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iPod Mini Autopsy
tritone writes "Some fearless soul has disassembled his iPod mini and provided pictures and commentary about the process. This really does seem to be an autopsy since he managed to kill it in the process. That's $249 well spent in the pursuit of knowledge. See the full report at www.ipodlounge.com."
Is the battery at least covered under warranty?
The opposite of progress is congress
No comments at all and already slashdotted... What's the webserver running on, an iPod?
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
will they put out the f*cking $100 one? The one we were all hoping for? Right after Duke Nukem Forever comes out, right?
Photo server is still up at http://gallery.ipodlounge.com/ipod/thumbnails.php? album=6 Taking apart the iPod mini
February 23, 2004 By Greg Koenig
Apple has crammed a lot of stuff into the anodized aluminum enclosure of the new iPod mini, and taking it apart is no easy task. I'm an industrial designer with lots of experience pulling back the curtain and meeting the wizard in PDAs, Mp3 players, stereos, watches and all sorts of other gear. I am usually pretty good at it, having not broken something in years (lots of bug hunts for tiny parts on the floor though). Except my brand-new iPod mini, where I screwed up big time... twice!
The Procedure:
Tools needed: (1) Wiha 1.5mm flat head screwdriver (1) Wiha Philips #000 screwdriver (1) Needle nose pliers or medical (Kelly type) hemostats (1) Hair dryer
To help illustrate my disassembly adventure, view the iPod mini autopsy photos and follow along.
To begin with, make sure the 'Hold' button is locked into the ON position (showing orange) to prevent the internal components to be turning on while you are taking it apart.
The plastic top and bottom plates are glued into place with a tacky adhesive that will soften considerably when heated so use the hair dryer on a low setting to heat up the top plate. Work the area until it's very warm to the touch. Now turn the mini around so you're looking at the Apple logo and squeeze the two rounded edges together at the top, causing the enclosure to bow a little bit in the middle. Insert the flat bladed screwdriver between the plastic and the metal (in line directly above the Apple logo) and gently pry the plate straight up. Work around the edges, leaving the area around the 'Hold' button till last. When you finally do get to the 'Hold' button area, pry carefully and pull the plate STRAIGHT up. Behind the 'Hold' button are two plastic standoffs (sort of like tabs) that extend down into the case and push the real switch on and off. If you pry the thing out at an angle, you will break one of these standoffs. That was mistake #1 for me. The actual 'Hold' switch soldiered onto the main board broke, so the 'Hold' switch no longer works.
Now perform the same procedure on the plastic bottom plate. When it is removed, you will see a shiny sheet-metal plate held in place under spring tension by 4 tabs inserted into reliefs machined into the enclosure. At the end of each of these tabs, you will see a round hole. Use the Philips #000 in these holes and carefully pry each tab out of its slot. The sheet-metal plate will come right out.
Next, you need to disconnect a ribbon cable that connects the scroll/click wheel assembly to the main baord. This ribbon cable is on the bottom of the mini on the left hand side. It is orange. You can't miss it. Use the 1.5mm blade screwdriver to pry it apart. If there isn't enough slack in the ribbon cable, don't worry, as long as you get the connector loose, you have done your job here.
Turn the mini over, looking back into the top, you will see two tiny philips head screws on either side of another metal plate. Remove these with the #000 screwdriver carefully and put them in a safe place (don't drop these on the floor, you will never see them again).
Now comes the fun part - gently push on the 30 pin connector at the bottom of the mini and all of the main components (on an assembly I call the component sled) will slide right out the top. It is a bit tight, but if you meet major resistance, back off and INSURE you have the ribbon cable disconnected. This is where I messed up and killed my iPod mini, I forgot to check and I pushed with all my might, ripping the ribbon cable off of the male connector. Oops.
The component sled contains nearly all of the iPod's internals; the main circuit board, battery, LCD display and hard drive. While the LCD is held onto the ma inboard with 4 plastic tabs, the battery and HD ar
In an autopsy, the doctor doesn't kill anything. So it was more like a murder, then. Think before you type.
