A new study by Chitika Research claims that “despite its hype, iPhone OS 3.0 had very little to offer iPod Touch users. Push notifications? MMS? Tethering? Essentially useless on a device that relies on WiFi for a connection. iPod Touch users are essentially asked to pay for copy/paste, in-app purchases, and the ability to buy a segment of the latest apps from the app store.”

The ad network’s sample data shows that 94.4% of iPhone users upgraded to OS 3.0, and only 55.24% of iPod Touch users upgraded.

Chitika, Inc. is a search-based online advertising network that is not working only with Mobile devices like AdMob does, and unfortunately the research has no indication of the size of the sample.

It would have been interesting to know how many of those iPod Touch are first generation devices vs. second generation devices.

From the snapshot of the new study, it looks like the adoption rate among iPod Touch users has had an increase since July, when a report from multiple sources showed a slower adoption rate among iPod Touch users.

I have an iPod Touch first generation and I finally decided to upgrade it to OS 3.0 to keep it compatible with the new apps coming out. I was not happy to pay for the upgrade and in the process I also lost support for a cheap TV Out cable, which I purchased just a month before.

My take on this, but it’s just a personal opinion, is that first generation iPod Touch users are more reluctant to upgrade, concerned that the hardware would not be fast enough to support the new OS and the new games.

There will be more and more apps that only work on OS 3.0 in time and these include lots of the latest and greatest 3D games and all Core Data based apps. So if there is such a big part of iPod Touch users that do not see the added value in those apps, would they purchase those even if they upgraded?