iPod touch splayed but Bluetooth mystery continues
By Thomas Ricker 
posted September 15th 2007 3:23AM
posted September 15th 2007 3:23AM
posted September 15th 2007 3:23AM
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Thank god for lithium polymer batteries!
The Giz seemed adamant that there is no Bluetooth...
I think I should point out that despite the fact that the touch bluetooth pictures have been removed from most Apple websites as posted the other day on Engadget, it still remains on the UK store page for the iPod touch and the image is still on Apple's server:
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/8352/949/store.apple.com/Catalog/regional/emea/touch/img/overview-wifi.png
integrate, not integrated right?
tTypical.. several hundred bucks for a max of 16 gigs, with no possible expansion and they cripple the bluetooth, yet still give you crappy headphones. Mmm.. next gen ipod mmm. /vomit
This is just like the razr was. Overpriced, underspec'd, yet instantly popular because it was thin and expensive.
Rubbish.
While the Ipod Touch is somewhat steeply priced, I still think it's a pretty impressive piece of technology. Plus 16GB can hold a fair bit of music.
it'll run apache just like the iphone, so this 'overpriced' thin little unit runs a webserver and a web browser, and has a pretty good keyboard if you've ever used one. it does what no pocketpc or palm or treo can do, and that is it runs REAL software, not watered down ce crap. I can program php on this thing when on the go, when I don't want to whip out and boot up a laptop. that's wicked.
if you don't like it, move on and keep your opinion to yourself troll.
there are people out there that use portable technology for more than just listing to 'britney spears'.
@ dj-kenpo since when is it wrong for a person to voice their opinion of something. If you don't like prokanda's post (and the truth in it) then you don't have to be a dick and call him a troll.
You don't have to get so heated up because he said some mean things about your ipod.
If they included "proper" headphones, you'd see the price skyrocket a couple hundred more bucks. For those that want them, they'll get them. The included earbuds aren't that bad for 95% of buyers, but the vocal minority just can't stand that a pair of Shures aren't included.
If portable players came with good headphones, and they sounded good, I would be mad. I have a nice headphone inventory, I'm not going to pay more for lesser ones. I have Shure E4C's, some custom LiveWire's, Sennheiser HD580's (just as good as an HD600 or HD650, but they only cost me $50), and I'll probably be getting some even better headphones soon.
I'd rather see them include no headphones...
Anyway, I'm done with this crap. The only good consumer media-player company today seems to be Cowon, but they discontinued the X5, and it doesn't look like there will be a real replacement. I was considering replacing my X5 with a Q5, but 60gigs (and unknown space and HDD connector means I can't gaurentee I can stick a new 160gig drive in it) and Windows CE5 on a slow processor means, meh.
So now, I'm going to get a Pacemaker (pacemaker.net) for music, and a Cowon A3 for video.
Blah blah blah, I really hate the consumer DAP market.
*guarantee
@ greg: thanks for backing me up. A comment system is specifically made so that people may post their opinions on a specific topic.
@ dj-alpo: I don't like britney spears, thank you. I'm just talking about how every person that I know with an ipod (myself included) HATES the original ear buds that shipped with their device. My mom, my aunt, myself, a big handful of my friends all say that they're too big. They hurt my ears. I purchased a set of headphones on ebay that came in a pack that included a holster for a nano by Rivet. Interchangeable ear canal covers, cloth braided surround for the wires and gold plated plugs. The original product cost 40 bucks directly from Rivet. What I'm saying is that if apple would team up with a company like that, drop the other things in the package so that it was just the headphones from that company, and bought in bulk, it might make the price of their products 5 bucks more.
