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Can't get to the article, but found this one showing a nicely dissected mini ipod...

iPod mini Dissection

Try checking out ipodding or ipodlounge for some info on that. The people on their message boards would know for certain.

"You can burn every song you download from the iTunes Music Store onto CD".

I admit that Apple's DRM still sucks a little - it means you have to go through the hassle of burning a CD in order to keep your music forever. But it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is. Itunes does not lock you in to Apple.

In fact, a quick Google shows that even the need to actually burn a CD may be optional. Hee hee! Designing a DRM system really is like shovelling back the tide.

If HP tries to achieve lock-in by selling tunes that can't be burned onto plain-jane CDs (and then re-ripped into MP3) then the service will die, just like the old DIVX service died. Why else do you think Apple's DRM has this enormous loophole? It certainly isn't the RIAA's idea.

I've seen people take apart their iPods with nothing more than a thin, stiff, flat piece of plastic, and putting it back together totally unscathed. Heck, I've even heard of people accidently putting their iPods in the washing machine and then the drier and still turning out fine after leaving it out to dry for a few hours.

So, this should say something about the quality of the devices. Sure, the iPod is more expensive and holds a lot less (10 gb for about $300 compared to 20gb for the same price), but in my opinion, its built a lot better than Creative's player, Nomad Zen, as can be compared from the article above, and this one

Which is fine, but they say 'you can't sync Contacts, Calendars or Notes automatically' without commenting that you can using OS X.

iSync'll take care of the first two (and very well). You can do notes manually, or there's a lot of OS X apps which'll do it for you - Pod2Go is a good one, which scrapes news, weather etc off the web and slaps it into notes. There are others, but there's also a new Interactive Fiction thing under development, so the opportunities are endless.

I'm quite sure some enterprising PC developer will code up something similar, if they haven't already, but for once it's nice to be ahead of the crowd as a Mac User :)

Mark

Classic (Scroll/TouchWheel) iPods use the Wolfson Microelectronics WM8721 DAC (digital to analog converter) and can not encode analog (audio) input into digital (MP3, ACC, etc....) The WM8721 has line output capability, however, that wasn't implimented in Classic iPods. The new iPod (with dock connector) not only has line output, but as we've demonstrated it also has stereo line and mic input.

Actually, apparently the new ones do sport the ability, though its limited at this point and only available in the diagnostic mode

There have been unofficial reports that apple will at some point roll out the ability to do real recording!

Interesting enough, my wheel has deteriated a bit, and when I wrote CS for Apple telling them about it, they said that what I was describing was "not a common problem" and that it didn't "inhibit use of the iPod" so it really wasn't a problem. I wonder why they released a touch-sensitive, non-moving wheel if it wasn't such a common problem.

I recall seeing somewhere online a tip for iPod scrollwheels which are too loose. You can pop the scrollwheel off and squirt a little of a certain kind of grease into the bearing. Cost: about $5.

Here are instructions: http://www.ipodding.com/modules.php?op=modload&nam e=News&file=article&sid=486

I hope that helps.

Apparently it's hackable in some surprising ways - found this article about a device introduced at MacWorld SF that turns your iPod into a smart IR remote control.