An iPod touch ships without OS X -- hints at disabled Bluetooth
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Sep 14th 2007 7:48AM
posted Sep 14th 2007 7:48AM
Update: Video now embedded after the break. Seems David's not the only person experiencing this problem judging by the comments. See reader Chris' hapless touch after the break as well with a new twist to the Bluetooth mystery.
Another from Dave. Note that clicking on the Bluetooth icon brings up an empty screen which reads "nothing to see here."
Chris' iPod touch -- now the 2nd we've seen -- only without an "X" through the Bluetooth icon and nearly fully charged battery. This has led some of our readers to speculate that his Bluetooth is possibly enabled since his battery (unlike Dave's) is charged to a sufficient level. Remember, it is common for devices to shut Bluetooth off automatically when the battery becomes depleted. If true (where's the check mark?), the FCC will not be happy.
Wow, it can sense temperature, too?
I'm guessing that's internal temperature.
Btw, I'm guessing that someone will pay a pretty penny to get their hands on that touch.
go away gerald, that's what e-bay's for.
shoo
my bad, sorry.
I am sure this guy can get a tonne of money if he did put it up on eBay.
Sorry again.
Needed for battery charging, to detect end-of-charge.
Apple Newton had a temperature sensor, to control the screen contrast, as it depended heavily on the temperature. I would expect the touch screen is somehow temperature dependant and needs correction.
A good temperature reading is needed for EEPROM/Flash writes.
... and besides, an LM75A temp. sensor costs like $0.50.
Even Apple's BIOS is sort of pretty.
Bluetooth is useless anyway without microphone.
bluetooth could enable voip, wireless syncing of small amounts of data, control of other objects (remote feature), communication with other devices within the same area....bluetooth is very very very far from useless on a device that is (potentially) as versatile as the Touch.
I FREAKIN KNEW IT!!!
Oh and yeah, in an mp3 player, bluetooth is entirely pointless, which is why no companies are creating bluetooth headphones.
What do you do with VoIP if you don't have mic?
If you have a 3G mobile phone you can connect the Touch using bluetooth and surfing the Web with Safari, everywere.
Bluetooth useless with out a mic?! If the software was available then Bluetooth is potentially very usefull?
Bluetooth headset?
Bluetooth GPS (like Tom Tom's) linked to google maps or other internal app?
Link to your mobile phone?
Bluetooth sync to PC?
Bluetooth Headphones?
Bluetooth Remotes?
Useless? Here's several things you have the potential to do if the device had bluetooth.
1. You could use bluetooh to print to bluetooth printers. (email, web, etc)
2. You could transmit to a bluetooth speaker system. The Blackberry curve already has this ability.
3. You could connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
4. external bluetooth gps
5. people already mentioned it you add a bluetooth headset with a microphone you could do voip (the device does not need a microphone if it's in the headset)
6. bluetooth watch to control the iPod while working out.
7. how about ipod/nike with bluetooth
8. other bluetooth devices would be surely be invented by creative companies seeking to make money off the Touch. (ie. bluetooth xm receiver, bluetooth radio receiver, bluetooth car kits, digital camera photo download, bluetooth remote control, bluetooth chat between devices, etc., )
Uh....blutooth is not useless. It depends on how it is implemented on the device. Remember this device has wifi. So if it's hacked and a voip app is put on that supports blutooth headsets than...COOL. IPOD SKYPE BIATCHES. Oh and yes there are companies making blutooth stereo headphones so this little baby could be stashed away in your pocket or bag while you rock out, that is when it is implemented to do so.
Mixxmann
You might think that bluetooth would be useful to do all those things, but what you are forgetting is that you also need software support for all those things. Lets compare to the iPhone, which DOES have bluetooth, and yet still CAN'T do any of those things, the bluetooth on the iPhone is crippled so you can use it for a headset and nothing else.
I was pissed when I found out that not only did the iPhone not include a GPS for use with Google maps, but I couldn't even use the bluetooth GPS I already had with it.
