Ars Technica's iPod nano Dissection

starwindsurfer wrote to mention an Ars Technica review of the iPod nano in which they autopsy the cute little guy to find out what makes him tick. A more thorough review than the one we ran last week. From the article: "At this point we were astounded that the iPod nano was still working properly, albeit with a broken display. Because we had honestly expected the iPod nano to break by this time, we were forced to depart from our planned schedule of destruction and try and run over it with the car. Surely, we thought, it could never withstand the crushing power of German automotive engineering." Update: 09/12 14:58 GMT by Z : Changed linking words to previous article for clarity. Monday fuzziness.

Comments

You killed Ars! You bastards!

[Guano_Jim]

Server's running slow with less than 60 comments, so:

Coralized page 1

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Systm

[AngryScot]

subSystm has a video if the inside of the nano for anyone who is interested
subSystm is a short version of the full episode Systm

How to Kill an iPod nano...

[kuwan]

The article should really be entitled How to Kill an iPod nano as I think that's the real purpose of the article. It must be fun to buy the latest gadget and then find creative ways to destroy it.

Basically the final cause of death for the iPod was to throw it up in the air as high as possible, about 40 feet, and then let it smack down on the concrete. That was the final nail in the coffin after dropping it from 9 ft., dropping it multiple times from a speeding car (10 MPH to 50 MPH) and running over it twice. Pretty durable for a little music player.

Re:Where's the FM tuner???

[jwinter1]

with most of the "good stuff" from NPR being available as podcasts

Are you crazy? NPR has given up almost none of its best shows to podcasting. This American Life, Car Talk, What Do You Know?, Morning/Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, and pretty much any other of their big shows aren't podcast. There's actually very few good NPR shows available through podcasting.

Re:Bad Selection of stress tests

[Queer Boy]

For that matter, putting it in the coin pocket of some tight jeans

Is that an iPod in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

As an aside, that's not a coin pocket, Levi Strauss designed it for matches when he created the jean for miners to keep the matches dry.

Re:Firewire compatibility...

[sidb]

No iPod supports FireWire 800.

The ones with FireWire use FireWire 400, which is compatible with a FW 800 port the same way a USB 1.1 device is compatible with a USB 2 port, although in the case of FireWire you need an adapter cable to make the connection because the FW 800 port adds two extra pins.

Here's Apple's page confirming that the current full-size iPod has FW 400, not 800: http://www.apple.com/ipod/color/specs.html

Re:How to buff out the scratches?

[ciurana]

Greetings,

A few years ago I learned a trick from my local Swatch store. I had scratched the face of a watch given to me as a gift; a keeper mainly for its sentimental value. The face had several scratches, some looked deep. I steeled myself to pay $50 to replace the watch's face (an $80 watch) and headed to the store.

The clerk was very helpful and passed on one of the best tips ever: Put some toothpaste on the polycarbonate surface, rub softly with your fingers, and wipe off with a moist cotton pad or paper towel. Scratches be gone! I've used that trick on mobile phone screens as well, with excellent results.

I hope that helps,

E

Re:Where's the FM tuner???

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's your NPR podcast:

This script records your podcast. Call it record_NPR.sh
=================
#!/bin/bash

PREFIX=$1
NAME=$2
LENGTH=$3

if [ -z "$3" ] ; then
      echo "Usage: record_NPR.sh "
      exit
fi

FILE_DATE=`date`
FILE_NAME=`date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M.mp3'`
FILE_NAME="${PREFIX}_${FILE_NAME}"

cd /tmp/NPR
wget -nv -O $FILE_NAME http://edtv.opb.org:8000/radio.mp3 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
WPID=$!
sleep $LENGTH; kill $WPID
sleep 3
tagmp3 set "%A:${NAME} %a:NPR Records" $FILE_NAME
#update_RSS.pl "$PREFIX" "$FILE_NAME" "$FILE_DATE" "$NAME"
echo "$NAME was recorded"
===================

Stick it in your crontab, and you are done:
===================
0 11 * * 5 /user/joechmo/bin/record_NPR.sh SFR "Science Friday" 2h
0 15 * * 6 /user/joechmo/bin/record_NPR.sh PHC "Prarie Home Companion" 2h
0 10 * * 6 /user/joechmo/bin/record_NPR.sh CTK "Car Talk" 1h
======================

SciFri Podcast

[cbquist]

Not so - all of SciFri is podcast each week. They do cut the program into 2-6 segments though depending on how many topics they're covering - so you have to make sure you get all the parts.

Sound quality better than Fullsize/Mini?

[Judge_Fire]

The article incorrectly states that the sound quality is the same across the iPod line.

This test and actually, just comparing by the ear, shows interesting results from a number of players:

http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playe rtest.htm

J

Re:What apple should do now

[fshalor]

You can buy some stuff called "Moly Coat" from grainger and other places. It's a spray on coating used on gears in teletypes in the 70's to keep them from wearing out. I've been using it on maglight lenses and some optics stuff to keep things from scratching.

About $10/can, but it'll stop those scratches on the metal. I've used it on laptops more resently and seems to really help.