Hardware Analysis

As expected the announcements did bore me, but the teardown iFixit did of the iPod touch 3rd Generation however fascinates me, especially page 2 of their teardown:

iPod touch Broadcom chip via iFixit.com

There’s actually two fascinating things in this picture.

BCM4329 – 802.11n with Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR and FM (Tx and Rx)

The first notable thing is the use of a Broadcom BCM4329[pdf]. This is an upgrade from the BCM4325[pdf] in the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 2G or the Marvell 88W8686 in the iPhone 3G.

Feature wise, here’s how it breaks down:

First of all it supports 802.11n, while even the iPhone 3GS supports only 802.11g. It’s even capable of dual-band operation (2.4GHz and 5 GHz). Apple might enable this at some point in the future, though I suspect not until the iPhone 3GS either receives a silent upgrade to use this new chipset (unlikely but possible) or the iPhone is updated next summer.

This isn’t unprecedented for Apple. Thy shipped 802.11n capable Airport cards for a while before they offered the ability to unlock the feature. Considering iPod touch users pay for every major software release, and Apple charged to enable 802.11n on desktops and laptops, I’d expect the same treatment.

Secondly it supports both FM radio reception and transmission. Yes, it’s true that the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 2G have an FM receiver, and it likely could be enabled by software. However there is no software to enable it. Apple already supports FM radio on the iPod nano.

FM transmission could be useful for allowing iPods to stream to car stereo’s wirelessly, without the need for a car adapter like currently needed.

So why would Apple include this stuff but not enable it? My guess would be for two reasons. The first is to take advantage of economy of scale, that is buy tons of these chips rather than lesser amounts of several specific variations. Secondly it makes development for firmware upgrades easier (and cheaper) when you only have a few closely related chipsets to worry about. A bonus is that Apple could enable these features in the future (likely when the flagship iPhone supports them) making the products more sticky.

The Missing Camera

The missing camera is the second fascinating thing. To the left of the Broadcom chip is an interesting spot that’s just the right size for the video camera Apple is including in the iPod nano according to iFixit. This could corroborate reports of problems putting a camera on an iPod.

This also isn’t that unusual. Apple sometimes has vestigial hardware artifacts in their products. For example Apple in the past likely toyed with the idea of putting an iPod dock on the Mac mini.

Price Analysis

Considering these are primarily music devices though one can argue the iPod touch is more a gaming device than a music device. Here’s the cost per GB:

So what’s the moral of the story? If it’s primarily a music device, you get way more bang for your buck with an iPod classic (not to mention slightly better battery life for audio). If your really fussy about size, want a video camera, or have a limited budget the nano is your iPod. If you’ve got money, or want an iPod more for apps, the iPod touch is your device.

Of course buying something more expensive just to get a lower cost per GB is silly, but that doesn’t make it an interesting way of looking at the cost. Obviously hard drives are still have a lower cost per GB than flash memory making the cost of the classic much lower. I suspect this is why the line still exists and likely will for at least another year or two.

Photo from iFixit

The great thing about this device is that it’s generic. Any device that can be powered or charged via USB can be charged with this. It simply provides power over USB, nothing more. You use your regular USB sync/charging cables. iPhone, iPod, PDA, bluetooth headset, most cell phones, all can be charged this way. That’s much better than an accessory that only charges a certain device. The downside is you need to have the cable handy, which for me isn’t a big deal since the iPhone power adapter is USB based as well. Being able to charge all sorts of gadgets makes this a pretty handy thing to have.

The unit itself is dead simple. It’s a little smaller than an iPhone, and surprisingly light. Two ports, a USB Type A, and USB Mini-B on the top, and a status indicator and button on the front. To charge use the power adapter, which is sufficiently compact though could be better which interfaces with the USB Mini-B port. It takes about 3.5hrs to charge. To charge your device just use the USB cord you normally use and plug it into the USB Type A port. The power pack itself doesn’t come with a cable to charge. Press the indicator button to see how much of a charge is left. That’s about all there is to the device.

After not charging for a while, and watching a movie on the plane, my battery was getting pretty low. I decided to hook up the APC USB Mobile Power Pack and continue watching video. After about an hour or so (while watching more video), my battery was fully charged and the Power Pack still has about 75% of it’s charge remaining. Not bad at all. Rather than land with a drained battery as you typically do with gadgets, I had a full battery.

It’s not a bad device for a pretty reasonable price. Some airplanes have power outlets outside of first class, though may cost a little extra for those seats. In many cases they use EmPower® or a DC “cigarette lighter” port which require their respective adapters. This runs about the same cost as an adapter, and removes the requirement of being on a plane, in a seat that has a outlet handy. If you need to power a laptop, your going to need an outlet. For a mobile device, this is a much better solution.

Hopefully someone will hack together a fix, or Apple will realize this product is to crippled to be fun. If they didn’t disable features it would have been a PDA killer. Now it’s a tiny overpriced iPod with a big screen.