Bluetooth is the avenue to implement a mic! *rolls eyes*
In addition to everything else above, what about a bluetooth enabled car stereo. Could Steve's talks with VW mean no wires in the car?
Bluetooth-enabled car stereos exist. Pioneer's top-end decks have support BT-audio for a few years.
If you have a 3G mobile phone you don't need the addition of the touch to get online or use voip. Or use the POS Safari. It's all already in your 3G phone.
I am willing to bet that the bluetooth is in there, but as what happened with the iMacs and Macbook Pros With the 802.11n in it but not disabled users will have to pay some fee to get bluetooth unlocked.
No, you won't have to pay extra if Bluetooth is enabled later.
Apple is accounting for Apple TV, iPhone and the iPod Touch using subscription accounting, recognizing revenue over two years. So, if you bought an iPhone today, Apple wouldn't report a $399 sale, they'd report $399/24. This way they get around having to charge people the way they did for the iMac 802.11n update.
For you this means that over the next couple of years, you'll get new features as they come out, e.g. ringtones, iTunes WiFi Store as well as the usual bug fixes.
no.
I bet the software is in there, the hardware is not. they are probably planning to put it in into a later gen, or they have a few prototypes floating around the office with bluetooth
cheerios, haha.
yeah that cheerios icon cracked me up. buttons should be disabled as well
gotta love the creative people working for apple
wait, so this shipped like this?? he received this iPod touch like this????
BLUETOOTH HACK please! nothing like some high quality mp3s in wireless headsets.
Yup if this thing turns out to get A2DP support I'll buy the sweet device tomorrow.
I wonder if they have the rights to use the Cheerios box in their sold products.. lol
Should've used Apple Jacks
That (Apple Jacks) would be for the headphones icon.
He shouldn't take it back to the shop. I'm sure someone will pay more than what it's worth on eBay. It's kinda like being in the BIOS of the iPhone isn't it? Surely some iPhone hacker will find it interesting.
wait.. if earlier inside ipod touch apple people said that the programs run off of the "same damned binaries" as the applications on the iPhone.. then how can the touch NOT be running OSX?
I think clever apple is still hiding things from us.
Think of this as a PC with no OS - The BIOS screen appears, runs through all the self-tests, but stops when there's no OS to boot..
I agree bluetooth is pointless on this device, even the iPhone doesn't support AD2P so there is no value in a bluetooth headset for such a device if it cant really be used to listen to music properly.
Speaker? i thought the touch didn't have a speaker?
Looks like the volume level...theres also one for checking if headphones are plugged in.
Dump. The. Flash...
...NOW!
how the heck do I dump the flash. I keep getting people saying that to me. Tell me please! I want to try more things on this baby.
You guys make me sad :( Bluetooth would add immense value.
Bluetooth headset + VOIP software = iPhone - Contract
Bluetooth GPS + basic tracking or mapping software = awesome
Or perhaps, when paired with your Bluetooth phone, your music would pause when you get a call, and the caller info would pop up on the screen.
You need to stop thinking of it as just an MP3 player. This thing has the potential to be a full fledged PDA.
heh heh heh - the accelerometer icon looks like a boner.
lmFao you're right dude
god damn apple! My iPod touch has a dead pixel
Think about the popularity of the IPod line, if the bluetooth chip was enabled for the entirery through t firmware update then there would be a long list of accesoriesy for it the would work with that, probably mostly along the line of Bluetooth speakers. maybe they could get simple remotes to work, btw anyone wanting to get rid of a touch?
I am wanting to get rid of the ipod touch. all of them. off the face of the earth. im tired or reading apple apple apple apple other brand apple apple apple apple apple apple other brand ripping on apple, apple apple apple every single time i log on engadget.
What's up with that Speaker Icon? Having a small internal speaker would be nice. As far as I was informed though The Touch was lacking one, another disabled feature perhaps?
