EXCLUSIVE: New iPod Touch with QWERTY Keypad & Digital TV

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It’s not that often we manage to get a major jump on the larger tech sites but you’ll excuse us for shouting this one from the rooftops as, following on from fervent speculation concerning a possible new version of Apple’s iPod Touch being in the wings, we have the first images of the new Apple device (yes, we have probably one of the biggest scoops of the year) thanks to unearthing the new iPod Touch’s product page which is yet to go fully live.

The new iPod Touch’s site (not yet live)

The new device, on the face of it, whilst meeting with certain expectations, certainly has a few surprises up its sleeves. We’re not entirely surprised that, from what we can gather from the image we’ve obtained, the new iPod Touch appears to embrace and further the Touch as a portable gaming device – on the right side of the device you can clearly see a set of gaming buttons – as Apple are well known to be pushing the Touch’s gaming abilities.

What does come as a revelation, however, it the new Touch’s obvious inbuilt digital TV capabilities – the antenna is clearly visible on the side of the device (we assume it retracts into the device’s body somehow based on its non-existance on the image featured below) and, from what we can make out, the display appears to be showing what is unmistakably the Apple TV UI (see header image). So the new Touch offers mobile TV. We had not expected that (though perhaps we should have? Could this be the touch set to break the Japanese market?).

Another major surprise is the addition of a cell phone style slider QWERTY keypad which we certainly had not envisaged but, for messaging purposes (as well as using the new Touch with certain text applications) we don’t doubt that the new QWERTY keypad will be warmly welcomed. We also note that to allow the addition of the keypad and the gaming controls the length of the device certainly appears to have been increased in relation to the currently available Touch – though the screen size itself appears unchanged.

Interestingly, the new Touch also appears to come with not only camera functionality, but what appears to be stereoscopic cameras – allowing for video conferencing in 3D, we assume – though these appear to come in the form of separate attachments that seemingly clip to each end of the new Touch. Whether these will be bundled with the new Touch or whether they’ll be made available as separate add-ons, however, remains to be seen. But, as unexpected as stereoscopic cameras were, nothing had prepared us for some of the other additions that appear to be set to release at the same time as the new iPod Touch, the most notable of which is shown below.

We’ll admit, we did a double take on this ourselves as whilst we’ve heard much speculation concerning what Apple may have up their logo emblazoned sleeves, nothing (and we mean nothing) remotely suggested what is clearly labelled as ‘the new coffee making iPod Touch Dock’ (which we feature in greater detail below).

It appears that we’ve merely touched the surface (pun intended) of the new iPod Touch’s capabilities but, on first impressions alone, it has all the hallmarks of being a particularly fine tuned portable multimedia gaming device with the addition of TV, coffee making capabilities and 3D video capture functionality. Needless to say, we’ll endeavour to update you the moment we unearth full details – though we suspect Engadget or Gizmodo will get there first, as always.