Last year, the Apple Peel 520 came along, a neat little kludge of a case that would turn your jailbroken iPod Touch into something a little more iPhone-ish thanks to a build in cell modem and SIM card slot. All told, the Peel 520 would allow you to make and receive calls and texts, while even giving a small boost to your Touch’s battery life.
The only problem? The Peel 520 was a bit bulky. Luckily, it seems like the makers of the original Peel did well enough with their product that they’re going ahead with a second-generation version, which is so noticeably sleeker that it could even be mistaken for a regular iPhone 4.
The improvements don’t end there, though. The Peel 520 couldn’t do data, but the new Peel gets GPRS. No one’s going to mistake EDGE speeds for the real iPhone’s 3G, but even so, it’s certainly nice to have in a pinch.
The next-gen Peel don’t have a price or release date yet, but give it a month or two and you’ll be able to find it through the usual Hong Kong importers soon enough.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
