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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.
Article on the new iGadget being a failure? Check.
Apple g33k pr0n? Check.
Wow, this guy really DOES have Apple pegged... I mean, at first it was funny, but now it's just creepy...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
They're scratched, btw. In case you were wondering.
Well, personally, I don't want to listen to the radio, ever. That's why I have an iPod. I used to listen to the radio for NPR shows, but with most of the "good stuff" from NPR being available as podcasts, well, my car radio stays on "Aux Input" all the time now, and I don't own another radio reciever at all.
I think Apple intentionally doesn't include an FM tuner on purpose, as they are theying to replace radio, not just replace CD players, with the iPod. They're doing a good job of it, too.
Thanks, but I'll pass on the scratchproof thing. I have plenty of cleaner, and failing that, lots of peanut butter to get rid of scratches.
What I would like is for them to add Firewire support to the Nano, instead of only allowing USB 2.0.
It looks like it is intended for the replacement market. Old ipodders are getting the jitters to replace their 5 and 10 gb models and will probably be happy with these devices are they are used to not having their entire collection on the road with them. It does sorta kill the shuffle though.. What is also interesting to note is that this is the second ipod that is USB only. Is this because they both use the same "mainboard" and adding fw would be too expensive or technically challenging? Or is apple slowly abandoning fw as the end-all of device connectors? Perhaps a sign of this to come? Intel based machines rarely if ever have a fw port and even more rare are the full-size powered connectors like we have'em on iBook/Powerbook... hrmm the mind begins to wonder whether the next generation of laptops will have fw at all!!
Could someone out there with a intel dev box tell us whether there is a fw port on the dev box??
Does OSX/Intel support fw???
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
Honestly, seeing as these are $100 cheaper than the next flash alternative I could find, I'm tempted to just pick up two as boot devices.
One for my Windows machines at work, one for my Macs.
You'd use up about 1GB for the OS, then have 3+GB free for data extraction. Throw a bunch of diagnostic utilities on there (usually a hundred megs or so at most) and you've got a kick ass clean system to test hardware with when you're troubleshooting. And since its got a batter of its own, it's not reliant on having a powered USB port.
firewire (assuming thats what you meant by fw) is the choice for digital video tranfer on apple. Apple has a lot invested in being the digital video editing platform of choice. There is no way they are going to give up on firewire. For connections to random devices that don't need the speeds of firewire, and benifit from PC connectivity, USB is the obvious choice.
I actually have an iPod nano and I will agree, that it really gets scratched up fairly easily, even if you keep it in a sock you still get those little scartches. It really mucks up the nice finish that it originally came with. Ive had my nano for 2 days now and it looks like Ive had it for a couple months.
GL HF!
My reason for buying a nano was to get a flash based iPod so I could take it skiing. I have taken my 20Gb 3G iPod skiing several times, but I was always concerned about scrambling the hard drive in a badly timed fall. Also, the battery life was not good enough at low temps to last a full day of skiing. The nano should be perfect for skiing, and the Ars Technica review seems to confirm its durability.
You can draw power from USB, and this new deviced uses it to charge the battery. The smaller 1394 plug standard doesn't supply power.
USB2 speed is only that high in burst mode. Here's a test, get an exteral HD and move 100G to it over both USB2 and 1394. You may be surprised at the difference. The moral? Don't rely on published numbers unless you know exactly what they mean and under what conditions. You'll see why in this simple HD test.
That's nice for you, but there are those of us that like to listen to the radio, whether its sports shows or whatever. Plus, the gym turns down the volume on the TV sets and simulcasts the audio on short-range radio so those that want to watch the news while they work out can do so without disturbing others. An FM tuner is a requirement for a lot of people I know.
I've replied elsewhere in this thread as well about USB and Firewire, but consider looking at Tom's Hardware's review of FW vs. USB for data transfer as well (FW trumps USB, not the other way around).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
So I bought one of these yesterday and the first place I put it was in my pocket that I also keep my keys in. Big mistake. 1 iPod Nano, less than a day old, scuffed and scratched.
Does anyone know of any mild abrasives or similiar that can be used to polish an iPod such as a Nano back to scratch and scuff free brilliance? I'd really like to restore mine to normal and then maybe invest in a protective cover.
Incidentally, what's Apple's problem with making it scratch proof? My mobile phone stays in my pocket constantly with my keys and has done so for a year now. It's scratched to hell all over EXCEPT for the glass over the screen. Go figure.
How does the Nano kill the shuffle? I am a happy Shuffle owner that honestly wouldn't consider switching at all. I listen to music while riding my bike and running with my dog. I don't want to pull my iPod out of my pocket to switch anything. I want to plug it into my computer, hit a button that fills it with whatever music it feels like and hit play. That is it. I don't want to pick my music. I don't want to organize some playlists. I want to hit play.
Shuffle = hit play.
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