OSNews

In some ways, I agree with you, though I'd be more inclined to call an iPod Touch a PDA and an iPhone exactly what it is, a PDA smartphone. In the end, it's mostly a pointless word game, what matters is whether your particular device fills your needs. If an iPod Touch does that for you, that's great, and perhaps it does indeed fill all the functions you need of a netbook-like device. Perhaps then, what you actually need is a PDA, and that's what you do have.
But, as for netbooks having bad battery life... well, perhaps you've only seen the three-cell batteries which are, I agree, pathetic. Two hours of battery life does not count as portable in my book. However, take a look at the six-cell batteries, on average they get up to 5 or 6 hours. Also take a look at the Asus Eee PC 1000HE, which has a high capacity battery rated at 9.5 hours--granted, however, I typically get about 7 or 8 hours out of it not 9.5. And no, there's no special software written for these subnotebooks that are currently being called netbooks, that's precisely the point. They run the same desktop software you would use anywhere else, and can actually handle most of it reasonably well.
In the end, pick the device that works for you and nevermind what other people call it. For me, it's an Asus 1000HE. For you, it's an iPod Touch. For someone else, it might be a palmtop computer. In the end, these word games are unimportant.