While Steve Jobs and his Apple lackies are notorious for being tight-lipped about upcoming products, an Apple feature-guide editor may have accidentally confirmed upcoming touch-screen iPod models.
The document in question is an Apple iPod Feature guide, drafted and published on October 20th, 2006. As you can see below, the guide reads:
- All other Notes featured capabilities described in this document are supported for iPod models with display screens, beginning with the touch-screen models.
Hmm, touch-screen models? Last time we checked there is not yet an Apple touch-screen model, at least, not one that has been released or officially announced by Apple. This likely means one of two things:
- Scenario 1: An Apple documentation editor is aware of the touch-screen iPod and accidentally mentioned it in an official document.
This is entirely feasible. While the document doesn’t directly confirm that a touch-screen iPod exists, the fact that an editor would manage to include this in official documentation likely means that it was intended to be included in future documentation. The editor may have disregarded some memo about the release date of this documentation, or he simply committed a major Freudian slip. Either way, it bodes well for the existence of a touch-screen iPod.
- Scenario 2: Steve Jobs and Apple marketing execs planted those words surreptitiously to generate buzz about the Touch-Screen iPod.
The fact that I’m writing this article right now would be reason enough for Jobs and the Apple madmen to make such a move. Jobs keeps the loose lips sink ships adage close to heart for a reason – unconfirmed rumors generate more publicity for Apple than they could buy. Jobs is very aware of this fact, and I wouldn’t put it past anyone at Apple to purposely stir up some hype about a touch-screen iPod prior to a release sometime in the next few months.
It remains to be seen whether this was a slip-up by an Apple documentation editor, or a sneaky and well-placed buzz-builder by Steve Jobs himself. Whatever the case, mention of a touch-screen iPod in an official Apple document seems to at least confirm that all those touch-screen device patents are more than just dust in the wind.
Read MacDailyNews
Via engadget
The Document – an iPod Notes Feature Guide [Don’t bother looking for the excerpt above – Apple has since released an updated version of the document with the touch-screen mention removed.]
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Mike Zazaian is the Editor-in-Chief and Webmaster of TechFreep.com, an online publication dedicated to daily technology and science news. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he majored in Film and Video studies with a sub-concentration in screenwriting. While only a minority of Mike’s formal education encompassed the technology field, he has worked as a web developer, a freelance web designer, and has been a tech enthusiast for the better part of his life.
