New iPod Touch Has an 802.11n Chip

eggboard writes "iFixIt has discovered a Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n chip in the just-announced iPod touch (32 GB and 64 GB) models that uses single-stream 802.11n. Single-stream doesn't get the full power of N, but it boosts speed enough that — along with space-time block encoding, a feature coming soon to Wi-Fi access points with two or more radios — the iPod touch could be an effective networked media server, for streaming and transfer, possibly through the new iTunes Home Sharing feature."

Comments

iLinkIt

[the_other_chewey]

WTF is this link-less entry supposed to be?

Here's the story mentioned above:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPod-touch-3rd-Generation/1158/2

Not how Home Sharing works

[Anonymous Coward]

Home sharing is just a way of automatically keeping multiple iTunes libraries up to date with new purchases when they are all tied to the same iTunes store account. It's not any kind of actual sharing service, just a synchronization service.

Re:Not how Home Sharing works

[radmarshallb]

Yes it is. Home Sharing has an option to allow you to automatically synchronize new purchases, but it does much more than that. You can copy any song from your iTunes library to any other machine on your Home Sharing network. For instance, I just copied a single album (ripped from my own CDs, not an iTMS purchase) from my main library upstairs onto my laptop. If an iPod were enabled for Home Sharing, it would make sense that you could do the same thing. That is, wirelessly sync whatever songs, albums, or playlists you choose to your iPod Touch.

802.11N hardware OTHER than the chip?

[anethema]

What I'm more curious about is any of the hardware there for it. Multiple antennas for MIMO? Any 5GHz hardware? The biggest advantage to wireless-N IMO is it moves the wireless out of the stupidly crowded 2.4GHz ISM band. The 5GHz band is (at least for now) far less crowded and this unlicensed band has quite a few more channels to spread the devices out a bit more spectrum wise.

The chip is one thing but without any other supporting hardware, it doesn't make much difference. The chip could have been chosen for better power characteristics or a few other reasons. Time will tell if apple enables any N style features but I am not holding my breath.

Re:Server?

[ZackSchil]

iPods output to televisions.

Re:All this means

[itsdapead]

just as they won't activate the bluetooth chip inside older Ipod Touches.

Er, they did...

If you pay Apple 10 bucks for the 3.0 OS upgrade, that unused bluetooth chip in the second-gen iPod Touch will spring into action...

Re:Server?

[Winckle]

Try a better search term?

Here's a third party example http://www.bestofferbuy.com/AVout-TV-IDChip-Cable-for-iPod-Nano-3ClassicTouchiPhone-1-p-9946.html?currency=GBP&utm_source=gbase&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=gbase

And apple's official KB article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1454

Re:Server?

[RedK]

HDMI is only one way to connect to a TV. How bout you try to get informed before spouting nonsense : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1454.

Re:Why didn't they tell us?

[icebike]

Maybe because this chip really does not support N?

Just because it is from that family of chips doesn't mean it has N.

Look at the designator on the end of the chipset full designation: BCM4329FKUBG That BG at the end may be telling.

I'm sure when Apple calls, Broadcom pays attention, and will burn custom chip sets, omitting any feature Apple does not want.

the full BCM4329FKUBG designation does not appear in Broadcom's catalog. Its a custom chip.

Besides, N requires special antennas. They were not found.