The Guts Of An iPod

The Infamous Grimace writes: "The folks at this Japanese web site have provided pics of the inside of an iPod. A quick breakdown of it in English is here. The FireWire contoller appears to be TIs TSB43AA82, the chip is PortalPlayers PP5002B w/ an ARM7TDMI-based core. Apparently it has encoding abilities as well. The hard-drive is Toshiba's MK5002MAL."

*sigh*

[jpellino]

this is why i got out of biology - all the guts!

oh, the humanity!

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Jeffrey Baker]

I don't really want to replace the entire operating system in my iPod, but I *would* like to get Ogg Vorbis playback support. Does anyone know how this thing boots; from a ROM or from the hard disk or both?

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[j-beda]

Well, now some Windows users can "feel the pain" just like Mac and Linux people have been feeling for years when support for some nifty thing is not offered. Maybe it is some sort of "justice" :-)

Anyhow, it seems likely that the supply of the components might be a little tight for a while, so it makes sense to set the price high and sell it to the faithfull for a little while, before dropping the price and making it more widely available. It does Apple no good to make it available for Windows or at a low price but then not be able to meet the demand. Much better to hold off and make it available to Windows and/or drop the price later when the supplies grow.

Then again, they already sell a number of very nice things such as their LCD monitors that will not (easily) work on anything other than a modern Mac. Why should this be any different? If you want one I suppose you can hack your own support into your system of choice, eh?

Re:Translated Version

[damiam]

Just because it's karma-whoring doesn't mean it's not useful. Posts like that one are modded up because they are useful, and whether or not they're karma whores is irrelevent.

Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[FooBarney]

I have to laugh every time i hear someone in Slashdot forums or the media talk about how Apple's killing themselves by making the iPod Mac-only. True, they ARE limiting their market to less than 5% of computer owners, but there's one thing no one seems to get:

Apple didn't create the iPod to sell iPods. They created it to sell Macs.

Interface used to be a compelling reason to pick a Mac over a Wintel box--the Mac OS was just THAT much better. Say what you want about Windows ... for the average user, that's just not true any more. The Windows 98/ME/2000/XP experience ain't so bad. So Apple needs a new compelling reason to make users buy their products.

In short, they need to offer things that you can ONLY do on a Mac. They've already done a few of these things ... Mac OS X's UNIX roots offer some unique features, and tight integration with iTools is great. Apple's future strategy is to make a Mac a "digital hub" ... to sell lots of little electronic gadgets for home users with a Mac at their center. Apple's key technologies (early 802.11 adoption, FireWire) are uniquely suited to tying together digital devices.

In short, every columnist and reviewer who criticizes Apple for making iPod Mac-only is just doing their work for them. That kind of criticism is EXACTLY what Apple needs right now ... it just amounts to more people shouting out "here's something you can only do on a Mac."

Plus, the iPod is all shiny. I like shiny.

Will the iPod last?

[ioman1]

I think this could be Apple's attempt to promote their personal computers through a device that requires an Apple. Intel has been trying to do this with their consumer electronics line for the past 2 years. They failed miserably. Hopefully Apple does it right this time.

A few thoughts on the matter

[The Infamous Grimace]

When the iPod first came out, it was decried as yet another soon-to-be-discontinued Apple experiment. It was called over-priced and under-valued. Many were the posts that blasted it as too niche for even Apples niche market. Now, suddenly, we hear people asking for a Windows version of iTunes, and can it run Linux (or BSD). We hear that the drive it uses retails for the same as the iPod itself. The iPod may in fact be the breakthrough that Jobs claims it is (ok, maybe not, but closer than people thought it was a week ago). Here's why -

Anyone who may have been considering purchasing a Toshiba MK5002MAL will now give MUCH greater consideration to buying an iPod instead. I know it's not as easy to switch out as a 'true' PCMCIA device, but even if you don't have a Mac, you can still use it as a FW drive. This will drive sales up considerably - there is a market for it outside the Mac world even without iTunes and its MP3 capabilities. And how long before someone hacks it, makes it work with other OSes.

Know what I think? I think Apple SHOULD release a Windows version of iTunes, and CHARGE FOR IT! How long have Mac users had to pay extra to play with Windows? VPC, SoftWindows, Orange Micro PCI adapter cards, MacLink, the list goes on. Well, you know what, Windows users? If you want the ease, the function, and yes, the glitz and shiny baubles, then BUY APPLE! Or else commence hacking...

