We’d heard rumors that the iPhone 3GS would be getting fast 802.11n Wi-Fi to go along with that S for Speed, but that never panned out — except for the new third generation iPod touch.

iFixit has been doing their prerequisite tear-down of the brand new device, and MacRumors says:

One of the more intriguing differences uncovered so far is the inclusion of a Broadcom BCM4329 combination Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip, which supports the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard in addition to 802.11a/b/g standards. The iPhone 3GS and the second-generation iPod touch utilize a different BCM4325 chip, which supports only the 802.11a/b/g standards. While Apple has apparently not activated 802.11n capability in the iPod touch and it is unknown whether it will choose to do so in the future, the new iPod touch hardware does appear to be capable of supporting the standard.

Speaking of rumored-but-not-delivered:

iFixit has also revealed that there is a small empty space at the top of the device (approximately 6 mm x 6 mm x 3 mm) where an iPod nano-style camera could fit. The iPod touch does not appear to be thick enough to adequately house an autofocus camera as found in the iPhone 3GS.

Would we have wanted an iPod touch with VGA video like the nano, but no 3mp stills like the iPhone 3GS?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Third Gen iPod touch Chip Supports 802.11n Wi-Fi, Has Space for nano-style Camera

Palm rejected NaNplayer from their App Catalog. That’s the first time that’s happened for their new webOS platform, but it’s something those who follow the iTunes App Store have seen happen with much more frequency.

Now, to be fair, the iTunes App Store currently sports 75,000 apps, and according to Apple’s response to the FCC, handles 8,500 submissions a week. We’re not sure the App Catalog has cracked 100 yet, so the comparison is apples to orchards at this point. We’d expect Apple to have flagged 1000x the apps Palm had. What makes for a clean break in the two case models, however, is how Palm handled the situation.

Chuq Von Rospach, developer community manager at Palm, jumped on the PreCentral.net forums and… communicated. Quickly, cleanly, and with an admirable degree of transparency.

Now, on the iPhone side we’ve seen Senior Marketing VP Phil Schiller fire off an email or two to high-profile blogs addressing their concerns about the App Store, and the aforementioned FCC response, but an actual, engaged individual whose sole focus is to work with the developer community, provide support, assuage concerns, and be a pseudo-public symbol of this intent to do better? And who says Palm is okay — nay, happy — for the app to continue life as homebrew (their version of jailbreak)

Can we have one?

Chuq, like Palm CEO Jon Rubinstien (slated to be the first guest on the new Engadget Show) and many Palm engineers and PR folks, used to work for Apple. Perhaps Palm is giving them a break from Apple’s culture of secrecy and they’re taking a liking too it. Perhaps Apple can give some current employees a break from that secrecy as well.

Right now disenchanted iPhone users are trying out Palm, Android, and even Nokia devices and not finding them up to Apple’s usability and polish snuff, but that won’t last long. Apple needs to get their App Store community perception problems fixed as fast or faster even. Better still, get developer satisfaction levels up to customer satisfaction levels.

Sure these aren’t on the general consumer radar at all. Indeed, the amount of people given Apple’s 50 million install base is almost statistically irrelevant. But as we’ve said before, these are the people who tend to influence others, and while the actual App Store problems are likely still going to take a while to crack, the perception problem is one far more easily — if uncomfortably for Apple — handled.

And it likely doesn’t even need an open letter from Steve Jobs to do it.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Dear Apple: Can the iPhone App Store Have a Community Developer Manager Too?

Apple’s Mobile Me News has posted a link to a new support article that details several improvements made to the online service following iPhone 3.1, Snow Leopard, and Windows Control Panel 5.1. Some of these are larger and already known, some smaller but still nice-to-haves:

• Find My iPhone now has remote passcode lock, send sound at full volume regardless of ringer, and a warning that setting “fetch data” to manual stops Find My iPhone from working.
• Calendar sync is automatic for subscribed calendars now.
• MobileMe bookmarks can now be merged with local bookmarks during MobileMe setup.

For more, specifically the Snow Leopard and Windows Control Panel 1.5 updates, check out the full support article.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Posts MobileMe Improvements for iPhone 3.1, Snow Leopard, and Windows Control Panel

Apple is finally using the PC word (no not that one) when referring to the iPod touch. Turns out even they think it, and the iPhone, are great pocket computer.

We’ve discussed before how, depending on needs, some folks here (and everywhere) are leaving their laptops and netbooks at home some days and getting by just fine triaging emails, reading docs, searching the webs, and using whatever percentage of those 75,000 apps are useful on-the-go tools.

Apple, for all their talk of gaming, isn’t ignoring that segment either anymore. Right up on Apple.com, they’re promoting the pocket computing process of their mobile platform.

Of course, things won’t get really interesting until we get built-in Bluetooth keyboard support, right Apple?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Positioning iPhone and iPod touch… as Pocket Computers

As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was taking the stage for a private company meeting at Seattle’s Safeco Field, he saw an employee about to snap his picture with… an iPhone. So, Ballmer decided to snap instead. TechFlash (via Engadget) reports he grabbed the iPhone from the hapless employee, began making “funny comments”, put the iPhone on the floor and pretended to stamp on it, and then continued on, only to remind the employee he hadn’t forgotten about him later.

Maybe Ballmer should just forbid iPhones at Microsoft the way Bill Gates forbids them at home? Or, you know, get Windows Mobile back in order and make a phone so good no one at Microsoft would want to use anything else?

Of course, if it had been an Apple event, and Steve Jobs had caught one of his employees rocking an Windows Mobile device, no doubt Jobs eyes would have glowed and Omega Beams would have shot out and fried the poor soul on the spot.

(Yeah, we know Apple Store employees all use Windows CE devices to process credit card transactions, shhhh!).

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

CEOh-Snap! Ballmer Publicly Ridicules Microsoft Employee for Using iPhone

It’s no secret that the Apple App Store is just flooded with games and entertainment titles – 21,178 to be exact.

As impressive as that number may sound, however, there is an old saying that says quality over quantity. Now don’t get us wrong, there are very impressive games that have hit the App Store but we think developers are just beginning to scratch the surface of the power of Apple devices. When the App Store was first introduced many developers just rushed to put apps together in a effort to simply cash in with some subpar apps. As time goes on we are seeing more and more impressively polished games arrive in the store.

Games such as EA’s Madden 2010, Assassins Creed 2 from Ubisoft (available November 11th), and a FPS called Nova from Gameloft are just a taste of what’s to come.

So we ask the big question to you, does Apple raise a serious threat to the likes of Sony and Nintendo? What are you using these days to get your game on?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP: Handheld Gaming Wars Have Only Just Begun