Deciding whether to upgrade to 5th gen device

Question

I've had a 1st (possibly 2nd?) generation iPod touch for almost 4 years and I'm considering getting one of the new 5th gen devices now that the battery life is pretty bad on my old one. I will probably never use iCloud for a variety of reasons, the most important one being limited access to wifi.
I mainly use my iPod touch to listen to music and podcasts; as an alarm clock/timer; to show photos to people; and I run a few apps, such as a ToDo app, and many games. I'm looking forward to having a camera on the new device.
My questions:
1) Will the new iPod touch work okay with my "old" MacBook Pro which is currently running OSX 10.6.8 and iTunes 10.6.3? Will I have to update either the OS or iTunes?
2) Will my old apps still work? Some of them are no longer available in the app store, but I'd like to continue using them. What about the data associated with the apps?  Does that transfer to the new device?
3) What will and what won't work with no wi-fi and no iCloud?
3A) I understand that calendars and contacts have absolutely no way of syncing with my computer without iCloud. Does that include when I first get the iPod, not being able to populate it?
3B) I do very occasionally use wi-fi at the library or something like that to check my email and use Safari. Will that functionality change at all?
3C) Can I get photos onto my computer from the iPod (or the other way around) with no iCloud? I use iTunes to choose which photos to have on there to show to people now.
3D) What else will be different that I'm not thinking of?
4) How much free space is there on a fresh-out-of-the-box 32GB model?
Thanks for the information.

Answer 1

1) With Mac OS X 10.6 yes, but not with iTunes 10.6.3. You'll need to upgrade to iTunes 11.1.
2) It depends entirely on the specific app. Some may work without problems, some may work but with glitches, and some may not work at all. We can't give you any sort of blanket statement on the subject.
3) Without meaning to sound flip, anything that requires a network connection won't work without WiFi, such as network games, AirPlay, over-the-air synching, etc. Without iCloud you won't have backup sans a computer, document synching, and of course the other features of iCloud.
3A) With Mac OS X 10.6.8 you'll still get synching of calendar, contacts etc. via iTunes. That was lost only with OS X 10.9 Mavericks.
3B) No, other than the interface differences.
3C) Yes.
3D) Difficult to say. The interface will be quite difference from iOS 3/4, but most people have little problem adapting. You might want to peruse the user's guide before you buy to inform yourself of the new features and interface:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/ipod_touch_user_guide.pdf
4) I believe it's around 27GB out of the box, but someone else here who has a 32GB model can probably say with certainty.
Regards.
Message was edited by: varjak paw