Apple iPod touch (3rd Generation) [Review]

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Apple iPod touch (3rd Generation) [Review]

Prasad Naik, Oct 05, 2009 1800 hrs IST

The ultimate portable media player

Wonderful design, unmatched UI, large 3.5" multi-touch display, upgraded processing power & Voice Control feature, excellent web browser, good audio/video quality, large library of apps and games

Lacks support for popular video formats necessitating conversion, paid software updates add to the cost of ownership

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Design & Construction

The third generation iPod touch is virtually identical to the second generation model. The only differences that eagle-eyed observers might notice is in the text at the bottom of the rear side where you now have a smaller sign indicating the capacity and fewer lines of text below.

However, there is a minor change in the bundle. The new 32 GB and 64 GB models come with the same pair of earphones that comes with the iPhone; with the three control buttons and a built-in microphone. The buttons help control the volume and music playback, and the microphone is for the Voice Control feature and the voice recorder. The former feature is not available in the 8 GB model however, but it does have the voice recorder application (post iPhone OS 3.0 update). The headset is not available with the iPod, so unless you buy the new headset separately you won't be able to use the voice recorder in the 8 GB model, as the iPod touch does not have a built-in mic.

The presence of the controls and mic on the earphones has made them suddenly an important accessory. Normally you wouldn't even need to take them out of the box, as the audio quality offered by them is not worth the effort. But now you need to keep them around if you intend to use the Voice Over or voice recording feature or just control the player without taking it out of the pocket. This also means if you use any other earphones/headphones with the touch, you lose these functions. A better solution would have been to integrate the mic in the touch itself like the iPhone. The controls could have also been incorporated on the device itself like the way the Cowon S9 does. But again, when was the last time we saw Apple add buttons on its devices?

Build quality-wise, the touch is pretty solid. However, the shiny rear side is a major fingerprint magnet, just like the display, and more importantly also attracts a lot of scratches. I preferred to keep the device upside down as the display is scratch resistant. Also, I must mention that due to the extremely thin dimensions of the touch, it does not feel as nice to hold in the hand and at times feels a bit too wide to be held comfortably. The iPhone 3G on the other hand feels great in your hand.

Luckily on the iPod touch, Apple hasn't resorted to any shenanigans such as rearranging the ports at the bottom, as on the iPod nano. This means all the accessories that worked with the previous touch will work with this version as well.

Apple is really taking the environmental friendliness of its product to heart, which is why the new iPod touch has an arsenic-free display glass, mercury-free LED backlit display, is BFR-free, PVC-free and is made of recyclable stainless steel enclosure. The packaging is also minimalistic for this reason and thus reduces unnecessary items such as software CD and huge paper manuals and uses a very simple and slim plastic case.

One last thing I would like to mention in this section is the presence of hidden hardware that Apple hasn't yet disclosed. We only came to know about this is because of a recent teardown conducted by the guys at iFixit of the new touch. It so happens that the Wi-Fi chip inside the touch is capable of 802.11n and not just 802.11b/g. Also, more importantly, there is an FM receiver and an FM transmitter built-in!

Here is what iFixit has to say on this:

"According to Broadcom, the BCM4329 supports 802.11n! This is a big deal, as even the iPhone 3GS doesn't support 802.11n. The iPhone 3GS has a BCM4325 wireless chip, which only supports 802.11 a/b/g. We don't know yet if 802.11n will be supported in software, but at least the hardware's there."

"There's also Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a FM receiver and transmitter packed into this chip. If they built in the antennas, and if Apple adds software support, you could theoretically stream music to your car stereo without any external hardware. But that's a lot of ifs."

Image courtesy iFixit

We can understand why the 802.11n is not yet activated. The hardware may not be powerful enough in the touch to handle the higher bandwidth and the resultant data transfer with 802.11n. But then why put an 802.11n chip in the first place?

More annoying is the presence of an FM radio and importantly an FM transmitter and not being able to use it due to a lack of required software support. This is like the Bluetooth scenario all over again. They secretly slip in the hardware and then launch a firmware upgrade later which unlocks features. The firmware upgrades, as usual for the touch, are also paid and with the kind of features that are being unlocked users are tempted to buy the firmware when actually they should be getting it for free, as the hardware was already there when they bought the touch. Apple surely knows how to milk its customers.

Image courtesy iFixit

Another thing noted by the people over at iFixit is a small space allocated for a camera which could not be added in this year but will definitely be there in the next update.

Click to see the complete teardown of the third generation iPod touch on iFixit.