Oh, and about "real" software.. my treo runs "real" software and gets the job done.. all with a user replaceable battery (nice to pull the extra outta my dock and pop it in the back.. I've never been without juice), a memory card that I can pull outta my phone and pop in my camera, the ability to have whatever ringtones I want (got 200 right now on there), proper bluetooth, wallpapers that actually SHOW UP on the main screen, an actual proper PHYSICAL keyboard, a speaker that's worth a damn... and so much more. My apple fan-boy friend has an iphone, we sat down so that I could take my turn goofing with it one night and after I compared what I can do with my old beaten up treo all he had to say was "shuddup" in shame. iphone: shoddy speaker, shoddy customization, shoddy camera (c'mon.. for a device that was 600 friggin bucks it doesn't have a flash?! or autofocus?!), no mms (wtf?!), doesn't sync with .mac mail properly, no expandable storage, no user replaceable battery.... so when you're programming php and your battery dies, you've run out of space that you can't expand, and there's actual noise in the background so you can no longer listen to your ABBA tracks because this do-it-all device has a crappy mono speaker, just remember that I'm sitting somewhere with a loud-ass speaker, second memory card in hand, with a full battery, running "real" software and being bluetooth tethered to my laptop in a car on the internet.. not stuck in a cingular contract with no signal.
ya, I'm pretty sure I won't be tethered to cingular on my ipod.. uhhh but thanks bud. I wasn't talking about the iphone.
as for running out of memory, I don't think txt files will be filling up even the 8gb, so my php development will do just fine, which unfortunately, your treo can't do, it can't run apache. My girlfriend has a TX, I like it, but wouldn't keep it in my pocket. so for you I'm sure a treo is great, for me, 8gb is more than enough, and it does things my dell pocketpc just plain can't.
I still call you a troll for coming in and calling the thing crap because it doesn't have bluetooth.
would I like bt? sure, but it doesn't mean the thing is junk because it doesn't have what you want it to. different strokes for different folks. me, I'll prob get one after xmas on v2.
don't like it, don't buy it, there's no need to tell everyone what a piece of rubbish it is.
Unlike the razor the iPod touch does have quite a few new features, and an amazing interface.
@trev: I wasn't actually comparing the touch's features to a razr.... I was just comparing the lack of features yet abundant popularity for the same reasons.. thin and overpriced.
@alpo: if you didn't want me to compare features between my much cheaper and far more capable phone.. then why did you say: "it'll run apache just like the iphone" "it does what no pocketpc or palm or treo can do, and that is it runs REAL software, not watered down ce crap"? you're the one that brought up the iphone, you're the one that brought up the treo (out of nowhere) so YOU'RE the one that started on that topic... BUD.
and as for "don't like it, don't buy it, there's no need to tell everyone what a piece of rubbish it is" that's called being hypocritical... you're trashing my treo because YOU feel the need to "tell everyone what a piece of rubbish it is"... so maybe you should take a healthy dose of your own advice, bud.
my point was not that the razor has less features, but it brought nothing new to it's segment. The iPod touch brings a new interface and cool feature to the MP3 player market. That is why I'm buying it--not cuz it's thin. (frankly I think it has a problem, it should be eating more)
You know I don't get why the "proper physical keyboard" thing is a good thing. I had a pocket pc with a physical keyboard, as well as a bunch of my friends' phones with physical keyboards. I hated each one of them. I love the touch keyboard, it doesn't clutter up the phone and I can type quicker then I can type on my computer's keyboard...A LOT quicker. I think the touch keyboard is the best thing in the iPhone and new iPod.
Prokandas comments are completely right, and I'm an apple 'fanboy'. Apple always bring out great concepts, but don't seem to be able to make a fully finished product. An iphone, then no MMS, an ipod touch, perfect for all your music AND a screen decent for video, but only 16GB max. A safari browser, but no email application.. A calendar 'without' events. No replaceable battery, because everything has to be THIN! Design over functionality isn't big or clever. The ipods should be hugely impressive, but the mountain of little niggles that could easily have been avoided are disappointing. This is the Jobsian 'like it or lump it' arrogant attitude to his 'customers'.
And this constant idiotic "If you don't like it, don't complaint or criticise". It sounds like some fascistic old mother saying "If you got nothing good to say..." Ipods are great, just "not insanely great' and I don't think overlooking all the faults helps anyone, not even Steve Jobs.
I have been waiting to see the insides of this beauty. I am trying to get one tomorrow
PT Barnum would be proud.