From pg. 61 of the manual:
Sound Effects
iPod touch can play sound effects when you:
have an appointment
lock or unlock iPod touch
type on the keyboard
Turn sound effects on or off
Choose General > Sound Effects and select whether you want sound effects to play over the internal speaker, through the headphones or both.
Hmm is it just me or has this ipod a disabled battery (as there is a disabled or non existing bluetooth) ?
:)
Writing this from my new iPod touch... It does have an internal speaker, but as far as I can tell it is only used to make a "click", e.g., when keys are pressed. Time will tell if it can be used for anything else. Sure would be nice for watching videos with friends, etc.
wait... doesn't the ipod touch display photos... cough photoshop cough
let me know when photoshop can make videos
How do you get into the diagnostic menu? What key combinations are needed?
Thanks
nice plug btw :)
1) The actually points to the lack of Bluetooth hardware, since it is running independent of Mac OS X.
2) It appears that Mac OS X is installed on the iPod touch in question, since it is registering a valid build number in the OS X install field.
I suspect that this iPod touch either has a stuck switch that is triggering diagnostic mode (say, a contact on the logic board) or was flashed with a diagnostic version of the iPod touch firmware.
That, or Apple has updated the diagnostic functionality in iPod touch... certainly possible considering the time they've had since shipping iPhone.
- Christopher Price
http://www.christopherprice.net
Bluetooth seems to be there in fact, but disabled!
The low battery also has the red "X". And, morevoer, why put an icon about bluetooth if there isn't any?!
I think the iPod Touch has indeed bluetooth, but it currently is disabled.
Why? I have some, very personal, guesses on that:
- bluetooth on the iPod Touch would allow to connect a bt headset, which might lead to a VoIP phone. This would make users happy but AT&T very, very p...ed.
- maybe Apple is cooking something up. So they have put bluetooth also in the iPod Touch, but currently left it disabled. As some here stated, it might be that Apple plans to add some GPS navigation (together with google or not).
To my last remark I would like to add that the iPod Touch's "icons" are asymmetrical... Like it happened with the iPhone there is one that seems to be missing.
I think that Apple will now concentrate on Leopard and then add a lot of features to these devices thanks to Leopard. In particular because an SDK for the iPhone or iPod Touch would tell people a lot about how Leopard itself is going to be built.
Of course, like always, I might be completely off track. But the room for guessing is something I like very much about Apple :-) Even if sometimes it turns into deception...
If it doesn't have Bluetooth, it doesn't have Bluetooth. Period. It's just a global diagnostic app that works with the iPhone too.
if it was the same diagnostics for the iPhone, wouldn't it have icons/tests for the radio stack?
seems to me it is iTouch specific, and points to the existence of BT hardware.
Can't wait till someone rips into it and finds out. What is taking so long, people??
Or something else...it's the same testing software they had for iPhone or engineering sample of iPod touch which had bluetooth and now it just can't find it...
ha, calm down guys, why would they do this, right ;) ?
I noticed that the temp icon says 45. Assuming that it is reporting the current temperature and assuming the temperature is in celsius, it would mean its 113 degrees.
Does anyone find this odd. If an arbitrary temperature were to be chosen, why not room temperature?
@Kenny,
45C is perfectly reasonable temp for a non-PC class, CPU driven device to operate at.
Thomas
Maybe, just maybe it's temperature in Fahrenheit. 45 degrees Fahrenheit is actually very reasonable in some areas this time of year - in Utah it's been dropping down to around 50 on and off.
As much as I'd like to think that Bluetooth is there (yeah, I know it doesn't have a mic - that's the *point*), I don't.
As several have pointed out, it's running (more or less) the same version of X, the same binaries. Seems reasonable that the hardware level bios utility is the same - and as such, will go through the same checks at startup - and when an item is not found (or not functional), it fails that test. And I'd attribute the speaker volume to actually being the volume of the headphones while plugged in, as they appear to be based on the first diagnostics screen.
