Cellphone Interference with video-capable iPods

I don't find this surprising. If Apple is using FingerWorks technology in the new iPods, then this is a known problem. The same problem should occur in the scrolling touchpads on the latest PowerBooks and iBooks.

I just had this same thing happen to me with my black 4gig nano. I have a Moto V635 and had both in separate, but close pockets and this started happening. I then took the nano out and kept it on my leg and the problem went away. I've seen my cell do this to a CRT monitor, but what in an iPod could cause this?

My V3 makes my speakers buzz all of the time. Not only in my car, but also my computer and my stereo. I usually keep it on vibrate now as my whole house lets me know it's ringing.

I had mine in my car next to my SE 910 (Swiss GSM), connected to a no-name FM transmitter. It went bezerk. One could clearly HEAR handshaking between GSM stations and the phone over the car's radio, the iPod's screen went on now and then, the volume on the iPod was switched up and down in a chaotic manner, it paused and resumed...when I took my SE 910 some 30 cm away from it everything was fine and back to normal.

I should mention that GSM is not worse or better, but different. We have a local GSM carrier here which never dropped calls. Why? Because of the GSM standard. If I don't move very much, once I make a call, I keep the bandwidth until I terminate the call. CDMA doesn't work that way --it works differently. The A in CDMA stands for access. CDMA allows handsets to negociate and trade the tower's resources or something like that. My verizon phone can therefore recieve calls fine with only 2 bars of signal strength, although the sound quality isn't as good as on GSM. (This is in part due to the way signal strength is calculated, but that is too complicated for this post.) --Sam

Isn't there some kind of FCC thing that states that a device will not produce interference but will accept any interference coming in or something like that? I remember seeing something like that on the bottom of a lot of things a while back. So would that make the phone, not the iPod, at fault?

Tried w/my Sony Ericsson W800i (obviously GSM), next to both my iPod nano and my iPod video, and nothing happened. "I am on Verizon though, so my phone is CDMA which uses a different frequency than you GSM folk. " Actually this isn't 100% true. Depends on who your carrier is. In the US, CDMA ( carriers (Verizon, Sprint, etc.) are on the PCS band (1900MHz). GSM carriers (Cingular, T-Mobile, etc.) are also on the same band in the US. T-Mobile IIRC is strictly a PCS band carrier, while Cingular also has quite a bit of 850MHz GSM network picked up from AT&T (legacy D-AMPS network converted to GSM). Since I'm on T-Mobile (who's 1900MHz only) and it didn't affect me, it's quite possible that this only affects Cingular users when they are broadcasting on the 850MHz band. Just a theory...

To be a bit more descriptive, it's the TDMA (GSM and iDEN included) technology that causes these problems. These types of phones really only transmit during their assigned time cycled (time is the T in TDMA), this constant pulsating of the radio on the phone causes this interference. This is one of the reasons why people with hearing aids have had trouble using cellphones for years. If you have an old CRT monitor, put your cellphone right next to or underneath it and call it. Just before the phone rings you'll see the screen shake for a second. This should work with either CDMA or TDMA phones.

I have a Sprint Treo 650 (CMDA) so thats probably why I guess:)

You should only see the problem exhibit itself when using a GSM phone. YARCIB = yet another reason CDMA is better