iPod Touch Due for High-Res Camera and Video Chat?

The next big release from Apple will likely be the launch of a new iPod, something the company has done the past several years around early September in advance of back to school buying and the Christmas holiday shopping season. And if the latest rumors are on track, the iPod will be getting the biggest upgrade in some time.

The iPod was integral in reversing Apple's fortune a decade ago but has since been supplanted by the iPhone and iPad, both of which can also play music and games and run applications as the iPod does. In recent years Apple moved away from the traditional iPod design with the wheel controller in favor of the iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone. Other than that, it has the same interface and runs all of the apps on the App Store.

With the iPhone 4 getting a significant hardware and software upgrade, the iPod Touch may be next. A picture taken of a PowerPoint presentation by UK retailer John Lewis reveals that the next iPod Touch is about to get all of the major features found in the iPhone 4: the 5-megapixel camera, the user-facing camera, an LED flash, HD video recording, the gyroscope and the video-chat feature called FaceTime.

The screen was taken at the retailer's "Xmas in July" event where it disclosed upcoming product releases. A bullet point slide under the heading "Apple iPod refresh in September" lists all the features that are in the iPhone 4. Lewis cited "noises we're hearing from suppliers" as the source for the details.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

There have already been hints that the upcoming iPod Touch would have a camera at the very least. A leaked early prototype iPod Touch showed up on a Vietnamese forum in May that clearly showed a camera on the backside of the iPod Touch, but it was said to be two megapixels, not five. Assuming it was real, that prototype design would have been relatively early in the design process and Apple could always up the camera quality.

iPod Touch with FaceTime

FaceTime would be an easy feature to add to the iPod Touch, as it requires a Wi-Fi network, not a cellular network. It uses AT&T's network to make the initial connection, but then the call is carried over Wi-Fi. Once you switch to video chat, you are using the Wi-Fi network, not AT&T's network. The iPhone 4 upgraded its wireless network from 802.11g to 802.11n, which is much faster than 11g and better able to handle video streaming (54 megabits vs. 150 megabits).

FaceTime video chat only works between two iPhone 4 users, so putting it into the iPod Touch, which is particularly popular with kids, would greatly broaden the user base for the feature. If the iPod Touch has similar specs to the iPhone, then between its computing power, App Store support and FaceTime, it could become a popular business product as well.

Lewis did not disclose whether the new iPod Touch would get the powerful new internals of the iPhone 4, like the A4 processor, 512MB of application RAM, or the multitasking iOS 4.

Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.