It came as quite a surprise to everyone when the iPod Touch didn’t get the Street View that the iPhone OS 2.2 brings to the iPhone. The official reason is not yet known, but it is highly unlikely that Apple deemed the Street View as useless on the iPod Touch. After all, it wouldn’t be any extra trouble to add it to the feature set. 

My best guess is that it has something to do with those accounting rules that took over when they charged for the five apps and the 2.0 upgrade. 

“It’s an accounting requirement that if you upgrade a device that’s not on a subscription, you have to charge,” Needham and Company financial analyst Charles Wolf said. “Apple has a choice of what to charge, but they have to charge.”

Will the iPod Touch ever get the Street View? Hard to say for sure. If the exclusion has anything to do with the accounting rules, then we will definitely see the Street View ‘for sale’ in a future, more substantial update. This could be once or twice a year as and when new features are aggregated. It doesn’t, after all, make sense to charge customers every so often for each feature. Till then, bug fixes and minor changes will be the name of the game with the iPod Touch.

As for the Podcast download feature, my assumption is that the iTunes Music Store app has a revenue model that allows it (and any other functions) to remain as a free update. 

Not to forget, we also need to wait and see whether or not the newer ‘post-2.2’ iPod Touches that are sold have the Street View feature. The iPod Touch product page doesn’t mention anything of the Street View, neither does it include the Podcast download feature.

Your thoughts?