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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Music Apple Hardware

iPod Mini Design Flaw? 384

Posted by michael from the caveat-lector dept.
terradyn writes "Over at iPodlounge they've discovered that the iPod mini's have a major issue with their headphone jacks. It looks like the jacks connection to the main system board is extremely poorly engineered and so normal use will wear it out and cause lots of static after around 35-40 days... If any pressure on your iPod Mini results in crackling and static, you should return your iPod immediately to an Apple store for a free replacement. They're also theorizing over in the forums that the iPod Mini shortage may be a cover for this problem..." Update: 04/12 01:08 GMT by T : billybob writes "Someone in the forum thread originally linked to has posted pictures of the iPod taken apart, demonstrating the problem."
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iPod Mini Design Flaw? More

iPod Mini Design Flaw?

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  • now it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)

    by McAddress ( 673660 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:42PM (#8833229)
    When I was at the Apple store 2 weeks back getting a new iBook battery, I remember some guy came in having trouble with the headphones b/c of static. I am betting that was related.

    • Re:now it makes sense (Score:3, Informative)

      by wwwillem ( 253720 )
      Most people in this discussion focus on the headphone plug, but as that guy who ripped apart his mini iPod states: the problem is the connector(s) between the two PCB's that's at fault. That connector should have been flexible or the case should have been rigid. Both not being the case, the soldering points of the connector start to crack.
      • I had the same issue with my Pismo (Bronze) Powerbook. My solution was to take out the audio board (a very small piece) and take it to an electronics repair shop. The guy there resoldered it, no charge, and it has been fine since. Apparently the factory solder connections were a bit thin.

  • Testing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vwjeff ( 709903 )
    I'm not surprised. Apple must not have done much testing of the mini before they started shipping it.

    • Re:Testing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:47PM (#8833268)
      Either that, or they didn't do any field testing. If you just hit the buttons, you'll be okay. These failures are happening after the case has been exposed to the normal tensions it'd get being in somebody's pocket... did they do that test?

      You can do a lot of testing and still overlook a problem if you're not looking for it.

    • Re:Testing (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Grant29 ( 701796 )
      I thought a lot of companies did the torture tests where they drop the unit, vibrate it, spash water, repeatedly hit the buttons, etc... I wonder if they did 35-40 days worth of real-life testing. They are an experienced company and they probably did. If not, it was a huge oversight.

      --
      Retail Retreat [retailretreat.com]

  • Finally! An excuse... (Score:5, Funny)

    by michaelnz ( 701047 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:43PM (#8833243) Homepage
    to punch that annoying jogger who wants to "jack in" and "check out my tunes!"

  • That's what you get... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:44PM (#8833247)
    ...for being cheap and uber-stylish. For $50 more you could have had a regular iPod with way more storage, but noooooo, you HAD to get an Apple MP3 player in something other than white!

  • There is another flaw (Score:5, Informative)

    by PowerEdge ( 648673 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:44PM (#8833250)
    The Ipod Mini freezes costantly. This was supposedly fixed in pre-production but my mini and many other's mini locks up several times a day.

  • plug the analog hole (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:45PM (#8833255)
    This wouldn't happen if the headphone connection was digital, encrypted, with error correction, as it should be in DRM. Told you so.

  • oh the conspiracies.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by narkotix ( 576944 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:45PM (#8833261)
    Its all one grand unified ipod conspiracy if ya tell me...the shortage...the colours....u know its all related to the greys and the smoking man too! Better get my tin foil ipod cover out.

  • not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:48PM (#8833272)
    Well, sounds like a case of dry solder joints to me, which means the solder used to connect parts to the motherboard has not been correctly applied and/or heated, leaving it weak. Could also be a simple socket retention issue.

    The good news is that this is usually easily fixable, opening the device and re-heating the joints that connect the socket to the board, maybe also applying a little epoxy to reinforce the socket, as a little movement can agrivate the problem.

    The bad news is that if the soldering is not up to spec, the entire device could suffer from long term unreliability, especially in a device that will see constant movement and vibration, such as this..

    Possibly they have used a surface mount socket with only the solder connections to retain it, and it really needed some form of positive retention because the case is not strong enough to provide the rest - this would make it a little harder to fix by resoldering, but the theory is the same.

    After all, it's not really a DIFFICULT problem in engineering, if this problem is happening a lot then someone has REALLY dropped the ball here.

    • Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Neon Spiral Injector ( 21234 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:58PM (#8833376)
      I've seen this problem on so many consumer electronics. I've always called the points cold solder joints, but the same thing.

