I owned maybe the first or second model of the Touch, in the early days of the iPhone-era smartphones. At the time an iPhone did cost some 600€+ in Europe, whi

I owned maybe the first or second model of the Touch, in the early days of the iPhone-era smartphones. At the time an iPhone did cost some 600€+ in Europe, while a Touch was 200€ or so. Considering that at the time mobile apps were much less "connected" and advanced than today, it allowed to have most of the functionality of a smartphone (playing games, music player, video player) at a much lower price. I agree that today makes much less sense, since smartphones have been getting "smarter", cheaper (aside from flagship models), and the apps more reliant on a data connection (which in turn has been getting cheaper and faster).