Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Opening the iPod mini

In the past, I believed that nothing could be more difficult to open than the third-generation iPod. I was wrong. Working with the innards of a third-generation iPod is child's play compared with performing a similar operation on an iPod mini. The truth is, most people will have more luck removing their own kidney than they will with opening and closing an iPod mini effectively.

Fortunately, you don't have to when I'm willing to risk the health of my mini for the sake of my loyal readers. Here's how it looks.

The Hard Drive

When you finally manage to slide the guts of the mini out of its aluminum sheath, you'll find the hard drive on the back of the mini below the battery (not underneath, but "south" of the battery). Although the drive resembles a compact flash card, it's actually a 4 GB microdrive manufactured by Hitachi (model number HMS360404D5CF00, if you must know) inside the shell of a compact flash card (Figure 10.15). It's wrapped in black tape and held in place by friction and the small connector at the top that attaches to the mini's circuit board.

The Battery

The mini's battery is above the hard drive. The battery is manufactured by Sanyo (model number EC003) and is a little larger than a quarter (Figure 10.16). It's held in place by friction and a small sticky pad on the battery's bottom-right underside. The battery is connected to the circuit board with a connector similar to the kind used in the original iPods.

Lose mini, Gain Microdrive

It should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with my mechanical skills that when I disassembled my iPod mini for this book, I managed to destroy it. Determined to salvage what I could from my former music player, I disconnected its 4 GB Hitachi microdrive, unwrapped the black plastic tape from around it, removed its three blue bumpers, andbecause I understood that the drive was encased in a Compact Flash caseplugged it into my USB LaCie Hexa Media Drive.

Lo (and, may I add, behold), the microdrive mounted on my Mac's Desktop, just as a good removable drive should. Because the drive had been formatted with the iPod mini 1.0 Updater, it displayed the icon of the mini and contained all the items you'd normally find on an iPod's hard drive: the Contacts, Calendars, and Notes folders, along with the invisible folder that holds the iPod's music.

Despite its mini icon, the drive could not be formatted with the iPod mini 1.0 Updater when mounted by my card reader, but I had no trouble formatting it as an HFS+ volume with Mac OS X 10.3's Disk Utility.

As we go to press, these drives cost upward of $500 when sold separately. Some digital-camera owners have purchased the iPod mini and Creative's Nomad MuVo2 (which uses the same Hitachi drive) to pluck the drives from the music players and use them with their cameras.

Those who tried this trick with early models of the MuVo2 were rewarded with a drive that worked in some digital cameras. If you attempted the same feat with an iPod mini, you met with less success. Apple mucked with the drive's firmware in such a way that it wouldn't work in another device. My understanding is that since Hitachi had a stern talk with Creativeand Creative made a few adjustments at the factorythe drives in newer MuVo2's follow the mini's proprietary example and no longer work in digital cameras.

The Circuit Board

The mini's circuit board (Figures 10.17 and 10.18) sports a host of very tiny chips. Among them, you'll find:

The FireWire controller chip.
Apple also uses a Texas Instruments FireWire controller chip in the mini. The TSB41AB1 on this iPod, however, is much smaller than the chip used in the original iPods.

The SDRAM chip.
This is the same Samsung K4S561633C-RL75 32 MB SDRAM chip used in third-generation iPods.

The Central Processing Unit (CPU).
Apple uses a very interesting chip for the mini's CPU. The PortalPlayer PP5020 chip supports encoding and decoding of not only MP3, AAC, and [ACELP.NET] (format used by [Audible.com]) files, but also files in the Windows Media audio format, (.wma). Additionally, the chip can decode JPEG and MJPEG graphics files. And yes, the inclusion of this chip hints that the iPod will one day support displaying graphics.

The Digital Audio Converter (DAC) chip.
The mini uses the same DAC chip as the third-generation iPods: the Wolfson Microelectronics WM8731.

It's What's Inside That Counts: Disassembling the iPod mini

These iPods are incredibly difficult to crack. Without the able assistance of Greg Koenig, who described his experiences on [iPodLounge.com] ([www.ipodlounge.com/articles_more.php?id=3059_0_8_0_C]), and a hint or two posted on [iPoding.com] ([www.ipoding.com]), my mini would not have lived to play another day.