      I don't understand why manufacturers continue to attach jacks to the main boards with just solder. There is no way around it, they will crack. It could be after a year or so, or as these owners have found, just over a month. If they'd just put a bit of epoxy under the jack, so that is what actually holds it to the board, and the solder is there to conduct the electricity, like it was designed to, the problem would be solved.

      As a matter of fact, that is how I usually solve the problem on my devices that break. When I'd just touch up the solder joints the problem would always return. But after I took to totally desolding the jack, adding a little epoxy under it, then resolding, they don't break again.

      • Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw.slashdot@ ... inus threevowels> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:48PM (#8833745)
        First, solder is quite adequate to hold a headphone jack in place. If it cracks, it means it's either a bad solder joint (possibly aggravated by an improperly designed PCB or case) or a badly designed jack. Apple might have used some kind of miniaturized jack that is too small to work adequately, or they might have screwed up the case design so the jack comes under undue stress.

        Second, you can't just introduce extra assembly stages in a mass-produced design without incurring significant cost. So that's why jacks, switches, and so on are usually soldered to a circuit board.

      • Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by goodie3shoes ( 573521 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:10PM (#8834299)
        Sadly, this isn't a new problem. It's been around since the Walkperson debuted. The real culprit is that the 1/8"/3.5 mm jack is a POS and any force on the plug will eventually break either the solder joints themselves or the circuit-board traces (tracks in the UK) to which they connect.The person that suggested glueing the body of the jack to the board is on the right track. A more-robust jack design is needed, but that would cost more.

      • design mantra.... (Score:4, Informative)

        by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:20PM (#8834748) Journal
        I worked on satellites and the design mantra there was "solder is never a mechanical fastener". Any component with any mass had be to bolted, epoxied, or tied down. The exception was dip packages, but they have a high pin-to-mass ratio.

      • Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:22PM (#8834767) Homepage Journal
        That's a good tip, but the whole reason we chose Macs in the first place was so we'd have "Everything Just Work" and we wouldn't HAVE to "pull a Linux" and solder stuff ourselves.

        Plus I burn myself easy and my brother says he can't cover for me anymore, he's got his own life and doesn't have time to wire up all my broken stuff for me anymore.
    • I had an Archos Jukebox 6000 and it had a solder joint problem. It wasn't with the audio output but the power supply connection. The solder connection between two boards was bad. I opened it up, fixed that, and that was the end of that problem.

      Unfortunately this iPod Mini problem seems more severe. Due to the design too much stress is put on the connection and if you fixed it I'm sure it'd break again soon enough. Plus eventually something that you couldn't fix easily might break, either from the dis

    • If you could easily open the case without voiding waranty or damaging the mini iPod, this would be the case. But since you can't, it isn't as easily fixable in practice. I don't see many people taking this path, even not the ones that can handle soldering irons.

      Anyways, many problems with devices are not hard from an engeneering standpoint. Same with software etc.. It just takes someone to remember to check against going standards. Ok, I am off glueing my balance turning wheel of my receiver into place...

  • The Cause (Score:5, Informative)

    by Raindance ( 680694 ) * <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:48PM (#8833277) Homepage Journal
    The predicted cause for this is that everything inside the IPM case is connected to the case with flexible rubber-like stuff, *except* the headphone jack (which is connected rigidly- standard practice for headphone jacks but unfortunate here).

    Repeated stress on the case, then, puts stress on the headphone jack and eventually it may lead to the audio problems expressed at iPodlounge.

    This should be an extremely easy fix for future IPM revisions, and I'd imagine Apple will be taking care of their customers.

    As a sidenote, I had an iBook's logic board fail out of warranty due to a manufacturing flaw and I called Apple on I heard that Apple the flaw- they sent me a box, postage prepaid, in which to send my iBook back, repaired it, and sent it back to me. No money out of my pocket. Very cool.

    • Re:The Cause (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:56PM (#8833360) Homepage Journal
      Apple can be good about that sort of thing.

      I had an Airport base station die on me last summer because of a design flaw in the power supply. The thing was almost three years out of warranty. Called Apple, and they Airborne Expressed me a refurb'd replacement the next day, and told me to use the box it came in to ship the old one back to them, at no cost to me. Way cool.

      • Re:The Cause (Score:2, Insightful)

        by dn15 ( 735502 )
        >> The thing was almost three years out of warranty

        OK, so I know I'm helping turn this into a Apple-praise session, but here we go...

