Rumor: iPods Nano and Touch to Gain Cameras

So says the Apple-centric Hardmac, citing “informations from one of our sources”. The scoop says that the next-gen iPhone will look exactly the same as the current one from the outside, and that both the iPod Touch and the iPod Nano will gain cameras. We’ll be kind and say that Hardmac has scored one out of three with its guesses. Sorry: “informations”.

The one feasible rumor here is that the Touch could get a camera. It’s a real lack when it comes to running iPhone software — Evernote, for example, is next to useless on the Touch and the general ease of taking grainy, noisy snaps with your phone of course disappears. The 2G Touch gained external volume switches and a (tinny) speaker. Why not a camera for the 3G?

The Nano with a camera idea strikes us as nonsensical, though. But them so did a Nano with video until it happened. It seems unlikely, though, that Apple would put a camera into an iPod that doesn’t run the mobile OS X, and it would certainly mean a price hike, or at least a cut in profits, neither of which Apple likes.

Last, the non-updated iPhone hardware. This is clearly foolish. One of the main reasons to upgrade Apple hardware is that the new models always make the old ones look tired and clunky. This is why I have a Unibody MacBook when there’s a perfectly good last-generation MacBook Pro on the shelf (it’s for sale, by the way). That Apple would bump the specs of a product and not make it look sleeker, thinner and generally more desirable is quite unthinkable.