the Touch been a bit faster anyway since it doesn’t have all that silly *phone* stuff to deal with?  I just realized it’s Nike+iPod compatible already, which the 3GS just introduced, so maybe it was already a little ahead on the hardware side?  Someone straighten me out!

EDIT: Also, could someone shed some light on the timing of this promo in conjunction with what seems to be an annual iPod refresh in September.  Do they use this promo to help eat away at old inventory before introducing the new stuff in early September?  If they do intro new iPods in September, would they be eligible for this promo?  (Obviously have to wait until then to buy, but might be worth it if it’s a significant refresh)

(PS Totally excited to play with an Intel MB or MBP we’ll get for my parents as part of this promo.  My PB G4 is still rocking, but I can’t make fun of Windows nearly as directly as I could with Boot Camp

No one knows for sure, but me personally, I don’t see any reason why Apple _doesn’t_ put the new CPU, GPU, probably extra RAM, and autofocus camera into the next iPod touch.  By turning a great iPod into a casual-class camera that also takes video (how many non-phone multimedia players do that anyway?), Apple really starts turning the top-end iPod into a very, very versatile device.  This is Apple’s way around the MP3 player market—keep pushing into different markets.  Of course the speed will also help greatly with apps and games.  It’ll probably be regarded as a “disappointment” pretty much everywhere if Apple doesn’t include those key four features into the next iPod touch—and since the iPod touch is an iPhone minus phone anyway for the most part, there’s not much “excuse”, especially with another 2-3 months to ramp up the hardware and production.  The compass and GPS would be an excellent touch, particularly if some maps were loaded, but that would be icing on the cake I think.

The iPod Touch CPU has been “confirmed” to run about 100MHz or so faster than the iPhone EDGE/3G’s CPU.

About the promo, I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure if you do a Mac news/rumors site search from around the time of the last back-to-school promotion in late 2008, you might find some hints there.

Well he opened the 32gb Touch as a gift today.  I told him that at this point the 3.0 software was an extra $10 (although I gave him a $15 gift card that could go toward that and an app or two), and that there may be some improvements coming in September, so he *could* wait if he wanted to.  However I think he’ll probably just go with it, as he works out a good bit and has some boring commutes on public transportation that the iPod could help a lot with.

Now to see if Mom will get a MacBook Pro