        Several years ago I bought a PowerBook 5300c refurbished. It had some major problems down the road. (The 5300 had lots of known issues.) Easily three or more years after purchasing it, I took it to the local Mac Store [csnw.com] (The Computer Store, then.) They sent it off to Apple and about a week later it came back with a new motherboard and part of the plastics replace

      • Re:The Cause (Score:3, Insightful)

        by madmancarman ( 100642 )
        I had an Airport base station die on me last summer because of a design flaw in the power supply. The thing was almost three years out of warranty. Called Apple, and they Airborne Expressed me a refurb'd replacement the next day, and told me to use the box it came in to ship the old one back to them, at no cost to me. Way cool.

        Some revisions of the Airport base station also had a weak capacitor that was only rated for 1000 hours. I found this out when I was trying to figure out why my friend's kept blin

    • Re:The Cause (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > The first step to accepting a viewpoint is accepting its implicit ontology or framework.
      > Beware of poor frameworks.

      Pretentious? Moi?

  • Apple is not unique in this problem. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maeka ( 518272 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:49PM (#8833285) Journal
    I can't think of a single portable music player that I have owned in the last 20 years that did not suffer from this problem. Indeed, it is the fear of such a problem that has kept me from buying any MP3 player.

    Everything from an original Sony Walkman, to discount store AM/FM radios, to expensive Sony and Phillips CD players have suffered from this annoying loose headphone jack disease. Some may suffer earlier than others, but none have survived without a little home soldering work more than a year.

  • I was in the Apple Store at The Grove a few weeks ago and I tried out a mini and it sounded just terrible with so much static. I'm guessing that's what happened to it. Looks pretty bad on them to have a broken demo heheh.

  • iPod engineering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:52PM (#8833329)
    My impression is that the engineers at Apple that work on the iPod are rarely stopped on the street and mistaken for Steve Wozniak.

    The battery-life meters on the 3rd-generation iPods are nothing short of random, and now this. For what they're charging for these things, why doesn't the battery indicator work as well as the one on my two-year-old $49 cell phone?

    • Re:iPod engineering (Score:5, Informative)

      by SchnauzerGuy ( 647948 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:38PM (#8834865)
      For a more accurate battery guage, create an empty file called "_show_voltage" (no quotes) in iPod_Control\Device.

      For 3G iPods with the latest firmware, this will cause the default battery meter to be replaced with a digital voltage display, in 1/10th volts. So a fully charged iPod might display 500 (5.00V), while a nearly dead iPod will be under 200 (2.00V).
    • For what they're charging for these things, why doesn't the battery indicator work as well as the one on my two-year-old $49 cell phone?

      Maybe because what the iPod does is a lot more complicated, and uses the battery in a less predictable way. Hard drives, with their spinning up and down all the time, can make battery life difficult to estimate.

      In particular, every time you select a new song, the hard drive has to spin up for reading, wasting a lot of energy. If you don't skip songs too frequently, your

  • Thank God! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:54PM (#8833338) Homepage Journal
    Thank God it is only a mini design flaw! I thought for a while that it might be some major flaw. Fortunately, that was not the case. I can sleep tonight.
  • Well, all you uber-stylish yuppies wanted us to get rid of the lead, so we did. Now you get to deal with the cold-solder joint problems.

  • That's why it's called the bleeding edge... (Score:5, Informative)

    by BigFlirt ( 632867 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:57PM (#8833369) Homepage Journal
    I don't know who is and who isn't aware of this rule of thumb, but working at a big Mac development house (no McDonald's jokes plz) taught me one thing. Never ever EVER (shake a baby) buy first revision Apple products. Since the beginning of time, I think Apple has looked at people who buy their newest line not as their first line of customers, but their last team of product testers.

    Nearly every Apple product that I've seen come out in the past five years, I've known someone that has to return a Revision A product because Apple just dropped the ball on one thing or another. Don't get me wrong, their products are quite amazing and I'm envious of all my Apple fanatic friends that have everything, but if you're going to be on the bleeding edge and pre-order things before Apple's even done making them, of course you're going to see something wrong with the first batch. If you think otherwise, then why don't you try to release an idiot-proof product to people that want their mp3s automagically synced from their work desktop to their iPod to their car to their laptop to their servers to their friend's computers in the UK. ("it's on my .mac account, why can't you see it on your desktop!?!?")

    ...but I ramble...

  • Mini shortage and Apple Awareness (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aacool ( 700143 ) <aamanlamba2gmail...com> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:04PM (#8833429) Journal
    The throwaway comment at the end of the OP " They're also theorizing over in the forums that the iPod Mini shortage may be a cover for this problem..." is interesting, if true. That would be mal-whatever on Apple's part if they KNEW about the problem in a batch/all of the Minis and did not announce this earlier, and let out a cover story related to shortage...

