Turn Your iPod Touch Into An iPhone. (Well, sort of, but it's very clever.)

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's 4G WiMax and Sprint's 3G networks. You have to check to see if coverage is available in the area you'll be calling from if you’re thinking of buying a FreedomPop Rocket Sleeve. The $99 price includes 500MB of data a month. That's not a lot of data, but if you just need to send and read emails, and browse the web a couple of times a month, it could be enough. If you need more, Freedom Pop offers data at about $10 per GB. The Rocket Sleeve allows up to eight devices to connect to at the same time. 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, for up to a total of 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 you 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 if you're going to make a lot of phone calls. You don’t have to connect your iPod Touch and Freedom 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 difficult 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. You can check the coverage area, which is ever expanding, at the company website:

www.freedompop.com