The iPod Touch is Actually a PDA

Apple's marketing machine may be bunching in the new iPod touch with the other iPods, but the fact is that Apple's new iPhone-without-the-phone is a PDA.

Aside from the built-in Calendar, Contact, and Calculator apps, the iPod touch has WiFi, a decent web browser. It's also not a stretch to think that the third party apps that work on the iPhone could work here too. And 8GB and 16GB is a lot room for data, a lot more than your typical smartphone or PDA.

It's also thin. Thanks to the few standalone PDAs on the market, this will be the first time I'll use the term PDA anorexia (compared to the many many times I've used that for smartphones).

Granted, the iPod touch has no built-in camera. And adding in Bluetooth would've been nice. But once again, the genius of Apple's presentation wins the day. By categorizing this PDA as a portable media player, Apple's managed the expectations of its buyers. "A PDA that can play music" doesn't sound as good as "A music player that can surf the web, supports third party apps, and has basic organizer functions."