Hasta La Gadget!

Since I got my iPhone 3GS a couple of months ago, I’ve been wondering when I would really benefit from its highly anticipated faster 3G capability. I finally got the answer, and as it turns out, the wait is far from over.

AT&T announced Wednesday details of its rollout plans for High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 3G technology. This is the next generation of 3G, and it offers up to 7.2Mbps data connection speeds (as opposed to the 2Mbps and 3.6Mbps of the current 3G).

(This is, of course, just the theoretical number. Typical real-world downlink and uplink speeds will likely be less than that depending on location, device, and overall traffic on the local wireless network at a given time. Nonetheless, this promises a significant boost. HSPA 7.2 is part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) family of technologies, which include GSM, UMTS, and the Emerging LTE technology. HSPA 7.2 offers backward-compatibility, meaning it also works with existing 3G and 2G devices at the lower device-specific speed.)

According to the announcement, the new speed will be available by the end of the year. Unfortunately, it’s available only in six cities in the U.S., including Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Los Angeles; and Miami. This means the rest of the country, including the San Francisco Bay Area where I am, must continue to wait.

The iPhone 3GS is a HSPA 7.2-compatible smartphone from AT&T.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

It’s unclear how long the wait will be for the rest of the cities, but the company says it plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in 25 of the nation’s 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.

While this is rather sad news for me, for most people it won’t mean much, as chances are your phone is not compatible with the higher 3G speed. Currently, the iPhone 3GS is the only HSPA 7.2-ready smartphone I know that AT&T offers.

However, AT&T assures that it will offer more compatible devices with the rollout of HSPA 7.2. The company expects to have six HSPA 7.2-compatible smartphones in its device portfolio by the end of the year, as well as two new LaptopConnect cards.

The rollout of HSPA 7.2 is part of AT&T’s plan to invest some $18 billion this year, of which more than two-thirds is going toward broadband and wireless. Key projects of this investment include, in AT&T’s words:

…

Apple could have put the iPhone’s camera in the iPod Touch, but it would have been a very tight squeeze, according to a repair company that disassembles iPods and iPhones.

That’s because the iPod Touch measures 8.5 mm thick, and the iPhone’s camera measures 6 mm, leaving a mere 2.5 mm of wiggle room for the iPod Touch. By comparison, the iPhone measures 12.3 mm thick, leaving plenty of space for its auto-focus camera.

“Unlike the Nano, the iPod Touch could conceivably support an iPhone-sized camera, although it would certainly be an engineering challenge,” said Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixIt.

Apple on Wednesday released updates for its iPod family, including a new iPod Nano featuring a video camera and an iPod Touch with a performance boost. However, many questioned why the Nano gained a camera while the iPod Touch did not. Prior to the event, dozens of photos of third-party iPod Touch cases containing camera holes surfaced on the internet.

Michael Gartenberg, a tech strategist with Interpret, said Apple likely left the camera out of the iPod Touch to create “segmentation” of the products. This move would make consumers desire both an iPod Touch and an iPod Nano, he said.

However, iFixIt’s observations suggest that Apple may have left the camera out of the iPod Touch because it was technically too difficult to install. Prior to the event, a rumor report also said iPods with cameras might see a delay because of technical issues. This engineering challenge may have been the problem delaying a camera-equipped iPod Touch. That means an iPod Touch with a camera could be on the road map, and Apple’s engineers are probably devising a way to cram that camera inside.

Another question that arose from yesterday’s iPod event was why the iPod Nano can only capture video but not still images. iFixIt performed a teardown of the iPod Nano and discovered its low-resolution VGA camera is only 2.75 mm; the iPod Nano is 6.2 mm thick. The iPhone’s 6 mm camera, which must also account for a rubber mount, is thicker than the entire iPod Nano. In short, the low-resolution (640-by-480) VGA camera — with no focusing capability — would produce poor-quality still shots, which is likely why Apple opted to leave a still-shot function out.

See Also:

• Cameras in iPods. Game Over?
• Hands on With the Camera-Equipped iPod Nano
• Apple Rumors Abound: iPod Delay, Jobs Keynote, More
• Apple Unveils Flip-Killing iPod Nano, Revamped iTunes, No Beatles …

Photo: Mike Rohde/Flickr

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It’s hard not to love Quirky, the community of online inventors where ideas becomes concepts, and concepts become products. Last month, I covered the DigiDudes, tripods with attitude, and I’m happy to say that the ‘dudes are now a selling product–Quirky doesn’t manufacture products until it gets enough pre-sale commitments, and DigiDudes met that goal. On the downside, they cost $24.99 now, instead of the original $19.99.

Quirky next gave us the Scratch-n-Scroll–they’ve built a better mouse pad. It lets you write notes with your finger or an included stylus, for those times when you’re on the phone and need to jot something down quickly. Scratch-n-Scroll is already for sale for a low $14.99.

The Quirky machine keeps on rolling: Its community just created two 24-hour Apple products, a kickstand case for the new iPod Nano and a clip-on cord wrap for Apple power adapters. Both are currently up for pre-sale.

I got a brief chance to handle the Motorola Cliq Android phone—no pictures yet, unfortunately—and came away pleasantly surprised. The phone itself is about as tall as an iPhone, but it’s definitely thinner than most QWERTY sliders.

Compared to the G1 this thing is svelte, and the keyboard is aligned correctly with the screen so there’s no weird jarring going on when you’re typing. The addition of the D-Pad, like we noted in the liveblog, is going to be fantastic for gaming/emulation gaming, and works like a D-Pad when navigating the phone as well. Very useful.

The sliding mechanism feels solid and desirable, as in, I want to open and close the thing all day just to hear the sound. The version I saw was white, and the finish was classy without being ostentatious, and definitely not cheap feeling. There’s a heft to it, but it’s definitely not heavy.

No hands-on photos yet, so you’ll have to take another look at the press shots:

(Credit: Apple)

Amid the flurry of iTunes and iPod announcements yesterday, Apple quietly retired the 1GB iPod Shuffle. You remember it: that one that actually had buttons on it. Instead, the company is putting full focus on the teeny, tiny buttonless model, which is now available in both 2GB ($59) …

Originally posted at MP3 Insider