...and you've got the next boffo fox special!
This really does seem to be an autopsy since he managed to kill it in the process
/.ers know that real men use 'kill -9' to do this.
Free XBox, PS2
He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom. (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
I bet this poor soul was expectign to get a Digicam friendly CF card out of his autopsy.
$249 for a 4GB microdrive isn't a bad price, too bad it didn't work.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
I'm sure in a month or two he could have gotten a dead one on ebay, thus saving himself $250. Why, oh why kill a good one?
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:jM4q0XOel_oJ: gallery.ipodlounge.com/ipod/b um%3D6+ipod+mini+autopsy&hl=en &ie=UTF-8
thumbnails.php%3Fal
Copy and paste, remove the space, you know the drill.
This really does seem to be an autopsy since he managed to kill it in the process.
Somehow I doubt that the D.A. would see it that way.
You probably shouldn't click this.
If there was an easy way to create some kind of direct hot swappable drive slot for this hard disk that you could switch between a PC and a car you could really do some crazy in car audio mods for cheap. Have the i-pod display and controll buttons mounted somewhere in the car and then just wire in the audio to the Aux audio input for the stereo. It would be a not only easy mod but a cool looking one if done right.
Conclusion:
:)
Don't take apart your new iPod mini.
Well that takes care of that, doesn't it?
Those 4GB microdrives retail for a LOT more than $250. It would be a good deal based on that alone, but as an mp3 player, you can do better in the space per dollar department.
...they break when ham-handed fools take them apart, and Apple won't give said fools a free replacement!
Paging the Neistat brothers...
..this definitely hacking for fun and [for apple's] profit ;)
The site seems to be a database driven PHP site, and dying fast. I threw the contents of my cache up, just in case-
http://www.sq7.org/temp/ipod
Colin Davis
i think the mini-ipod will be a complete flop, too price for too little.
If it was being manufactured by any company besides Apple, I'd agree wholeheartedly, but we all know it will do reasonable well, simply because it's an Apple product.
That's $249 well spent in the pursuit of knowledge.
;)
$249 is not a lot, but I would love to see his bandwidth bill this month
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
When you can strap a discman on an armband and go jogging with it, then you'll have a point.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
My group at Oregon State University is currently working on a device that uses an old hard drive from an Ipod. We have successfully interfaced with it, and can read and write from it at blazing speeds using an FPGA. See our web site here:
0 3/ ece441/groups/g15/
http://classes.engr.oregonstate.edu/eecs/fall20
If you have more questions, send me an email (also listed on the web page)
Bob
I read this site yesterday after seeing a link in the Slickdeals discussion forums.
It sounds like extracting the 4GB CF isn't much of a problem.
People have been able to put it in a CF reader and get it working fine on their computers.
A number of people have reported problems getting the CF to work with their cameras or other CF devices working in the iPod. I suspect that this has something to do with how apple formatted the disk and will eventually be solved.
For those of you laughing at iPod mini buyers -- they could probably sell the 4GB CF cards for a profit.
Evolution: love it or leave it
Can't get to the article, but found this one showing a nicely dissected mini ipod...
iPod mini Dissection
"This really does seem to be an autopsy since he managed to kill it in the process."
I'm no expert but aren't autopsies supposed to be performed after death??? I believe the word you are looking for is malpractice.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
We've been through this already: mini iPods have enough space for most people, so there is no value in getting the roomier one. On the other hand, the smaller physical size makes them much more convenient.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I've successfully interfaced with my iPod hard drive, and can read and write from it at blazing speeds right out of the box.
I think that once you take that into account, you'll find that the iPod Mini is about the best deal on the market, from a formfactor v price standpoint, as well as the fact that it's the cheapest player in that market.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
Wouldn't that technically make it a vivisection? Since it was alive when he started?
This happens every day. A story is posted on slashdot that links to some site.
Site is brought to its knees.
Now - how about a slashdot-cache like google cache? It's not fair to punish the guys that post interesting stuff on their website like this story.
