Fast-forward?
by
Matt+Perry
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Does anyone have one of these things? If so, can you fast forward through a song or only go to the beginning of a song? I'd like to get one of these but I listen to a lot of hour long (or more) DJ mixes so not being able to seek to a specific point in the song would suck.
-- Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Re:Fast-forward?
by
Chuckstar
·
· Score: 2, Informative
According to the User's Guide, pressing the forward or reverse button quickly skips to the next or previous song. Holding down the button fast-forwards or rewinds within the song.
There's a green circuit board thingy and a battery. Oh, and a switch and a headphone jack.
How about these guys do something semi-useful and try and list the components used on the PCB? How about figuring out what kind of battery and what the interface is.
Nope, nothing useful here. Just a bunch of boys smashing a toy.
-- I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Re:Yeppers!
by
libra-dragon
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· Score: 2, Insightful
At the very least, I was expecting them to point out the 512MB chip.
Re:Yeppers!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Nope, nothing useful here. Just a bunch of boys smashing a toy.
You're unclear on the concept of pioneering effort. Very importantly, these "boys" made a sacrifice to show the rest of us how -not- to open an iPod shuffle. Their first two actions were unnecessary and potentially permanently damaging. You don't need to pop off the switch or the control "dial". You carefully pull off the USB plug (without tearing the short ribbon cable) and then slide the innards out.
I'd say theses "boys" are iPod hacking pioneers, while critics like yourself are doing sweet shit all for the community.
Pulling tiny electronic devices apart isn't as fun
by
sendai2ci
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The battery looks to be a lump of Lithium polymer, other than that, can't really tell anything else about the device. Since they have practically ruined the device, why didn't they go the whole hog and pull off the black plastic covering a few of the components on there...
Inspired Technology.
by
eRondeau
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Ten years ago this would have been proof of alien visitation. Now, when 95% of the world's computers are functionally similar, only cutting-edge industrial design, packaging, and marketing will differentiate them. Like it or not, Apple is still way out front of everybody else on all counts. They will sell 20,000,000 of these this year.
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
mmkkbb
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Now, when 95% of the world's computers are functionally similar, only cutting-edge industrial design, packaging, and marketing will differentiate them.
Not to the 95% of the world's population for whom price is a bigger factor.
--
-mkb
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
zpok
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Yup, you're right, 1) it's not a new thing, so it's not as 'cutting edge' as some people scream, and 2) its real strength indeed is in the integration with iTunes and iTMS. But I think you're wrong on some counts: 1) people won't be disappointed because these things work as advertised (they just don't make your pimples go away) 2) apple is in its own way doing truly new things, like for the first time making products in the consumer's spending sweet spots. 3) and they don't need more daring, they're plenty daring as it is right now, a new Newton would help them as much as a new Cube - which the mini isn't, I should know, I still use my cube as my primary computer. It's great but not for everyone. The mini has a much larger audience waiting.
-- I think, therefore I am...I think.
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
XxtraLarGe
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Not to the 95% of the world's population for whom price is a bigger factor.
I was just at Walmart this weekend pricing MP3 players. Most of the 256 MB Rio's and MuVo's were in the $89-99 price range. In this instance, I'd say a $99 512 MB iPod is highly competitive.
-- Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
UWC
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yeah, but any more storage capacity and the lack of display would be more than just an inconvenience. I have a 128MB MuVo and with its mere 30-song capacity the lack of display still gets annoying. It has identical controls to the Shuffle, plus an A-B loop button (and a replaceable AAA battery). I can't imagine trying to navigate through a GB of music with just the controls available there.
The Shuffle feature and iTunes integration will be the selling points, undoubtedly, and very likely enough to make it sell well. I wouldn't mind having shuffle on my MuVo. The actually competitive price point (though current MuVo models have a display) doesn't hurt, either. I see it selling fairly well as a companion to the HD-based iPods and iPod minis.
