Techtree News Staff, Sep 14, 2009 1502 hrs IST
Packs in camera space, wireless chip
Recently, Apple unveiled the third generation of iPod Touch that is faster and comes with more storage. As against the expectations of many, the new iPod Touch came sans camera. Like always, iFixit guys laid their hands on the third generation iPod Touch and dismantled it to check the new internals.
Lately, talks about Apple's camera module failure ruled the web and then, the third generation iPod Touch arrived without a camera. The hardware failure information was really true since the iFixit teardown of new iPod Touch revealed that space for a camera module in it.
The teardown clearly shows the space for camera module which could've been there but isn't there. That space (6mm x 6mm x 3mm) is as much as the camera module used in the fifth generation iPod Nano. Probably, Apple was looking to offer just video recording support in iPod Touch but the plan did not work out.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in an interview with The New York Times, said that the company focuses on promoting the hardware as gaming machine and intends to keep the price under $200.
Along with that, iFixit folks also discovered that there is a Broadcom BCM4329 chip in the third generation iPod Touch. This chip supports the wireless standard 802.11n but not out of the box. Coincidently, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) today approved Wireless 802.11n standard specifications that will significantly improve the data throughput.
However, Apple hasn't mentioned, in the specifications of new iPod Touch, that it supports 802.11n wireless standard. Just like Apple unlocked the use of Bluetooth with iPhone OS 3.0 update, the next major iPhone OS update might enable 802.11n specification usage.
This is bound to happen, but what about the missing camera module?
Well, the third generation iPod Touch is yet another marvel but appears rushed up.