Given my experience, I can't imagine how anyone could open a mini without leaving obvious traces behind. Not only did I break my mini during the operation, but I left obvious evidence of my endeavors in the form of a badly scarred case. Please read the sidebar "It's What's Inside (That You're Likely to Break) That Counts: Disassembling the Third- and Fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, and iPod mini" before undertaking this procedure.

Tools you'll need

1.5mm flat-head screwdriver

Philips #000 screwdriver

Needle-nose pliers

Internal snap-ring pliers

Hair dryer

The operation

1. Turn off the iPod, and engage its Hold switch so that it doesn't turn on while you're working on it.

2. Switch the hair dryer to low, point it at the top of the iPod mini, and allow the case to get hot to the touch.

The top and bottom plates of the mini are held in place not only by friction, but also by glue. You're heating the mini in the hope of melting that glue to the point where it's more pliable. If you fail to loosen the glue's grip, you'll scar these plates badly.

3. Squeeze the sides of the mini's case in the hope of exposing a small gap between the plastic plate and the side; then insert the flat-head screwdriver into this gap and carefully run it around the edge, prying up gently as you go.

You may hear a faint snapping sound, which means that the plastic tabs that hold the plate in place are coming away from the case.

4. When the plate is loose all the way around, pry straight up to remove it.

If you pry the plate away at an angle, you'll break the internal Hold switch.

5. Repeat this procedurehair dryer, prying, straight upfor the bottom plate.

At the bottom of the mini, you'll find a sheet-metal plate that fits into a groove carved on the inside of the mini (Figure 10.19).

6. To remove this plate, insert the points of the snap-ring pliers into the two holes on one side of the metal plate; squeeze the pliers; and gently pull up to dislodge the plate. Repeat for the other side of the plate and then remove it.

You can find internal snap-ring pliers at an auto-supply shop for less than $10.

7. Use the flat-head screwdriver to pry up (gently) and detach the orange ribbon connector that's marked Molex (Figure 10.20).

This ribbon cable connects the scroll wheel to the mini's motherboard. If you fail to disconnect this ribbon cable, you'll destroy your mini when you remove the guts from the outer shell.

8. Move to the top of the mini, and use the Philips screwdriver to remove the two minuscule screws on each end of the top plate (Figure 10.21).

Put these screws in a safe place. They're so tiny that if you drop them, they're gone for good.

9. Go back to the bottom of the mini, and gently push forward on the bottom of the connector you see to propel the mini's innards out the top of the case (Figure 10.22).

If you meet with any resistance, double-check that the scroll-wheel ribbon cable is completely disconnected.

10. To remove the battery, flip the inside assembly over so that the display is facing down; grip the battery connector on the top-right corner of the mini (as the mini's top is facing away from you) with the needle-nose pliers; and pull up gently.

Pull up on the left side of the battery until it pulls away from the sticky pad beneath it.

11. To remove the hard drive, disconnect the orange ribbon cable that's attached to the motherboard.

12. To reassemble the mini, reverse these steps.

Additional notes and warnings

When you slide the innards back into the mini's case, you'll meet with slight resistancebut only slight. When I put mine back together, the bottom of a rubber grommet that surrounds the display caught on the scroll-wheel assembly and peeled up. I was unable to reattach it, so I had to cut that section away. In hindsight, I should have backed out and tried again the moment I felt more than that slight resistance.

Unless you plan to tear your mini apart on a regular basis, you should be prepared to reglue the top and bottom plates. I haven't a clue what sort of adhesive Apple uses in these things, but it grips like the devil. A good electronics shop can recommend a brand of goo that's likely to do the job.

Before pushing the top plate back into position, be sure that its Hold switch is in the Hold position. The tabs on the bottom of the plate must line up with the internal Hold switch; if they don't, you could break the switch.

It's What's Inside (That You're Likely to Break) That Counts: Disassembling the Third- and Fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, and iPod mini

After taking a long look at the instructions for pulling apart the white iPods and iPod mini, you may be tempted to try it yourself.

Unless you have a really good reason for doing so, please don't.