I got my girlfriend Amy an I-pod
Steve Bonacorsi
Hey I just got a 8 gig touch today...because I guess everywhere is sold out of 16 gigs and Im impatient. Anyways Ive been having a few problems with my touch. I first noticed that my photos that I wanted to sync were very picky in what it let me put on my touch. Next I downloaded a season of Jackass (On my computer) and threw it on the touch to reminisce the good ol days. which watching them they would stop about 7 mins into the video. I skipped past the 7 min mark and the episode worked fine. It also happened on a copy of Boondocks I encoded myself. Im not sure if I had the shuffle settings wrong but my touch sure liked Kayne West's song Barry Bonds a lot (The song sucks and I dont know why I put it on my iPod) If my touch were to crash it would just bring up that song. That happened about 4 times. Although Im pretty sure this is a 1st gen problem I thought it would be appropriate to put up some where. Dont get me wrong the touch has great wifi browsing (It picked up about 20 different signals around my neighborhood) that nothing else would pick up at the same range. Also if it looses connection it automatically connects you to a connection with no passkey to keep things going on smooth. The iTunes store was great. I was looking for lots of random stuff and it all showed up in the suggestions and with about 20 underground hip hop artists I didnt have to type in the full name. Oh yeah, one more thing. When I would be typing information sometimes the backspace key would lock up and erase my whole conversation and then it would continue with what I was typing. Dont get me wrong the touch is great but these are some annoying things that have happened to me so far but Im sure they will get fixed. Anyone else having any problems like me? Sorry for the review like comment but I wanted to address this somewhere.
Dear lord, son... Take a breath or use a return key every once in a while.
I had it all typed up on my touch but that erase thing happened so I said fuck it and just wrote it again.
iCon(game)
The Wifi and possible Bluetooth chips are probably beneath the shield on the small circuitboard next to the antenna, the one that they never photographed in detail. If they were to lift the shield and take some photographs we could start to find out if indeed there are any Bluetooth hardware inside the Touch.
Apple has been starting to brand chips with their logo. It doesn't mean that they developed them. Just that they convinced the manufacturer to license the chips only to them and as such they have the rights to brand it which keeps the purpose of the chips hidden. so some of those chips that are labeled Apple could be firmware or could be radios.
Re Branding: not likely in the base of the WiFi and support chips, Any teardown should start by looking the same two chips that provide WiFi/BT as in the iPhone -- The Marvel 8686 and the CSR 41B14 Bluecore4 ROM.
There is a possibility that apple will use the CSR UniFi all-in-one chipset: http://www.csr.com/products/bcrange.htm which has better BT and WiFi co-existance management. (see here http://www.csr.com/products/bcrange.htm). Time will tell.
Tanais Fox -- http://www.tanais.wordpress.com
An ARM processor? Interesting... Wonder if the iPod Touch would support a GBA emulator...
Or an Acorn RISC PC emulator, which used an ARM chip long ago!
It wouldn't be able to execute the ARM code on the GBA. The whole thing would have to be emulated including the GBA's ARM processor just like on a PC.
@ King T-
They are out now? I thought they didn't ship/launch until Sept. 28?
@Jouten,
Yeah they are out. Released early. Was at the Apple Store in Tysons Corner VA and they had them out for display and purchase. I had read that you needed to ask one of the employees to get it from behind the counter to get one. I approached one, asked and he was like "uh yeah, they are in stock, right over there. Go check em out."
I was in heaven.
I am still wandering why bluetooth would be a good thing on the touch? If someone could tell me that would be great!
Why Bluetooth? The two main applications would be wireless synching with iTunes, and for use with wireless headphones.
Bluetooth to allow A2DP wireless headphones would kick ass! It is very (overly so) hard to find an MP3 player that supports this (excluding PalmOS and PocketPC devices, of course).
Bluetooth iTunes sync would be nice.
Bluetooth pairing to a phone would also be cool; being able to use a phone as an internet gateway when out of WiFi range and such (oh wait- that is what the iPhone is for...)