That's just my take on it of course, but that's exactly how I'd expect it to act if it didn't have bluetooth...
Or... could it be common diagnostic software with the iPhone, so the bluetooth "module" is still in the software? What would be of value is if he actually went into the bluetooth screen and see what it reported.
@Karan,
So where is the cellphone radio icon then?
Indeed, we're waiting to hear back from Dave about what's tucked away beneath all the submenus. He's likely sleeping right now... damn him!
Thomas
True, the GSM diagnostics isn't there, but speaker is, and from all I've heard the touch doesn't have a speaker. Maybe in a rush only the obvious one got taken out? :)
(The other thing that would clinch this is if the diagnostic screen for the iPhone was around somewhere)
@Karan,
Sorry, but it does have an internal speaker. Not the kind you're thinking of though, the kind that allows you to hear the alarm clock and clicks like you'll find on other iPods.
Thomas
If this was universal to the iPhone too, whouldn't it have some information about the cellular status? And if its not, that means the touch ha bluetooth. Thats fair enough logic.
Wow could you add a 160gb hdd to it now please?
Would you like your 5 minute battery time with that?
I think that Apple is just waiting to activate the Bluetooth alongside some other release they have in the works. They've already come out with a bluetooth earpiece shortly after the iPhone. Now, at some point, I'm guessing they're going to come out with an Apple set of bluetooth headphones, and magically the next day the iPhone and the iPod Touch will have A2DP bluetooth support.
Just my 2 cents... if it were a common diag/bios as the iphone i would have expected to see some icon for the phone side of things (eg something that just tests a few AT commands etc) so it still seems quite possible to me that bluetooth is in it... i say get a flash dump and someone take apart a touch and start googling the chip numbers to end speculation
Not long till somebody has the money and guts to dismantle the Touch and see if the Bluetooth chip is in there. It's not as though they can physically disguise the chip and board.
In OS X, if you don't have bluetooth hardware, the bluetooth icon will show up X'd out. That there is a bluetooth icon X'd out doesn't imply in any way that the hardware for bluetooth is in there.
to be a PDA it would have to have the ability to edit/add calender dates and tasks from the device, which apple is too mean to do :(
but that would be cool. i have a lifedrive, and thats kinda like a badly designed touch.
Well even if bluetooth is not there, the bios obviously looks for it on start up....soooo I bet a third party bluetooth dongle could be made to fit into the dock connecter....with a mic too :)
wouldn't they need the fcc approval for a bluetooth chip?
wouldn't they need the fcc approval for a 802.11 chip?
Wouldn't they need FCC approval for an electronics device?
not exactly sure, kinda nooby, but wouldnt bluetooth allow you to send songs/photos/movies to other ipod touches? i rekon that would be pretty good a long with some of the other stuff mentioned
second attempt to post from my touch. My friends touch was also shipped this way. We attempted to exit the menu with no luck it brings up a menu to cancel quit or shutdown after holding the home key for some time. Each feature has its own menu when you double tap, the blue tooth menu says "Nothing to see here." seems like a tease. My friend just wants a working touch. If any hackers are interested reply to this comment.
"it runs the same damn binaries".. bluetooth isn't there... Hence the X mark, its checking for it though because they didn't change anything with the binary..
The iPod Touch can add bluetooth, mic, or anything you want through iPod Accessory port. My iPod touch works just fine with the belkin snap on recording kit, and if you really wanted bluetooth Im sure i could be added with a tiny accessory;
Why woud you want buetooth anyway? Seriously bluetooth is way, way over rated Always problems with getting them to stay paired, horrible audio quality, even bluetooth 2.0 compress audio to 32kb at it's best quality. Absolutely stupid from my point of view.
You could easily make a logitec or skype headset that plugs into the iPod accessory port, or even better yet there are headsets out there now that work over wifi, that would be a better solution.
Either way I see a simple 3mm shaped like the bottom of the ipod touch/iphone accessory coming that lets you do mic in/out has build in radio, tv tuner and all sorts of cool things device makers could add.
