I know this is a great place for advice and I hope someone can help me. I am thinking of buying my son an Ipod touch - I know they can connect to the internet with wi fi but how does it work if you have broadband My son connects his Wii to the internet with a sort of plug in Nintendo adaptor thingee - will I need the same thing for him to connect with his Ipod?

Any advice appreciated and thank you in advance.

Do you have a wireless network at home? If you do he'll be able to connect to it, if you don't he won't. There is no ethernet adaptor available for the iPod Touch, it's wireless or nothing.

No we have cable - but he connects through wi-fi adaptor when he uses his Wii? Is there not a similar sort of thing available? Is it worth buying one if you don't have wi-fi at home? Thanks very much for your quick reply.

If he's connecting his Wii through a wifi adapter, you must already be running a wireless network.

Does your cable modem connect to a router and then and wired PC's connect to that? If thats your setup, you probably already have wireless.

If in doubt, check with your son. Sounds like he knows ....

If you don't you'd need to buy a router to attach to your existing modem. They cost £20-£50+ depending what you get and where you get it from.

So you do have a wireless network then, so yes it will work. The iPod Touch/iPhone have built in wireless networking, the Wii doesn't. This is why your son has an adaptor, it allows the wii to connect to your router using a wireless connection instead of a wired one.

Ohmigod I'm SO embarassed Yes we have a router which I set up myself as he got a PC for Xmas and I am running my computer in one room and his in another. Although his computer is connected by a very long cable. His Wifi adaptor is plugged into the computer into a USB slot. Oh dear I'm confused now. You are probably correct - my son is 11 and is a bit of a whizz on the computer but this was going to be a lovely surprise present (just for info. several family members are contributing to the cost of it!). Thanks again for your response.

lol

By the sound of it, you should be fine. You have a wireless network.

You just need to enter a few connection details (security passwords for the router normally) in the iPod and you should be good to go.

I reckon you can safely buy it and maintain secrecy!

Thanks once again! I thought I had better check before I spent the money. I love this forum people are so helpful

He'll love the Touch if he's into gadgets, you'll struggle to get it out of his hands.

What capacity you going for?

Best of luck with it.

Sorry but your wrong the Wii does have wireless built in, my wii connects directly to my wireless network without any leads!(http://www.wiichat.com/nintendo-wii-...ion-guide.html)
Hope he enjoys the Ipod Touch I also have one and they are an amazing piece of kit.

I missed that comment from JamesK82 but you're right, he's talking cobblers.

You don't need any additional dongles or whatnot for the Wii to connect wirelessly.

But, and this should really have occurred to me earlier, I'm now wondering if the OP does actually have wifi at home. You normally only use dongles like this if you don't have a wireless router.

If he's using one of these to generate the wireless signal for the Wii, I don't think it would work with the iPod Touch. It really depends whats generating the wireless signals.

OP ...... what router are you using (make and model number if possible would be good). If we know that, we can tell you for certain.

As I mentioned earlier though, if you don't currently have a wireless router, you can easily replace your current one (if it's not wireless) with a wireless one for £20-£30 .....

^ I got one of them for my PSP and it basically creates a wireless network, my laptop connected to it as well. I can't see how they can be just for the Wii and allow nothing else to connect.

Hello again, after looking at my router (which I only bought at Christmas) I realise I don't have wireless router. My router is Netgear RP614 which was recommended by my work to use with Virgin cable. I knew that the second hand computer I was setting up on my network did not have wireless card so I bought the recommended router. At that time I didn't know I would be considering buying an Ipod touch. I think I am going to have to buy another router which is a shame as I just forked out about £40 for the last one a couple of months ago. The dongle (what a funny word) my son uses was bought for his Nintendo DS a long while ago and also works with the Wii.

Not sure what size yet, probably the middle of the road 16GB which will more than suit his needs. I was going for the 8GB but for an extra £40 quid........

Ah right.


Well, as Matt says, it may work with the touch .... I dunno.

It depends what the dongle is and what type of wireless network it's generating. (They're not all the same)

A router allows a lot more configuration and setup data than a simple USB dongle. It may work, it may not. Seems to be a bit of a grey area. I tried googling for "USB wifi dongle ipod touch" and got a pretty mixed bag of results ......

Thanks for your efforts! The dongle is Nintendo Wii Fi connector. I think I need to get hold of an Ipod touch and see if I can connect through it. (How do I do that without my son knowing). I am cross that I have spent money on a router when I should have been more prepared. I was so proud of myself managing to set up a network at the time!

Aye, it would indeed appear I was wrong about the Wii. I assumed from the OP's post her son's wii had a wi-fi adapter and assumed the wii didn't have wi-fi as standard. But hey, I don't do consoles so I'm in no way suprised I'm wrong about that bit.

I would say to the op however, there is no NEED to have wi-fi for your son to use an iPod Touch. He'll still be able to download apps and music etc using a PC/Laptop and sync it to the ipod. Having Wi-Fi is nice admittedly, but there's no need to rush around, you could get your son an iPod touch now and sort out the wi-fi access at a later date if needs be.

Have a look at this:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...6105456AAx6Taj

If thats right, it looks like it can be done, but it'll take a bit of faffing about.

More answers here:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/390312

As I thought, it's down to the type of network the dongle creates. You need to alter it so it looks like the type of network that the touch will work with .....

By the sound of it, once you've "hacked" the dongle, it should work fine with the Touch and still be OK with the Wii as well.

Good luck!

I'm showing my ignorance again now. How will he be able to download apps without wi-fi? Will it come with a cable to connect through usb port on the computer His birthday is the end of March and you are correct I am rushing around trying to sort everything out

Yes it will come with a USB sync cable to allow you to snyc with iTunes, which has to be done on first use to activate the touch. iTunes allows you to download apps & music and then snyc them to the ipod and also to download video. To purchase and download video you have to use itunes on a PC/Laptop, you can't do it via the itunes app on the touch (apart from podcasts).

You can also rip any existing CD collection to your PC via itunes and then snyc them to the ipod.

Thanks I've just had a look. What did we do before the internet? I am going to try and borrow my friend's son's Ipod touch and give it a go! Watch this space.

That's great. I don't know why I thought that it didn't come with a USB sync. I thought I read it somewhere

It comes with a USB cable, but not with a power charger (either you can buy one or he can just charge through his PC).

I hope I don't confuse matters but I'd just like to say that the iPod Touch might need updating before you can connect to the wireless network.

There was a bug in the original firmware which caused problems connecting to some routers - I had the problem with my 2nd Generation 32GB model. The latest firmware update fixes the problem. I don't think the older 1st Generation models have the problem.

The problem relates to the WPA encryption used to secure wireless networks.

If you connect the iPod to the PC using the supplied USB cable and then open iTunes you can update the iPod from there.

If you need help please ask - if I'm not around I'm sure someone else can talk you through updating the iPod if need be.

I hope I've not confused matters - I just don't want you to go through the same frustration that I did when I spent almost £300 on my iPod looking forward to the wireless stuff and having to wait a couple of months before Apple fixed the bug.

But on the plus size the wireless stuff is great - and I absolutely love the App store.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Steve.

I bought an ipod touch last week. It's brill and connects to wifi network with no problems at all