Isn't it possible that the Touch doesn't have bluetooth? From what I've heard, the OS on the Touch is relatively similar to that of the iPhone's. Similar enough that instead of taking out the bluetooth profile, apple simply left it on there because they knew it wasn't going to be used since it doesn't have the chip for it? Perhaps something in the OS requires the bluetooth firmware to operate correctly, even if bluetooth isn't really used? I'm just throwing that out there.
Yes it's highly possible the Touch does not have blue Tooth. Just so many people hoping to prove that Jobs is being a sly genious again and is going to announce BT patch next month. Like the fanatasy that this silly piece of rubbish is the best iPod ever. Well I guess it will encourage a lot of customers to wash their hands.. though I doubt it.
interesting stuff
Interesting enough that Marvell chipset was clearly seen in the iPhone but hidden in the iPod touch. I think this should tell you that Apple has some tricks up it's sleeves.
I think apple might disable bluetooth until they release stereo bluetooth headset. And this is possible reason why iPhone doesn't have A2DP support at the moment.
Ok,
Here is the answer to the bluetooth mystery: Bluetooth will be unlocked with the release of Leopard. 10.4 does not support the Bluetooth A2DP profile. 10.5 will. Take note that I said this first.
You and the rest of the internet *eyeroll*
Ok, so the iPhone and iTouch both sound terrible, as does bluetooth audio...Why are people fawning over these? If you want to listen to music, save some money and get a Classic (or Cowon, or Creative Zen, or even a Zune), and some nice headphones. Nice headphones don't cost too much, and there is so much to choose from! If you don't want to carry around an amp, you can get some smaller over-the-ear headphones from AKG, or Sennheiser, or you could get some In Ear Monitors from Shure, ETY, Ultimate Ears, Sennheiser, and others.
I guess I can understand this iPod craze, I think it boils down to fanboys, marketing, and design...
No crap. I really wish people would stop detracting so much from this thing because a $200 pair of headphones/earbuds/IEMs/whatever you kids want don't come included in the box. I'm glad to finally see someone use some logic when it comes to this!
so You say that cirrus chip in Classis sounds better than wolfson chip in Touch? yeah, right... Touch has good hardware, it simply can't sounds bad, most of these brands cowon, creative, iriver use same of very similar chips. although i agree that ipod earbuds are worhthless, but mostly in-box earbuds are worthless, cowon box earbuds are tragedy.
The iPod/iPhone craze is because iTunes as it makes it easy for the masses to use- most people don't want to have to download, organize/keep track of their MP3s and then (heaven forbid!) drag-and-drop their songs to their MP3 player (in MSD mode); Microsoft Windows Media player is getting there, but it has a while to go (The 'Sync' still drives me nuts!).
The 2nd thing (in my opinion) is the abundance of (very overpriced) accessories out for the iPod; I can dock it a Toshiba clock radio and use my iPod in an alarm clock; then I drop the unit in my Ice>Link and listen it through my stock radio in my car on the way to work; at the office I use a set a dock with powered speakers (or set to disk mode and play through my PC); finally I can take it to the gym. For the later, it would be preferable to have the iPod in my pocket and have a bluetooth headset with A2DP and AVRCP (and no wires to get caught in the machines).
I have tried a few different players (Zen Nomad, Karma, Zen Nano, Sansa, etc) and the iPod lets be lazy; Podcasts are automatically downloaed and all I have to do is point iTunes at any new MP3s and it 'absorbs' them...
I'm not saying the chip. For instance, the iPod 5.5g line-out sounds better than the 6g line out, but the 6G's headphone out sounds better than the 5.5g's headphone out.
The headphone out has to amplify the signal, and the iTouch/iPhone amplifys badly.
the iptouch's wifi chip is a unified wireless solution with BT, though is disabled. the next gen US iphone will have the same chip.
While I'm sure we all appreciate your optimism and you could probably be right, but unless you can see something/know something that the rest of us can't/don't, try not to offer up speculation as cold hard fact because unnecessary confusion can ensue.
A little evidence could go a long way. At the moment, your statement is completely unfounded.
This isn't an attack, you just worded it badly. And personally, I hope you and others above you who said the same thing are right.