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
Paradise+Pete
·
· Score: 2, Funny
So you're saying that Apple's doing nothing new, and your cure for that is for them to make a...Newton?
Re:Inspired Technology.
by
Stevyn
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
They have screens though. That adds cost and functionality. I'm not really buying this random song playing idea. But I'm sure there are people out there to fill the small market. However, I don't think it's the same market of people who want a cheap yet functional music player.
Re:Congratulations.
by
MattHaffner
·
· Score: 4, Funny
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information you are given
when reading a post. By default, first posts are cryptic and
force readers to click on random URLs. A single -v will
give you information about what the heck the first poster
really meant and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give
you information on what was skipped (intentionally or not) by the
second poster and slightly more information at the end (than you
probably wanted to know). More than two -v flags should only be
used if you are debugging your browser or are a glutton for punishment.
(with a healthy nod toward the rsync man page)
Background pattern
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Ugh, if you have Web Developer installed on Firefox, I highly recommend you use it to turn off the background image. Much easier to read the text with the background off.
I don't know about anyone else but I thought it was a sort of violation. Poor iPod Shuffle being ripped apart with industrial tools; made me feel sorry for the thing. What was wrong with some jewellers screwdrivers and a scalpel? I'm sure it wasn't put together with a 6lb lump hammer...
Re:Pulling tiny electronic devices apart isn't as
by
krel
·
· Score: 2
Did you even RTFA? They tore the button-pad off in a (probably) non-repairable way.
-- karma: ouch!
HTML version of PDF!
by
antdude
·
· Score: 2, Informative
-- Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
CPU and Memory
by
macmurph
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Dear Apple Matters. I think people want to see what the processor and memory are of your broken iPod. Could you please update your web site with photos of those components?
PS. Macro mode on a digital camera could substantially improve the image quality.
Mod up +1 insightful
by
Zhe+Mappel
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Precisely right; your elegant quip really took the wind out of the previous remark.
The fact is that differentiation is measurable by much more than the criteria of design, packaging and marketing; there are objective and subjective issues.
Re:Pulling tiny electronic devices apart isn't as
by
Ohreally_factor
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Also, this caption from the earlier photo showing how to pull out the USB plug from the case gives us a clue as to what went wrong:
Gripping the plug with pliers and pulling will snap the plug out of the casing. (Make sure not to pull too hard! The ribbon wiring connecting the USB plug to the greenboard is short and rips easily).
Anyway, it's only $100 worth of sad, and the author(s) is making some money from google ads (perhaps enough to get a new iPod Shuffle?).
1) spend $99+tax on iPod shuffle
2) destroy it completely to show that not much is new inside
3) take pictures and post them on the web
4) get minor apple slashdotted
5) withold geeky information from the descriptions and piss people off
6) ???
7) profit?
6) Put ads on the page, as they have done (The amazon link to "iPod and iTunes Hacks" book)
or
7) "profit" by having fun, getting your curiosity satisfied, and/or getting respect from your readers.
What? No circuits?
by
mnmn
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I was expecting to see ICs, what MCU is used, the type of amplifiers and how the capacitors are arranged. Maybe they have a custom IC. Maybe they used a transistor for an amplifier, or no amplification at all. Maybe its a 4-bit MCU + MP3 decoder, or maybe its a 16-bit.
Slashdot demands more.
-- "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
-Nim Chimpsky
Re:What? No circuits?
by
BlitzPig_Sal
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This thread at head-fi.org has some additional comments regarding the chip.
It looks to be a basic MP3 decoder + DAC + integrated headphone amplifier with support for custom DRM algorithms, no fancy custom chips here. It is interesting that the chip has audio record features as well as FM tuner input and control capability. The data sheet also mentions that it can be upgraded for codecs other than MP3 (and obviously AAC and WMA). Ogg anyone?
Maybe we can expect to see some hacking of this player to enable some of these unused features.