    Also, how does an issue like this get addressed for international customers? I'm guessing Apple has the policy of free shipping, etc only for US-based customers.

  • Usage problem with 1st Gen iPod (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sithkhan ( 536425 ) <sithkhan@gmail.com> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:13PM (#8833490)
    I have this EXACT problem with my 1st generation iPod. There is a hard plastic collar around the jack, and after three months of pocket-related stress, the jack began to hiss and the left channel began to fade in and out. I KNOW Apple did not forsee this design flaw in the first gereation. I have not had the pleasure of usiong the second or third generations to compare. I simply mess with the plug until the music returns. Too bad there is not a Firewire headphone. That would be kick ass!
    • Could just be dirty. Try cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol or deoxit. This solves most crackly headphone jack issues.
    • I, too, had this problem with my 1st gen 5 gig iPod. I fixed it by buying a $5 radio shack headphone splitter. Voila, no more flaky headphone business.

      (Mine had actually gotten to the point where the all-metal jack of my Sony MDR-V6 headphones would cause the device to short out and shut down, as the plastic rim had completely broken off.)

  • Mechanical Problems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2@@@earthshod...co...uk> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:13PM (#8833492)
    It sounds as though the jack socket is prone to dry joints where it solders to the board. Either that, or the contacts are losing their springiness after a few insertion cycles.

    Dry joints can be repaired "while-U-wait" in any suitably-equipped workshop -- or at home, but it's fiddly and I'd be reluctant to open up such an expensive precision instrument {and anyway, 30-40 days is well within the 12 month statutory guarantee period}.

    I'm guessing that the PCB would be double-side surface mounted, reflow soldering both sides. The long-term solution is going to require a PCB redesign and new solder paste masks -- either too much solder or too little solder can cause poor joints; and maybe they should spec a socket with a plastic lug on the underside passing through a hole in the board, which would give it a bit more stability. Using a traditional socket with through-hole pins would be even more secure, especially if dummy pins were added for mechanical support, but would require an additional operation to hand-solder it in place.

    It's understandable that Apple is using delaying tactics, as it will probably require a long round of accelerated testing to determine exactly what the problem is and how best to fix it. {I used to work in the R&D department of a company which designed and made electronic control modules, by the way}.

  • Similar experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bperkins ( 12056 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:32PM (#8833620) Homepage Journal
    My brother has a first generation iPod (not a mini) that has the same problem. It was out of warranty, so I attempeted to fix for him.

    The only thing holding the surface mount jack onto the board was the solder connections, and it seemed to me that the solder was unusually soft. You could push it around pretty easily with a pair of sharp tweezers.

    I can't say that I was impressed with the design and execution.

  • Warranty? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Meneudo ( 661337 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @08:00PM (#8833843)
    As with all products, no matter who makes them, you should probably buy a warranty if none is provided. Fortuantly, all Apple hardware products come with a one-year limited warranty [apple.com] against defects. So before you flame, remember that your product is probably in warranty, and that Apple would be more than happy to replace it because they desire your business.

  • magnetic attachment? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 )
    I have a question. Is it possible to have just a flat surface magnet to magnet connection in lieu of these banana-type jacks? If so, that might be a better way to do these attachments. I just don't know if you can get the signal through, or if the magnetic field would distort it too much, or whatever. Ya, I know, maybe hard to make it stereo even if possible. Just wondering is all. I've seen these wimpy things go screwy before too on other gadgets.

  • iPod Mini design flaw (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fazookus ( 770354 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @08:48PM (#8834137)
    Apple needs to spend less money on 'designers' and more on 'engineers'. Disclaimer: I have a Powerbook and an iPod, this is tough love speaking here. Faz

  • /. effect (Score:3, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:46PM (#8834515) Journal
    Update: 04/12 01:08 GMT by T: billybob writes "Someone in the forum thread originally linked to has posted pictures of the iPod taken apart, demonstrating the problem."

    Update: 04/12 01:09 GMT by T_allardyce: The pictures are now down, demonstrating the slashdot problem.

  • Everyone knows that... (Score:3, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:57PM (#8834572) Journal
    This sort of thing wouldnt happen if it was ogg based!

  • Hah! Apple rips off Sony! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:10PM (#8834682) Homepage
    Pshaw - so much for Apple's superb engineering innovation!

    Sony has for many years been the leader in crappy minijack technology. Just ask anyone who has used a microphone with one of their minidisc recorders!

  • warning! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @12:18AM (#8835405)
    Do not follow the last link if you have a weak heart! It describes a brutal vivisection of an Ipod Mini, the man has no mercy at all! Furthermore, it links to pictures showing it's private parts, dismembered!

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