iPod Mini Design Flaw? 384
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."
now it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:now it makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Re:now it makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Re:now it makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
I opened up my guitar and pushed the prong that makes the connection at the end of the cable plug inward toward the centre in order to "tighten" the connection when it was plugged in. That fixed it.
I was back to using it as a pre-emptive birth control device in no time.
Re:now it makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Testing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Testing (Score:5, Insightful)
You can do a lot of testing and still overlook a problem if you're not looking for it.
Re:Testing (Score:4, Funny)
i was a beta tester, and while I told her it was a mini ipod in my pocket it really wasn't...
Re:Testing (Score:2, Insightful)
--
Retail Retreat [retailretreat.com]
Finally! An excuse... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally! An excuse... (Score:4, Funny)
That's what you get... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's what you get... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want a 15 GB iPod in color, check these guys out. [colorwarepc.com] They'll even paint your existing iPod if you're willing to send it in.
Re:That's what you get... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:That's what you get... (Score:5, Informative)
Way cheaper than a custom paint job...and less troublesome if you drop it!
OT: Color Process (Score:2)
I want to restore some old legacy comptuers ( like old 8 bitters ) and would love to know how they are *safely* doing this.
Re:OT: Color Process (Score:3, Informative)
Apple paints the inside of clear plastic white to get the look of the iBook/iPod. You just need to remove it and then paint what you want.
Re:That's what you get... (Score:5, Informative)
Also cool: ipodmods.com [ipodmods.com]
They'll replace your LEDs or change the LCD backlight color...
Re:That's what you get... (Score:2, Interesting)
So f
There is another flaw (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There is another flaw (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There is another flaw (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There is another flaw (Score:4, Funny)
Da-dum-crash!!!!
Seriously folks, I'll be here all week.
plug the analog hole (Score:5, Funny)
Re:plug the analog hole (Score:2)
Re:plug the analog hole (Score:5, Funny)
oh the conspiracies.... (Score:5, Funny)
not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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)
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)
design mantra.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Yeah, Archos Jukebox 6000 had it too. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Yeah, Archos Jukebox 6000 had it too. (Score:5, Funny)
BLASPHEMY!!
Re:Yeah, Archos Jukebox 6000 had it too. (Score:2, Informative)
Nope, it didn't support OGG. It was the first hard-drive based MP3 player released by Archos [archos.com]. The hardware was not able to play anything besides uncompressed (WAV) and MP3 audio files.
But hey, at least it has alternative open source fimware [rockbox.haxx.se].
Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:2)
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...
Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:5, Informative)
People sell stuff that they no longer need because of upgrades. I sold a Rio300SE because I bought a newer MP3 Player thatt had more capacity and connected via USB instead of Parallel. It was still a great device though.
Other people sell stuff because they need some money and ebay is better than a pawn shop. I picked up a Sharp Zaurus sl5500, cheap. I love it. My unit is a little scratched up, so the previous owner must have used it quite a bit. Then again one man's trash...
Re:not an uncommon problem.. (Score:3, Redundant)
It's called apple engineering... Most of their shit is poorly engineered. They just hide it behind marketing, ignorant customers, and pretty cases.
Just some of the poorly engineered pieces I have come across as working as an apple authroized service provider for 4 years:
Wow. Some who's job is repairing broken apple products has seen a lot of broken apple products. Who'd have figured?
The Cause (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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)
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)
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)
> Beware of poor frameworks.
Pretentious? Moi?
Apple is not unique in this problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Apple is not unique in this problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple is not unique in this problem. (Score:3, Informative)
My first-generation 10GB iPod also doesn't have this problem. However, the headphone connection of the Apple remote control I bought for it later does.
JP
Apple Store Demo Had This Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
iPod engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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).
Re:iPod engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
lead free solder (Score:2, Funny)
That's why it's called the bleeding edge... (Score:5, Informative)
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
...but I ramble...
Re:That's why it's called the bleeding edge... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That's why it's called the bleeding edge... (Score:2)
Re:That's why it's called the bleeding edge... (Score:5, Funny)
Mini shortage and Apple Awareness (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Re:Usage problem with 1st Gen iPod (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Usage problem with 1st Gen iPod (Score:3, Interesting)
(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)
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)
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)
magnetic attachment? (Score:2, Interesting)
iPod Mini design flaw (Score:4, Insightful)
/. effect (Score:3, Funny)
Update: 04/12 01:09 GMT by T_allardyce: The pictures are now down, demonstrating the slashdot problem.
Everyone knows that... (Score:3, Funny)
Hah! Apple rips off Sony! (Score:5, Funny)
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)
Re:Do the... (Score:4, Funny)
No problems yet. I love it.
Best $500 that I should have put towards tuition I ever spent.
Re:Do the... (Score:5, Funny)
Better then the $500 I spent last month on booze?
Re:Do the... (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried to repair it through Apple. Apple Europe refused to repair it for free, saying that the part does not break for itself even though my iPod was still covered by warranty.
I was bitten by faulty iBook (went to service three times and every time Apple refused to cover the cost by warranty. I don't even feel like contacting them for that iBook motherboard paying back program), too, and wonder why I still have faith in Apple, especially the European branch. (Apple Japan was prompt and helpful repairing my iBook when I was visiting Japan.) They have a huge issue in their QC. They should stop manufacturing their goods in Taiwan.