While I was disassembling my first third-generation iPod to take the pictures you see in these pages, I broke both the internal hold toggle switch and the audio connector cable. Although I can still play audio through the iPod via the Dock's Line Out port, with a dead headphone port, remote port, and Hold switch, my iPod can no longer be termed a portable music player.

Initially, I had better luck with my mini, but its top and bottom are pretty well trashed. (Apple's reps will do little more than laugh uproariously if I attempt to take this mini in for service.) When I performed the operation a second time, I completely trashed it.

So given my misfortune, why do I present these peeks inside the iPod?

To satisfy your curiosity (and keep you from doing it yourself).

To benefit those of you who really need to open your iPods.

And what conditions should be met before you have a real need to open an iPod?

The iPod is out of warranty.

It's dead.

To illustrate my point, allow me to relate yet another personal story.

It just so happens that this book's publisher, Nancy Ruenzel, had an iPod that met both these conditions. Her 20 GB, second-generation iPod had recently celebrated its first birthday (and, thus, outlived its warranty). A dinner companion accidentally spilled red wine on the device while it was playing. It immediately stopped playing.

After she related her tale of woe, I did my best to get in good with the boss by offering every troubleshooting technique I could think of. Nothing worked. This was one dead iPod.

My final message to her consisted of one word:

"eBay."

Apple's claim that there are no user-serviceable parts inside an iPod is correct. There are, however, user-salvageable parts inside your iPod, and that, dear reader, is why I sent Nancy to eBay. Salvaging a perfectly good battery and hard drive from an otherwise-dead iPod to sell them to another iPod owner who needs such components is a darned good reason for opening your iPod. Apple charges a premium for "repairing" iPods (in fact, Apple doesn't repair them, but replaces them with new or refurbished models), and you may find that you do better by selling your iPod for parts and using the money you earn to help pay for a new iPod.

And, of course, there will come a day when your iPod's battery expires, and you'd like to replace it with a battery from one of the outfits I mention earlier in the chapter.

How Much Abuse Can the iPod Take?

A final personal story:

In my duties as a contributing editor for Macworld magazine, I was tasked with the job of stress-testing one of the original 5 GB iPods. Because these early iPods didn't ship with a belt clip, case, or armband, my editor felt that it was Macworld's duty to see how much abuse an iPod could take before it finally played its last MP3. Heartbreaking as it was to subject such a beautiful gadget to such treatment, I accepted the assignment.

I devised four tests, each of which involved dropping the iPod onto a hard surface. To replicate real-world situations, I determined to drop the iPod onto a slab of cement from waist-high, drop the iPod while jogging on a paved road, drop the iPod from a bicycle traveling approximately 25 mph, and drop that iPod from that same bicycle at 30 mph. The iPod was playing during all these tests.

Because I didn't have four iPods to sacrifice, I performed the tests on a single iPodwhich, of course, calls the results into question due to the factor of accumulated damage. For this reason, I didn't send the results to the Pulitzer committee.

The results were:

Dropped from waist-high, with bottom plate facing down.
The iPod continued to play. But the front plastic was dinged, and the back was scratched.

Dropped while jogging, with the iPod held with ports facing skyward.
The iPod continued to play. The side of the back case was dented and pulled slightly away from the front. The back plate did not fit snugly after being pushed back into place.

Dropped from a bicycle at25mph, with the bottom plate facing down .
The iPod continued to play. The back plate was severely scratched and dented. The back plate pulled even farther away from the front. The back plate did not fit snugly after being pushed back into place.

Dropped from a bicycle at30mph, with the ports facing skyward .
The iPod stopped playingand flew apart in spectacular fashion. The back plate fell off, as did the front scroll wheel and Select button. When it was reassembled, the iPod displayed the Sad iPod icon and could not be revived.

Depending on whether yours is a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full personality, you can view these results in two ways: You can be disappointed that the iPod eventually died, or you can be impressed that it suffered four separate instances of violent abuse before it finally met its maker.

Personally, I was pleased that the iPod took such a licking and kept on ticking. That doesn't mean, however, that I'd transport my iPod without a padded case equipped with a belt clip.