All links in the story would then link to the slashdot-cache and leave the original site alive.
And - aside from saving the sites some trouble, it would enable those of us who came in late to see how he dismantled that ipod.
It's a necropsy unless the procedure is being done by another iPod mini.
Autopsy refers to dissection of a human by a human, or by extension, some instance of class 'foo' by another instance of class 'foo'.
Actually, in this case, it would be a vivisection, as the iPod started out functional, and died due to the procedure.
I went to the Apple store last weekend and played with one. It really is a lot smaller than you'd think - barely bigger than my year-old MuVo, with about 30 times the capacity, and a hell of a lot cooler. Plus, I only have 4GB of music, so whenever I get money this is going to be one of my first purchases.
Anyone who either has small music libraries, or doesn't need their entire library with them at all times, will probably fall in love with these things. And if you wanted a bigger iPod to use as a backup hard drive, that's just silly, as a mere $100 can buy you a ~100 gig FW hard drive, if not more.
Once again, Apple has positioned their products nicely as "amateur" (iPod mini) and "hardcore" (bigger iPods) products. They should be viewed as such.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
"i think the mini-ipod will be a complete flop, too price for too little."
I'd say 100,000 units preordered isn't a flop.
It is hard drive based. Its just that the hard drive used the Compact Flash interface more common to flash memory. It's a tiny hard drive manufactured by Hitachi.
Whirrrrrrrr--clickclickclick*clunk!*--whirrrrrrrrr
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Considering that this guy screwed up his iPod in creating these procedures, why on earth would anybody want to follow suit?
He who doesn't break things to find out what it is isn't a geek. (Anonymous Coward)
I got a question.... you do realize that Apple just buys the HD's used in iPods from a regular OEM (I know that at one point at least Fujitsu was selling the HD's) So why didn't you just go buy the same HD for less money???
I found it amusing that when the very first iPods came out that the same HD used was reviewed and the reviewers complained about how slow it was. The irony was not that the HD was slow, but that at the same time the "firewire" connection to the iPod was being trumpeted even though the HD could not come even closed to saturating the connection.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Ok listen everybody. Let's try to go on the website one by one.
;)
Stop clicking the link, I'm going first
Iraq: war to save the U
An autopsy is performed -after- something is dead. Think before you type.
Doesn't sound too hard. I'd like to see the followup where someone tells him how to repair it and we get to see amusing photos of the process!
CmdrTaco needs to update his vocabulary. If the subject is alive before the procedure, but dead afterward -- that's murder! Or at least a malpractice lawsuit.
No, it's a 0.1 Megaflops.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
It's actually about 40% smaller in volume...and if you're dickering over storage capacity you aren't teh target audience.
Would it be possible to rip out the 4GB microdrive, put it to good use in a camera, and replace it with a 512meg solid-state CF card? Would give you a non-skipping iPod mini that can interface with iTunes, and plenty of space to go work out with it. Plus the cheap microdrive.
Ok, we'll go over it again boys and girls. It's the market, the Mini isn't there to compete with the iPod. The Mini is there to compete against your $200-300 1gig flash player. If you want to spend $100, then get a little 256MB player and be done with it.
You probably think Firewire is useless too.
It seems that a lot of the reports are pointing to tech savy females and not us gun-ho more bang for the buck males buying them... I know my girlfriend wanted a pink one the minute she saw it despite the 249.00 price tag (hers is shipping now)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Here's a discussion that talks about yanking the ($479.95) Hitachi microdrive inside. More discussion on my original source: boingboing
No sig for you!
The drive used in the iPod Mini retails for much more than the Mini sells for. Apple is either getting an amazing volume price from Hitachi or they are taking it up their collective asses in order to infiltrate the market.
Well, in the case of the iPod mini, the hard drive retails for $500 whereas the iPod mini is half of that. I know of a few digital camera junkies that are considering buying the iPod just for the hard drive.
Here is another one.