People like to liken Apple products to BMW or Mercedes, but maybe it's more like Ferrari. Expensive, looking cool, but requires a lot of maintenance...
Re:Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple doesn't exactly have the same history of hardware mistakes as Microsoft has in browser/e-mail security issues. If this wasn't the first loosely-connected headphone port on an Apple product, then there'd be cause to be negative.
That, and by the time Slashdot has realized it, Apple is already offering to replace the defective units.
Re:Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Will Microsoft replace my copy of Windows with one that works well? For Free?
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Microsoft defective iPods are just another stepping stone in their quest for world dominance for reasons we're still conjuring up!
I think that the tone can mostly be attributed: (Score:2)
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.
Were it not for this, I'd imagine things might be a lot less forgiving. Were you around when the ipodsdirtysecret "the ipod battery fails after one to three years and apple is antagonistic and pricey about replacing it" thing broke? That was not nearly so neutral.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Don't people even read the title of the article anymore? It's a mini design flaw.
Re:Summary (Score:4, Informative)
The small part with the headphone jack attaches via screws to the aluminium case, but does not screw to the main board. Because of this any pressure on the case, dock connector, or simply plugging in and out headphones, creates tension between the small part and the main board. Since only the black connector sits between these two parts, it quickly wears out.
With regular use, contacts get loose and slightest pressure on iPod creates static sounds
Re:In my opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
For scale, the full iPod basically consists of exactly the same things as a mini, except with a notebook ?IDE? hard drive instead of the C.F. one, and everything else scaled up. Plus Apple do wan't to make a profit o
Re:In my opinion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In my opinion (Score:2)
Re:In my opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
I tell you why. It's because you, sir, are a dumbass. Let me count the ways:
1. It's a 4GB miniature hard drive. Not a CF.
2. It also contains a microprocessor and related hardware which: talk to the hard drive over the ATA bus; parse the filesystem; keep track of the songs in a (relatively) intelligent and rational way; feed data to an MP3 decoder chip; manage to keep said MP3 decoder chip fed properly, i.e. not too much and not too little, but just enough, Goldilocks; interpret your input and figure out what it is that you want it to do; and talk to the aforementioned LCD screen. Not just "making the scroll wheel work", thank you.
3. The actual cost of the silicon I've described - not counting the hard drive - is relatively insignificant, it's true. Especially in the large quantities Apple are purchasing. So? Design, assembly, testing, etc. are not insignificant costs for such a device. I've been there; I know. At NO point have we discussed the software design, the UI design, or the industrial/mechanical design. These are also significant.
I challenge you - you, personally! - to develop a design of similar quality and capabilities for even as little as twice the cost, at twice the size and half the battery life. It's a pretty safe bet that you can't. When you figure in the cost of the hard drive (it's a Toshiba; look it up), there's no way you can come close. The only thing you've said that's even remotely correct is that it's barely worth $250. That's kinda cool, really. If it was worth more, it would cost more. I personally like it when stuff is worth what I paid for it.
Frankly, until you know something about designing a consumer device this complicated, your opinion about how good a job Apple did isn't worth squat. But who knows? Give Apple a call. Tell them you read on some website how bad a job they did, and tell 'em you can do it better. Be sure to have a tape recorder ready to preserve the sound of hysterical laughter.
Sheesh.
Re:In my opinion (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In my opinion (Score:4, Informative)
I suppose it's possible that grandparent poster knew that it was a hard drive. My apologies if he did.
Re:In my opinion (Score:2)
BeOS.
Worked better, cost less. Died out not due to inferior quality, but because of lack of vendor support caused primarily by Microsoft's illegal anti-competitive behavior. Be, Inc won the court decision, but it was all over at that point.
We could talk about Outlook Express, too, if you wanted - but I don't know of anything comparable. How much does OE cost? For the purposes of this discussion, I mean. Or IE? How would we compare the cost vs. quality of (say) Internet Explor
Re:Silicon? Relatively Insignificant? Less than th (Score:4, Informative)
You're ignoring the hugely complicated process of refining the silicon. It's not like you can just glue sand together and slap it in a chip package.
Re:In my opinion (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah. (Score:5, Funny)
That and better reflexes. You're like 10th.
Re:Wow! (Score:2)
Going from an Mini iPod to iMime might be a feature and not a bug, ergo: Easter Egg
Re:What do you say now Apple zealots? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm. My G4 is still running 10.2 just fine, and Steve Jobs didn't send Rocko and Moose to my house to "discuss" the matter.
Re:Headphone Jack Repair (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Headphone Jack Repair (Score:2)
woohoo, time to nitpick (Score:2, Troll)
Works on the iPod Mini, too, as long as you don't use the apple software. [google for 'ephpod']
Whats more, being a standard compliant device it works fine with Linux. You can just mount it as a filesystem.
iPod Mini, too.
Re:What do you say now zealots? (Socre:5, Insightf (Score:2, Funny)
s/Linux/hooker/
Re:wrong flaw (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Cause... or effect? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I call bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
ONE.
GUY.
If the math at play here is eluding you, then I suggest returning to kindergarten.