iPod Touch 3rd Gen: Where’s the Camera?

Another day, another teardown. Today we took apart the new 3rd Generation iPod touch!

Opening the iPod Touch 3rd generation teardown — Getting inside

Our analysis reveals a Broadcom BCM4329 chip, which 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.

This reminds us of last year when we broke the news that the 2nd Generation touch had Bluetooth support in hardware. Apple didn’t enable software support until 9 months later with iPhone OS 3.0.

The Broadcom chip also supports FM transmission. There’s 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.

Broadcom chip on the logic board of the iPod Touch 3rd generation — Broadcom chip on the logic board

We also analyzed the internal layout of the iPod, and it appears that Apple left room for a camera in the top of the device. There is a 6mm x 6mm x 3mm space between the Broadcom chip and the wireless antenna. There isn’t enough depth for an iPhone-style autofocus still camera, but just enough room for the camera that Apple used in the 5th Generation iPod nano. We did not find any headers on the board for a camera cable.