I bought the Mini because it's significantly smaller than the 15 gig iPod. It's also much more solidly built thanks to the aluminum case. Moving the controls under the jog dial is also a huge improvement. But the size and sturdiness were what convinced me: The mini fits into a relatively cramped pocket on a pair of jeans or gym shorts.. the regular iPod just can't do that.
Is that why they're selling well right now? Some people want a smaller device.
I have a 15GB iPod. My wife and I just bought a iPod mini (blue) for her to use. I must admit it's pretty cool. You really need to see it in person to appreciate the small size and brush-aluminum coolness factor. I was pretty skeptical at first, too.
--- witty signature
"FS: Mini iPod. $30
This was 'purchased from a friend' and I don't have anyway to test it. I'm selling this cheap and make no guarantees about function."
And he'll only charge $15 for S&H!
Because the drives retail for twice what the whole ipod goes for by itself. Currently, it's possible to make a profit by buying the ipod and selling just the drive on ebay.
--- Submission is feudal.
We considered this. It was actually cheaper for us to buy a defective iPod off of ebay than to get it from the OEM. The iPod hard drive was fine, it was another part of the iPod that was defective. Also, since we were using the battery as well, this was a package deal that saved us a LOT of money over buying the parts from manufacturers directly. Finally, we only needed to build a prototype, so getting the parts like this was preferred to begging the OEM to sell us single parts rather than in bulk.
bob
If he killed it in the process then it's murder or more like involuntary manslaughter. Autopsy can only be given post-mortem.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
For just $50 more (thats like just #30, not much) you get 10 times the space
Well, that's just completely misinformed. For 50 more you get 3 times the space actually.
I hope that Ipod mini is a flop!
Yes! How dare they engineer, design and sell products?!
Not only will I not buy it, but I wish financial ruin on them for their audacity in manufacturing a device not aimed at me!
But, just like how Apple sells 0.1 upgrades of OSX for the price of a 1.0 upgrade
Who are these people to number their upgrades thus?
I say if we are to feel that we are getting enough for what we pay, we musn't look at the actual additional features and performance upgrades! We want a BIGGER numbers: Only that is worth money!
You can't take the sky from me...
Expect the $100 iPod sometime between when they've sold an iPod to nearly everyone that will pay more than a $100 and a competitor can come close to offering a product with equal sex appeal for less than $150.
There are fashion conscious male techies too y'know!
I'm getting a silver one simply because it looks better and I'm not huge on music to be honest - my collection in total is only 3.5GB and I don't listen to it all anyway. Why would I want to pay more for a large, less attractive (although still well designed) device with 11GB more that will be totally redundant 99% of the time. The only thing I can possibly think I would need it for is if I got one of those memory stick readers and backed up my photos so I only needed one stick.
Before anyone says $250 for a 4GB device is overpriced, look at the competition. Sony 256MB MP3s are about 150GBP here, and that's more than $250. The Creative MuVo 4GB (comparable size and capacity, but nothing like the build quality I've seen in the past from Apple and no more than average design) costs ~200GBP from Amazon, again much much more than the iPod for an all round inferior product.
Having said all that, if build quality doesn't matter to you then I'm sure you'll find a player from some unknown manufacturer on eBay at a huge discount from the iPod. I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who spent 200GBP on a second mobile phone because it was made from titanium and looked good when I was going out. I'm more than happy to pay a premium for looks and quality.
A girl-friend of mine wanted to buy an iPod mini, too. I proceeded to explain why it was a waste of money and that she was stupid for even thinking to buy it.
I made her cry.
Needless to say, I am a great friend.
Please don't mod this offtopic, as it is a relevant question...
For those iPod owners out there: What has been your experience with the device as far as strength/stability goes? As in... Does a drop off a table crash the heads? I am looking into purchasing one possibly, but my main use will be for snowboarding and if it's not gonna be able to take some abuse (obviously it will be in my jacket but still subject to vibration and the occassional wipeouts), I would rather go with a solid-state one. Any feedback would be most useful.
# fuser -v
#
If you do, point them to this page. The author there recommends buying a Creative Nomad MuVo. It has the same 4G drive and sells for $200.
