Report: Fourth-Gen iPod Touch To Get 3G Option

John Brownlee ()

Report: Fourth-Gen iPod Touch To Get 3G Option

Here’s a rumor that has my heart leaping in my chest: later today, Apple intends to offer the option of 3G with their fourth-gen iPod Touches.

According to the rumor, the new iPod Touches would have the option of 3G, similar to the iPad. For users willing to pay a hundred dollars more for their Touch, it would come with a built-in tray for a 3G micro-SIM.

I can’t tell you how onboard with this rumor I am. While I’ve debated whether or not a retina display and FaceTime would be enough to get me to upgrade my third-gen iPod Touch, the addition of 3G to the fourth-gen would be enough for me to dump my iPhone for good. Who needs it when you’ve got 3G, a multitasking operating system like iOS 4 and a SkypeOut account?

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We’re only four hours away from knowing the truth. Right now, I’d say that I think 3G is on the iPod Touch roadmap eventually, but perhaps not today. I think a lot will rest on whether or not the next iPod Touch gains any thickness. It looks like Apple already intends on cramming two cameras into the iPod Touch, which is already a miraculous spatial trick: getting a 3G radio in there without increasing the device footprint would be a design miracle.

9 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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  • eric

    For that to truly work, won’t you also need a microphone and speaker in the device so you don’t need a headset? Why not just sell an iPhone without the voice connection?

  • Alex

    Well, i have to admit, i do not see the difference between an iPod Touch (with iPhone technology like retina, gyroscope and so on) with 3G enabled and an iPhone?

    Isnt that basically an iPhone? Ok, maybe the proximity sensor, but in the end the difference would be marginal, wouldnt they?

    please illuminate me on this one since i really think hard since i heared those rumors for the first time.

    In the long run it seems clear that apple is again changing the whole industry: with face time even moving away from telephone numbers will make the carriers even less important, because you can do a call on 3G, wifi, your home network and so on. Thats the major leap with facetime

    but for the time now, i dont understand the difference between new iPod touch with 3G and an iPhone? and the benefit of an iPod Touch 3G over an iPhone?

    thanks

  • Super Mushroom

    Hmm, interesting. We will see what happens later in today.

  • http://bust3r.com Buster Heine

    if it’s got the same camera as the iPhone 4, then I see no point in keeping my iPhone 4 anymore. I’m praying this happens

  • Ian

    Eric and Alex, what the author refers to as 3G he means UMTS or a data connection. In this case basically a cell phone data connection without voice.

    From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System

    “The name UMTS, introduced by ETSI, is usually used in Europe. Outside of Europe, the system is also known by other names such as FOMA[1] or W-CDMA. In marketing, it is often referred to as 3G or 3G+.”

    Ian

  • Georgehill

    thats not true i got 1 it has not got 3g

  • Georgehill

    thats not true i got 1 it has not got 3g

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOLEDM64ACUGPEZUBYPVDRG24A larry r

    guess not, maybe in the 5th generation

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOLEDM64ACUGPEZUBYPVDRG24A larry r

    guess not, maybe in the 5th generation