Turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone. (Well, sort of)

The FreedomPop Rocket is a $99 4G hotspot sleeve for the iPod Touch (3^rd & 4^th generation). It comes with free data and uses the Clearwire wireless network. You have to check to see if 4G coverage is available in the area if you’re thinking of buying a FreedomPop Rocket Sleeve. In one of their commercials I watched, you see people streaming video, downloading photos, making video calls – while the announcing saying: “free- free- free”. Yes, 500MB is free, but after you use that, Freedom Pop sells you more at about $10 per GB. It’s an okay price, but it’s not free. On the plus side, the Rocket Sleeve allows up to eight devices to connect to the 4G sleeve. Of course that means your free 500MBs of data would be used up really, really fast. Like Dropbox, you can earn bonuses each time you get someone to sign up. "The company gives you an extra 10 MB for each friend you get to use the service, but only up to a total of up to 1 GB of free data. You can also earn free data by signing up for various ad offers. Or you can just buy more data with one of many paid plans. They range from $17.99 per month for 2GB of data up to $59.99 for 10GB, with plenty of stops in between. There’s no contract, so you can stop anytime. Set up is really easy. Once you click your iPod Touch into the Freedom Sleeve Rocket, you can make calls via Skype, or VoIP services like Line2. If you get a Google Voice phone number, you can receive calls via an app on your iPod Touch. Although Clearwire isn’t everywhere, it is available in NYC. I found my Rocket Sleeve worked fine outdoors and near windows indoors, but it’s not nearly as good as my Verizon wireless service. If you own an iPod Touch 3^rd or 4^th Generation and want to add phone service and the ability to get on the web away from WiFi, this could be a good choice for you. It gives a faux smart phone for occasional use, without a contract or a large monthly bill. But this isn’t a good substitute for an actual smart phone because it’s not terribly convenient to use. Even though they work together, your iPod Touch and FreedomPop Rocket Sleeve are not actually connected. They lock securely together, but each has it own on/off switch and each has to be charged with a different cable. And according to the company depending on the signal strength in your area, give your device 3-4 minutes to find a signal from bootup. So this is not for the business person in a hurry. Perhaps it would work for a young student who wouldn’t mind those slight hassles. You don’t have to connect your iPod Touch and Rocket Sleeve together, since the sleeve makes its own hotspot. If you’re carrying the iPod Touch with you, clicking them together makes the most sense. If you’re outdoors, checking the two tiny LED lights which tell you the charging and connection status of your Rocket Sleeve are near impossible to see. Of course the best signal strength is outdoors. In my apartment, I could get a signal closer to the windows. Deep in my apartment there was spotty or no signal. I would say this is definitely a “try” once you have checked to see if you’re in a 4G Clearwire wireless area. The company is planning on moving to the Sprint 4G Network later in 2013. So the coverage area will be greatly enhanced, but I'm not sure the Freedompop will continue to work. Perhaps you'll have to exchange it for a different one to work on the new network. $99.00 You can check the coverage area at the company website:

www.freedompop.com

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