The iPod Touch (stylized and marketed as iPod touch) is an iOS-based all-purpose pocket computer designed and marketed byApple Inc. with a user interface that is touchscreen-based. It can be used as a music and video player, digital camera, handheld game device, and personal digital assistant (PDA).^[5] It connects to the Internet only through Wi-Fi base stations, does not usecellular network data, and is therefore not a smartphone, though it has a similar design to the iPhone and is often referred to as the "iPhone without a phone". As of May 2013, 100 million iPod Touch units have been sold.^[1]

iPod touch models are sold by storage space and colour, with all models of the same generation typically offering otherwise identical features, processors, and performance, in addition to available operating system upgrades; an exception was the fifth generation, as the low-end (16 GB) model was initially sold without a rear-facing camera.^[6] The current iPod touch is the sixth-generation model, released in 2015.

The iPod Touch runs Apple's Unix-based iOS operating system (called 'iPhone OS' until 2010) and includes bundled software to browse the Internet, view maps, send and receive email, view media, and work with office documents such as presentations and spreadsheets. Users type on a virtual keyboard displayed on the screen. Apple operates an online store, allowing users to buy and directly download music, videos and third-party software. From launch, the iPod Touch was described by journalists as an 'iPhone without the phone',^[7] and each iPod Touch model to date has been introduced with the same release number of iOS as the contemporary iPhone model.

Successive updates to iOS since the initial release in 2007 have released additional features. iPhone OS 2.0, released on July 11, 2008, introduced the App Store, which allowed third-party applications for the first time. iPhone OS 3.0, released on June 17, 2009, added features such as cut, copy, and paste, data tethering and push notification support. iOS 4.0, released on June 21, 2010, introduced iBooks, FaceTime, and multitasking. It dropped support for the first generation iPod Touch.

In June 2011, iOS 5, the fifth major release of iOS software, was announced at Apple's WWDC 2011, which added notification,messaging and reminder features.^[8] Apple limited some features, most notably the voice control system Siri, to the iPhone.^[9] iOS 6, which was released on September 19, 2012 to the fourth and fifth generation iPod Touch models, contains 200 new features including Passbook, Facebook integration and Apple Maps. The fifth generation iPod Touch gained the ability to take panoramic photos, a feature shared with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.^[10]

On June 8th, 2015, it was announced at the WWDC that the iPod Touch fifth generation would support iOS 9, along with other A5devices. This makes the iPod Touch fifth generation the only iPod Touch to support 4 major versions of iOS. What features of iOS 9 it will keep, and which features that will be omitted (if any) has yet to be determined.^[11]

Recent iOS updates have been free for owners of supported iPod Touch models, but Apple received criticism for charging iPod Touch owners for versions 2.0 and 3.0, which iPhone owners received for free, and for excluding certain features from the iPod Touch software that the iPhone included.^[12][13] Apple's position was that they could add features for free to the iPhone because the revenue from it is accounted for on a subscription basis under accounting rules, rather than as a one time payment.^[14] At WWDC in June 2010, as of iOS 4, Steve Jobs announced that Apple had "found a way" to make subsequent OS upgrades available free to iPod Touch owners.