There is a similar drive found in the Creative Labs Muvo2 MP3 player. If you look in eBay, the drive goes for a pretty penny, considering that retail price for it is fairly high. Lots of people are selling their "OEM Microdrive" on eBay and I am willing to bet that the majority of them are pilfered from one of these MP3 players.
A proper autopsy is done after the person is dead...
Not a bad deal when you think about the fact that a regular Hitachi 4 GB Compact Flash card cost close to $500 by itself.
Autopsy showed that that patient's death was caused by the autopsy.
So why didn't you just go buy the same HD for less money?
Two words: quantity purchase.
If you placed an order for 100K+ units, you could probably get about the same pricing that Apple does.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It is not a waste of money to everyone just because it is to you. I already typed a post explaining why, so click here if you're interested.
To sum up:
I wouldn't use more than 4GB, so why pay for redundant space?
It is cheaper than most comparable alternatives.
It looks good.
Dear Mr. Calling-Out-the-Karma-Whore,
It is traditional to not check the "Post Anonymously" box when calling out a karma whore and thus being "modded up" as Insightful, Funny, or, the jackpot, Underrated.
Best,
Traig
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
RIP (Rest In Pieces)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Thanks. You made spew coke all over the internet!
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. -- Gandalf
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
PETE (People for the Ethical Treatment of Electronics) maintains that the goals of science can be equally well served without doing harm to our bleeping, whirring, cousins. As a show of protest, they have initiated a series of ddos attacks against sites linked to by popular "electronic butchery forum" slashdot.
PETE spokesman Nigel Rehnquist defending the ddos attack, saying "the ethically important question is not - can electronics understand what is being done to them? The ethically important question is - can electronics feel pain? I've trained my tamagotchi to wail in agony when I press this button, which makes YOU a sadist!"
PETE has achieved notoriety in recent years for it's colorful lobbying and advertising efforts. One series of advertisements, which NBC declined to air, showed graphic depictions of graphing calculator-shaped puppets transmiting IR signals to one another and moaning in the throes of ecstacy. PETE called the advertisement a public service announcement to remind Americans how important and easy it was (only a bit of tape is required) to "fix" their graphic calculators. Prominent executives at another network approached about the ads, speaking on condition they not be identified, called the series of advertisements "disturbing, incomprehensible and weird." "One of them kept rocking his cellphone and singing to it," added one executive, "they scare me."
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
So if I sold the drive and the battery I could make a fortune.
Money here I come.
A blog about stuff.
Did you also proceed to explain to her why it's a waste of money to buy all those fancy mall clothes, when a sweatshirt and a pair of Wal Mart jeans would cover her body just as well?
Now you must demand that Apple give you a new one and create an iMovie of you defacing their advertisements.
Also, register appledidnotpreventmefromdestroyingmyminiipod.com
MSNBC, here you come!
Most digital cameras don't support CF cards above 2GB because they can't read/write FAT32. If you think you're in that category, try creating a 2GB FAT partition on the CF card to test it. More recent cameras are OK with FAT32.
The Creative Labs 4GB Muvo2 has a Hitachi 4GB drive. The player is sold out most places since people are pulling the 4GB drive for their cameras. Check eBay for listings of disembowelled Muvo2's for sale. In Creative's case, I believe part of the the shortage is due to them re-engineering the player to mecahnically lock the CF card in place, probably with solder.
The part in the iPod is HMS360404D5CF00: this is the same part number Hitachi gives to its standard CF card drive, so I assume people will get it working Real Soon Now.
Of most interest to the long-term health of the iPod, Hitachi warrants the drive for 300,000 head load/unload cycles, and 140 power-on hours per month. Hmmm...
RTFA. He says he took it apart to explore feasability of custom anodizing mini's for his business. The sooner he figures that out, the better for him.
Snow?
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
I don't know about you, but I only take a couple minutes to recharge after a lapdance.
:-)
Well I had some moderation points I wanted to use on the parent post, but I just couldn't find a "liar" or at least "probably deluded" option