Well done on styling from an apple site.
by
tod_miller
·
· Score: 3, Funny
black/blue bands with black text one them.
Brought to your by the select the text before you read it department.
Poster shows the battery, but what about the RAM? Where's the 512MB/1GB that these things are supposed to hold---that's the more interesting aspects of this device.
Anybody who risks voiding their warranty taking apart an iPod should really take the time to set white balance, if possible, so we don't end up looking at yellow versions of what I'm sure is a brilliant white object.
That said, I really appreciate people taking the time pulling this stuff apart. Bravo.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone have one of these things? If so, can you fast forward through a song or only go to the beginning of a song? I'd like to get one of these but I listen to a lot of hour long (or more) DJ mixes so not being able to seek to a specific point in the song would suck.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
i think that as long as they don't try to eat it, they're in the clear
-mkb
There's a green circuit board thingy and a battery. Oh, and a switch and a headphone jack.
How about these guys do something semi-useful and try and list the components used on the PCB? How about figuring out what kind of battery and what the interface is.
Nope, nothing useful here. Just a bunch of boys smashing a toy.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I take it he got his free IPod.
Page 15.
The battery looks to be a lump of Lithium polymer, other than that, can't really tell anything else about the device. Since they have practically ruined the device, why didn't they go the whole hog and pull off the black plastic covering a few of the components on there...
Ten years ago this would have been proof of alien visitation. Now, when 95% of the world's computers are functionally similar, only cutting-edge industrial design, packaging, and marketing will differentiate them. Like it or not, Apple is still way out front of everybody else on all counts. They will sell 20,000,000 of these this year.
Ugh, if you have Web Developer installed on Firefox, I highly recommend you use it to turn off the background image. Much easier to read the text with the background off.
Talk about striptease! It's not fair only having a link to the next pic in the series. Cut to the money shot already will you. I wanna see it naked!!!
Did you even RTFA? They tore the button-pad off in a (probably) non-repairable way.
karma: ouch!
Thanks Google! Much faster over dial-up. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Dear Apple Matters. I think people want to see what the processor and memory are of your broken iPod. Could you please update your web site with photos of those components?
PS. Macro mode on a digital camera could substantially improve the image quality.
The fact is that differentiation is measurable by much more than the criteria of design, packaging and marketing; there are objective and subjective issues.
Also, this caption from the earlier photo showing how to pull out the USB plug from the case gives us a clue as to what went wrong:
Gripping the plug with pliers and pulling will snap the plug out of the casing. (Make sure not to pull too hard! The ribbon wiring connecting the USB plug to the greenboard is short and rips easily).
Anyway, it's only $100 worth of sad, and the author(s) is making some money from google ads (perhaps enough to get a new iPod Shuffle?).
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
1) spend $99+tax on iPod shuffle
2) destroy it completely to show that not much is new inside
3) take pictures and post them on the web
4) get minor apple slashdotted
5) withold geeky information from the descriptions and piss people off
6) ???
7) profit?
I was expecting to see ICs, what MCU is used, the type of amplifiers and how the capacitors are arranged. Maybe they have a custom IC. Maybe they used a transistor for an amplifier, or no amplification at all. Maybe its a 4-bit MCU + MP3 decoder, or maybe its a 16-bit.
Slashdot demands more.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
black/blue bands with black text one them.
Brought to your by the select the text before you read it department.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Poster shows the battery, but what about the RAM? Where's the 512MB/1GB that these things are supposed to hold---that's the more interesting aspects of this device.
Linux at home
Ok.. Ok.. so they got the wrapper off. Big deal..
What we wanna know: HOW DOES IT TASTE?!?
Anybody who risks voiding their warranty taking apart an iPod should really take the time to set white balance, if possible, so we don't end up looking at yellow versions of what I'm sure is a brilliant white object. That said, I really appreciate people taking the time pulling this stuff apart. Bravo.