Engadget has the story as well. Comments are also interesting. It seems lots of people are very disappointed by this.

Gizmodo’s title is pretty accurate, because it illustrates the problem with this lineup. There’s no easy choice, just a lot of concessions for most people. I’m guessing a few things will change in the first half of ’08

• iPhone will become 3G – This will most likely happen at some point in the first half of the year. With more storage as well. Little else in the realm of features.
• iPhone price will drop more – Yes that’s right. The mobile business drops prices constantly. If they don’t drop on a routine basis it will be cannibalized overnight. Remember the Motorola RAZR started around $500, but is now normally around $299 and after rebates hits $50. To help with this, they may move to a more traditional rebate based purchasing system like most other cell phone manufacturers.
• iPod touch 8GB discontinued, 20GB or 30GB likely – The demise of the 8GB iPod touch could happen by the end of 2007 by quietly stop production and just make it “out of stock”. I’m guessing there will be a lack of consumer interest in that model. Again I see a rush to get these to market. 30GB seems to be the magic number that most want to see them reach. The question is can they do it price wise and soon. My guess is they want to keep the price below that of the iPhone, meaning they need to cram the extra storage in at a negligible price. It’s possible but highly unlikely a storage boost could happen just before the holidays (read: November and max 24GB) but somewhat unlikely. I’m guessing either: January or Springtime product line refresh. Not to much in terms of features, but Bluetooth is possible for wireless accessories and make it more consistent as a platform with the iPhone.
• Line consolidation – There’s quite a few products out there. Don’t be too shocked if the shuffle and nano merge into one device to simplify choice. This might wait until the 2nd half of 08 though.

I’ll expand on one thing: iPod touch Bluetooth. I think it’s highly likely that it will be added in (if it’s not there already and waiting for a software update to be activated). There are a few Bluetooth profiles that would be of interest to Apple to implement on the iPod touch:

• Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) – It’s missing in Mac OS X 10.4, but is included in upcoming 10.5. Think wireless headphones. That’s right. What would be important here is for Apple to cram a decent power scheme into a small package, but Bluetooth headsets do a decent job at a lower cost than Apple would ever offer so it’s possible. Another major use is to use other devices for audio out without a physical link such as a stereo.
• Video Distribution Profile (VDP) – Stream video to a device. Why would you want to do that? Well there are several possibilities. For example to hookup to a TV and watch a video without actually using cabling each time. Another use is so Apple can mark a small “trailer” portion of the video you purchase on iTunes and make it available for sharing. So you can effectively “share” (*cough* advertise *cough*) videos for them.
• Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) – You can hook it up to a TV/Stereo, but can you remotely control your iPod/iPhone? With AVRCP you can.
• Human Interface Device Profile (HID) – Think wireless keyboard, remotes, etc. Accessory manufacturers will dig it.
• Object Push Profile (OPP) – Think of this as a tie in to social networking. Share calendar events, address cards, etc.
• Basic Imaging Profile (BIP) – This would basically give the device the ability to share and sync photos. The most likely way you’d see it implemented is if Apple could line up a few camera manufacturers to support it, so you could download photos from your camera directly to your iPod. Then sync up with your computer when you get back.

The iPhone’s Bluetooth support thus far is lacking at best. However there is one more obscure Bluetooth profile that nobody really talks about that would rock to support:

Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP)
CTP defines how a cordless phone can be implemented over a Bluetooth wireless link. This profile can be used for either a dedicated cordless phone or a mobile phone that acts as a cordless phone when in proximity to a base station implementing the CTP. It is anticipated that mobile phones could use a Bluetooth CTP gateway connected to a landline when within the home, and the mobile phone network when out of range. CTP is central to the Bluetooth technology ’3-in-1 phone’ use case.

That’s right. Apple could come up with an phone adapter you put by your desk that would let you use your iPhone over your landline when your close to your desk, but when your away you’d use your wireless plan. Would be perfect for office use, or for people whose homes don’t have the greatest wireless reception.

Of course if they just had VoIP with someone like Skype, that wouldn’t be necessary since you could just use WiFi.

I’m still hoping they open up the device to developers. Especially since developers will get in regardless of their efforts to prevent it, might as well help make better software and a better experience for users.

It’s no secret that I’m interested in a replacement for my aging (4 year+) Sony Clie. It’s battery life is miserable, no WiFi, software is hard to find and buggy, and it doesn’t even compare to what’s out there now. Palm OS 4 was great for 2002, but doesn’t stand a chance in 2007. This might be what I’m looking for.

I don’t really care about the mp3 player (it’s not 2001 anymore), video could be cool, but I wouldn’t use it an awful lot either. I’d likely load a few things on there before going on vacation, but not much more than that. What I care about what’s under the hood, Mac OS X. And the hardware that runs it (awesome display, battery life, WiFi).