In addition, one easter egg has already been discovered - the game Breakout! is hidden within. MacAddict [macaddict.com]reports on it, as does MacityNet. [macitynet.it] Who knows what other goodies lurk within, or that Apple will release for it. I, for one, do not believe that an MP3 player is all that Apple has planned for it. We've had a few pleasant surprises since it's previewing, who knows what will happen once it's released to the general public. I, for one, want one VERY much.

Santa? I've been a REAL good boy this year, I swear...

(tig)

Re:Yeah but. . .

[Spruitje]

So, you think that what is the law in the US tomorrow won't be the law in your country the day after, eh?


Well, we still don't have something like the DMCA here in Europe.
And if I want to buy a regioncode free DVD-player I can buy one almost anywhere.
There is no law which makes this illegal.
Second, don't forget that most European country's don't have the best government money can buy (-; .
If you want to be free then don't move to the USA.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[mcspock]

I posted this on another thread, but i'll explain more here.

Apple created iPod to make a profit on iPod. They did not create iPods to break even on iPod and proliferate the mac platform, nor did they create iPod to take a loss on iPod and proliferate the mac platform.

At the very worst, Apple is avoiding additional software costs on the iPod project by leaving it as Mac only and not worrying about other platforms. But the truth here is that Apple did not make a $400 MP3 player so they could sell more $800 desktop computers. That would be the most ludicrous marketing campaign ever, since any company could come out with a $500 MP3 player next month with superior features, support all platforms, and invalidate any need to purchase both a mac and a computer.

I really dont understand why people think this is unique to a Mac. If you look at what's really going on here, Apple outsourced a lot of the work on the iPod. Chances are, the companies that did this work retained some rights to the work they did. So, if any other company wants to make an MP3 player, they could easily come in with a similar offering to the iPod, at a similar price, with whatever customizations they want, by simply contacting the companies Apple outsourced the work to.

Really, honestly, wake up and smell the maple nut crunch.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[swgs]

Outsourced most of the work? how so? like they used other people's chipsets and hardware? go look at a Power Mac G4 logic board, its got Texas Instrument chip sets, motorola, IBM, and a few other smaller comapnies. apple really doesnt make many chipsets of their own, there was a time when they did more of that, but it was dumb and costly.

so yes they used outside hardware, as they do 90% of the time. so what did apple do themselves? well how about the design? how about putting it all together to work so perfectly? how about the easiest MP3 player interface ever to be released today!

ive heard many people talking about the archaos MP3 player, have you ever navigated through over 1000 songs on there, looking for one paticulair song? its a nightmare! apple knows interfaces, they are one of the best at it, its so easy with the ipod.

before i let ya go, id like to address your BOLD statement. "Apple did not make a $400 MP3 player so they could sell more $800 desktop computers". you are very right my friend, they did not do it to sell 800 dollar boxes, cause apple wishes they didnt even have to sell an 800 dollar box. they want this to increase the sale of iBooks and Power Books and Power Macs and top of the line iMacs. of course they are making some money off the iPod, but its all about selling macs, thats all its EVER about with Apple. i gurantee you that.

Re:PortalPlayer

[mr100percent]

Apple will not upgrade thier players to do that.
First, mp3 is built into their iTunes encoder, along with AIFF. It's a good format to them.

Second, Steve Jobs said he does not believe technology will prevent piracy. "It's a behavorial issue, not a technology issue." On every iPod box, there is a label inside saying "Don't Steal Music."

I would be VERY suprised if they put in some form of circumvention. Maybe if the guard changes in 10 years...

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[MasterVidBoi]

I think there is another factor here, just as important as the iPod being mac only.

Sure, Nomads are going to keep selling, just because they're 20 gigs vs. 5 gigs, but do you think people are going to continue to put up with USB transfer after they've seen what FireWire can do?

Apple gets a royalty from every firewire port sold... Six months from now, will you even consider a mp3 player that has USB over one that has firewire, once all the other companies get FW into their products? Of course not, 10 minutes vs a day to transfer all your music is pretty significant.

The iPod is going to have an incredible effect on FireWire's consumer adoption, even more for PC users than mac users. USB2 may have just had yet another stake driven into it's heart.

