This is in reaction to today’s news of Apple dropping the 4th generation touch from the lineup and replacing it with a 16GB rear-camera-less 5th generation model (with unique coloring too).

Even if Apple doesn’t also prematurely discontinue the iPhone 4, at this point all devices Apple sells (and presumably all devices to get iOS 7) have 512MB of RAM, with the iPhone 5 and iPad 4 having 1GB. This is great news for developers because iOS 6 on the iPod Touch 4 and the 3GS was a painful experience. Although app switching was “Supported”, there was a very slim chance that the device hadn’t cleared the other app out of RAM and that it would be restarting when you switched back to it. The lack of camera and lower price point is great for developers like me who like to buy “too many” devices so I’m not running Betas on primary iPhone or testing exclusively on year old hardware.

The only “loss” for consumers here is the removal of the rear-facing camera, but let’s face it. Teens (the demographic for this thing) only take “selfies” for Instagram, Snapchat, and FaceTime. The rear camera on the 32GB model has the LED flash for flashlight purposes, but the fourth gen didn’t so that’s not really a “loss”.

The biggest win on this is the color scheme. The elusive aluminum back with black front face originally confined to the first iPhone and iPads 1-4 (no Mini) is now available on the iPod Touch.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the black of my iPhone 5 and iPad mini, but it really does noticeably scratch. But I’d have to look at the dreaded white face more than a scratched black back so that’s my current compromise.