That said, before I’d take out the credit card, I want to see a few things:

• Hack-ability – I want to see that third party apps can be hacked to run on it. If I can get terminal going, and run ssh, nano, vim, or emacs, and pine I’ll be very happy.
• Mail – Someone already wrote an Apollo IM, an app for the iPhone based on libPurple (Pidgin/Gaim). If similar desire causes someone to write an email app, I’m golden. Webmail is survivable, client application is awesome.

If I see these things emerge in some form… I’ll be thrilled. That pretty much would make the sale. If I can add applications to it it will rock. If I’m limited to Apple’s offering, then I’d think twice, since I love the browser functionality, but want some power tools that a browser just can’t handle. It’s still a great device at a great price, but not living up to it’s potential as it is out of the box. Mac OS X is designed to be built on top of.

Also on the wants list, but wouldn’t hold me up:

• Offline Web Browsing – Google Gears would be most useful to have Google Reader on the go.
• Calendar – Could be either a basic iCal clone, or just Google Calendar with Google Gears. Either would rock.
• Address Book – Won’t take long for this to surface. Cell phone can handle it anyway. In the mean time a text file and terminal will do just fine. grep anyone?

They really should just open the platform up. Even if it’s “at your own risk” with a big warning every time you run something for the first time. Firefox on this thing would just rock. Would also be a step closer to Google Gears at that point (since it currently doesn’t support Safari even on the desktop, much less Apple’s new handheld product line).

Update [09/05/2007 @ 11:13 PM EST]: According to Ars Technica the iPod touch does have an address book and calendar! Come on third party apps!

Apple shipped 1,764,000 Macintosh® computers, representing 33 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous company record for quarterly Mac® shipments by over 150,000. The Company also sold 9,815,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 21 percent growth over the year-ago quarter.

Now who is saying the Mac is dead ?

I’ve released MozPod 0.2a1 as an interim release for Thunderbird 2.0 users who want to use mozPod and see some new features. I decided to not support mozPod 0.1 on Thunderbird 2.0 to keep things easier to manage.

This is an alpha release and likely has some bugs. I wanted to get it out for those who want to start testing. This would be an ideal time as people want to move to Thunderbird 2.0.

Here’s the changes that matter:

• Feature – Preliminary support for Lightning (if installed).
• Enhancement – Thunderbird 2.0 support.
• Enhancement – Some performance tweaks.
• Fix – Sync all available AB’s.
• Fix – Correctly handle notes that are more than one line.
• Fix – Skip over LDAP servers in Address Book without failing.
• Fix – Try to not hold lock on disks.

As usual, if you like it and want to encourage me to spend a little more time on it, feel free to do so. I do request some feedback. Let me know how it works for you.

I’ve got more extension goodness on the way. I’m planning to get to a real mozPod 0.2 release in the next few weeks. There may be a new extension on the way as well…

You download it from this link: mozPod 0.2

• Mac OS X 10.5 Announced (99% Chance) – That means I get to be a geek and preorder from the Apple store.
• More Video/Movies On iTunes (95% Chance) – This will be a big focus since Apple really wants this market.
• .Mac Overhaul (80% Chance) – Don’t really care about this one personally since I don’t use the service.
• iTV (72% Chance) – I doubt it’s ready. Either an announcement to expect summer delivery, and/or a more detailed preview. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they are ready.
• Incremental Bumps For Various Computers (70% Chance) – Rather lame and generic for a prediction, but I think at least 1 computer line (most likely iMac, and Mac Pro) will see a speed bump. For the Mac Pro it would make most sense, since Intel just announced Quad Core Xeons.
• Airport Extreme 802.11n Edition (68% Chance) – The rumors exist, and I think there is a decent shot. They likely need it for iTV.
• Phone (60% Chance) – If it is, it will be the fabled ‘iPhone’, though likely under another name. Only reason I give it 60% odds is because of all the press. Otherwise I’d put it down to 25%. I don’t think it’s extremely likely, but there is to much press to ignore. Then again, I’m still waiting for my Apple PDA (ended up being the iPod).
• New iPod (51% Chance) – I’m going out on a limb here. Despite pretty much no press, I think it’s time for the full screen iPod, with a true chipset designed for the purpose of video. I mentioned this before.
• Software Upgrade(50% Chance) – Very likely some software, either an iWorks upgrade, or iTunes version.

So there are my predictions. I do believe it will be a very busy MacWorld with more announcements than usual. I expect volume to be one of the more notable things. A lot of things on all fronts. Not so much of a war on Microsoft, but a big grab at the “digital lifestyle”.

Lets see how I pan out this year.

That’s right, we now have the ability to sync contacts and calendar to the iPod on Mac/Windows (Linux still on the todo list, though it’s mostly there). It will require Thunderbird 1.5 or later. No release date just yet.

How cool is that?