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[shandrew]

The case isn't cheap. The engineering and design involved in putting it all together isn't cheap. Quality components are not cheap. The OS development isn't cheap. Also, selling price is set mostly by market forces rather than by costs.

PC-clone makers don't need to do any of this. They just buy commodity parts, assemble them, and the most expensive component they have is Windows. For consumer machines, their goal is to have the biggest MHz number and CD/DVD speed rating.

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[stripes]

So the question is, why is an entry level 600MHz iMac *so* expensive if the screen, hard drive, memory, video, etc, are all commodity parts?

Part could be they tend to use high quality parts (e.g. the monitor on the iMac may be small but it has far less edge distortion then the small monitors I see at CompUSA, and better color then most of them). They could get away from that by making a "craptastic" Mac, but would it help them to convince people that Mac's are better by selling them something bad? (Note: many people already think this about the iMac, or about leaving SCSI for IDE, or...still one has to admit that many parts of the iMacs are not the cheap parts that the "value" PCs use)

Part of it may be they have to spread the design costs over a smaller number of sales. It costs X dollars to make a new motherboard chipset. If you take Apple's claim of 5% market share as fact, then a PC part has the potential of having 20 times as many people to spread the design costs and other NREs over then a Mac part. So the "northbridge" is going to have a lot more cost charged to each buyer then one from SiS. They can combat that a little by only having a few different parts there (say one for the whole iMac line, maybe shared with the iBook, one for the 1st gen TiBook, one for the 2nd gen TiBook and the G4's...), the PC market's five or so chip makers still have more people to spread the NREs over... There are also NREs for each machine. Again Apple can make that hurt a little less by only having four lines of machine and only 2, 3, or 4 in each line vs. the N bizzilian PCs, it still hurts a bit.

Apple also has to pay more for quality control. They make a fairly wide array of products, and they all have to work together because they can't point their fingers at as many other people. If you buy an HP PC and it sucks, when you call they can point their finger at the maker of the app (most bundled Apps on a PC are not made by the PC maker, Apple tends to ship largely their own software, or software branded as theirs), failing that they can point their finger at Microsoft (or wash their hands of you if you have Linux), Apple can only blame themselves for the OS...

Apple also seems to do more research then most places, and that costs. It also pays though.

Lastly, Apple has higher profit margins then PC makers (except in the server market). It makes sense to me for them to trim those to the bone on the low end iMac, but who knows if they do.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[t]

Oh yes, lets say it enough times until it becomes fact.

I heard apple is paying $100 per drive. It must be true, I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy on /. who heard it from his nephew who heard it from his classmate who heard it from his little brothers baby sitter who heard it from her hair dresser who heard it from a woman whose husband works at apple.

Thank you for the useless and factless speculation.

t.

Re:Yeah but. . .

[ryanr]

Well, we still don't have something like the DMCA here in Europe.

Depends on what part of Europe. Unfortunately, if your country is a signatory to the convention regarding intellectual property (I wanted to say berne Convention, but I'm not sure that's correct), then your government may be obliged to pass a law equivalent to whatever idiot legislation we pass here to "protect" copyright owners.

Re:The underlying theme

[iso]

They got me to switch. I didn't really like OS 9 (it seemed to limiting and a lot of the features seemed "tacked on"), but OS X is phenomenal. Sure the Mac was more expensive than another x86 box, but I don't regret the purchase one bit. I was skeptical, but I know honestly believe this is one of those time that you get what you pay for.

OS X has been making some really impressive inroads in to the Windows camp. Many tech columnists who have been anti-Mac forever have actually been saying that OS X trumps Windows XP. That's really impressive.

The iPod, of course, is only the first step. It's quite obvious from this story that the iPod has more capabilities than Apple is enabling at this point. I predict that they're eventually going to roll out a lot more "digital devices" in the future. Sure similar things will on the PC side, but the ease and integration of the future "iPods" will be the real draw.

Apple has a good solid business plan, healthy gross margins and a strategy. I really think that OSX, the future iPods, the retail stores and the attention to detail and integration are going to bring some very impressive returns for Apple in the near future. They'll never have 95% market share, but if one in every ten home computers is a Macintosh, that will all the critical mass they'll need.

But I digress. Apple has screwed up a lot in the past, but this is not the same Apple they used to be. If they can convert an old time Mac-hater like me, I have a lot of faith in their future.

- j