Once u get rid of cables u never want to see them again, believe me. Wireless is so good for sports also ... I've got the TEN (motorola) transmitter and works great and sounds great
Now I use bluetooth at home, at work and outside, I can't imagine going back to wires. At the store my eyes hover over bluetoothless MP3s and MP4s as if they weren't there.
If you wonder what that pulsating blue light on the horizon is, that's me relaxing at home.
Now I'm just waiting for mini universal bluetooth adaptors to appear (the dongles for the 3.5mm socket).
Why so many people saying bluetooth in useless? Sony have got a bunch of Bluetooth headphones out (well, here in Japan at least). And Skype/ichat would be great too. shame there is no internal facing camera, maybe jobs will add that stuff to the Japanese version along with 3G. he will need to if he thinks it can compete with the kick ass phones we have!
Doesnt anyone else think that Apple rushed the release of these new Ipods, usually, they are available in stores and apple store when Jobs announces them, but these were like, Available in around 2 weeks!! With classics and nanos trickling in first. And it looks like the touch's production run is being pushed to the limits also.
eh,
recently a bunch of big announcements were done ahead of time, not the usual apple style, but when they're big, i think apple recognizes that people don't care about waiting as long as they have something confirmed.
the iphone for example was announced in january... then not available til june.
kinda makes a week waiting period (as it has now turned out shipping currently) seem like nothing.
I actually got one of these no-os-touches yesterday. I returned it to the apple store and freaked out a few employees there. The diagnostic screen (or whatever it is) is pretty cool, the accelerometer icon actually will point in the direction the ipod is pointing and you can click each icon to get another sub-menu. I'm not sure the bluetooth icon hints at disabled bluetooth as much as it shows a lack of bluetooth.
Wait, it was thought to not have bluetooth?!??! Wow, it woud be so much more with bluetooth. Firstly wireless headphones via A2DP is such an insanely awesome thing, thats a majore deal breaker for me.
Secondly if they allowed bluetoooth GPS units to work with it, and released a GPS mapping program they would make much more profits seeing the crazy popular GPS market we are currently in. Seems like a major no brainer to me.
I was under the impression that such a basic function as bluetooth was included. Apple seems to make genius products, but they always forget to put in a couple of no brainer features ala the iphone and its lack of 3g.
The screen looks likes the result of a self test. (somewhat similar to a POST screen of a pc)
The red cross at the blue tooth icon hints the bluetooth hardware is NOT present so the test failed.
I hate internal speakers, all the yob kids would run around with their speakers on playing rubbish music and think they are cool.
i believe the temperature probe is part of the touch IC for the LCD, the temperature is important on capacitive touch devices in order to get an accurate x, y
I always figured that Apple was working on a nice pair of Bluetooth headphones. They disabled AD2P support on the iphone and ipod touch until they can get those out the door so people don't buy Bluetooth headphones from Motorola, sony ericson, etc. Although I figure we won't have to wait long for this as I bet that they will be out around the holiday season, and just in time for everybodys $100 apple gift card.
If a bluetooth radio is in fact in the device, it really begs the question:
Why the hell didn't apple release support for A2DP?
They certainly have had time. This makes me think that they are just spacing out updates so they appear to be the loving, constantly updating Apple, Inc., as opposed to the company that includes features that should have been there from the getgo.
the one guy at the apple store near me said that the touch wasn't going to have bluetooth because it drains too much battery...
Not that one would want to mess with their lovely new Touch but... supposedly you can remove the firmware by zapping the hidden partition like you do on a 3/4/5G one, no? Wouldn't that bring the Touch back to "BIOS" mode? Something worth to try (obviously not on MY Touch, cause I dun have it yet and I don't wanna risk killing it when I get it ;-D)
Is there no one else that thinks this thing's a hoax and cleverly Photoshopped photo displayed on a perfectly working iPod touch?