When a new IOS version is released, iTunes downloads & installs it once for my iPad and a second time for my iPod. Isn't it the same software for both devices? If so, why does it need to download the same file twice? Or is it different for each device? (This question didn't fit cleanly into any of the forums, so I put it here)
It's not the same. It's different even for different generations of the same iDevice (iPod 2 is different compared to iPod 3). If downloading these huge files is a big issue then that's going to be solved soon too. iOS 5 will have delta updates so you won't need to download the complete file just for a point upgrade. For example, the delta update for the fourth beta of iOS 5 was about 130 MB compared to 700+ MB I had to download for the third beta.
iOS 5 is going to finally bring us over the air updates, which presumably also means the updates themselves will be much smaller. Just the bits that changed. It will certainly be a welcome improvement!
