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New iPod Touch Has an 802.11n Chip

Posted by kdawson on from the more-and-more-like-a-little-tablet dept.

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."

6 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Silly by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is silly. There would be so many other bottlenecks on a mobile device of this nature that the speed of the connectivity isn't an issue. I bet the iPod can't even consume (let alone serve) data at 802.11g speeds.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Silly by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's vastly easier to shovel bytes than to do something intelligent with them. Serving the files to another device is well within the capabilities of the iPhone. I have a DT Research DT168 with a 500 MHz Geode chip, and hooking up a 1TB MyBook to it via USB2 gives me real-world transfer rates of about 7MB/sec to assorted clients (all of which are more than powerful enough to receive the data much faster) over good old 100Mbps ethernet. I'm positive the iPhone or iPod Touch is capable of saturating 802.11g if its storage can handle it; and why not?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      802.11n is 2x the range. 91m vs 45m.

    3. Re:Silly by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The iPod touch has a pretty hefty processor at 600 mhz, and would probably have no trouble filling in the bandwidth. I've never actually tested it, but I've heard a 486 serving static pages can manage to fill a T1 line.

      The biggest problem I can see with it is battery life. How much fun is it if you have to stop your movie in the middle because the iPod ran out of battery? You would probably want to keep it charging, although with every computer these days having a USB port, that might not be too much of an issue......as long as your computer is close enough to your TV.

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      Qxe4
  2. Wait a Minute Here... by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    along with space-time block encoding, a feature coming soon to Wi-Fi access points with two or more radios

    So is this something that just came out in the final standard yesterday that all of the pre-standard devices don't implement properly, if at all?

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  3. Not surprising by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is not surprising, and now that it's confirmed, we can expect Apple to release an 802.11n enabler for iPod touch in the future and charge $.9.95 for it. They're so predictable these days...

    What's more interesting than this is that the new iPod touch, while almost identicial to the old one aside from a faster processor and some other things, is almost the exact same inside except for one small change: a space big enough to fit the same camera found on the iPod nano (in previous generations there was an antenna cable socket, which has been moved and, in its absence is now just plastic spacer).

    There were rumors of an iPod touch camera before it came out, even rumors that pinpointed the camera to this exact location in the device, and there was also a recent rumor that they pulled it due to some problems at the last minute. Looks like this confirms that, and I'm sure we can expect an updated iPod touch in the future with a camera. That, in my opinion, is far more interesting.

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    R.Mo