New iPod nano and iPod touch disassembled

You’ve seen Apple roll out the new iPod nano and new iPod touch. Heck, you’ve heard what we have to say on both the new models. But perhaps you’re wondering what really makes these suckers tick. Fortunately, iFixit is in the business of satisfying your prurient interests in that regard.

You’ve seen Apple roll out the new iPod nano and new iPod touch. Heck, you’ve heard what we have to say on both the new models. But perhaps you’re wondering what really makes these suckers tick. Fortunately, iFixit is in the business of satisfying your prurient interests in that regard.

As is its habit, the company has posted in-depth slideshows of the newest Apple products in all their disassembled glory. You can see the nano’s new video camera, microphone, and speaker, all the while marveling at the incredible tolerances of engineering that make it possible to fit all that tech in such a small package. The camera itself, for example, is just 3mm thick—as iFixit points out, that’s half the size of the unit used in the iPhone 3G, which is likely why they don’t use the same hardware.

Then there’s the third-generation iPod touch. While it doesn’t look very different from its predecessor on the outside, you can’t judge an iPod from its exterior. As we know, there’s a new, faster processor on the inside, and a wireless chip that supports 802.11n (though the software at this point does not). There’s also an FM receiver and transmitter in the Bluetooth chip, though no antenna to use them. Conspiracy theorists can run wild on the fact that there appears to be room for a camera similar to the nano’s, and the internals even look similar to allegedly leaked photos of the new internals from a few months back which actually had cameras in them.

There you have it: the nano and touch—two innocent iPods—dissected for your amusement. Hope this enlightens you.



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FM Radio Comes to the iPod

Runners and exercise buffs: if you’ve been asking for an iPod with a built-in radio, you’re finally in luck. After eight long years, Apple has finally delivered.

Last week, Apple introduced its latest version of the iPod Nano, a multimedia player that’s smaller than a business card and weighs 1.28 ounces. It’s small enough to slip into some running shorts and skirt pockets.

While the radio is a welcome addition, the new Nano has some other features geared toward the active set. There’s a pedometer and, like previous Nanos, it is also compatible with the Nike Plus system that tracks your distance and other running or walking stats.
run well

Just like on a home or car radio, you can set your favorite stations into the Nano’s memory. After tagging your favorite talk radio or other stations, you can navigate them with the forward and rewind buttons (rather than using the wheel to scroll through the spectrum). The Nano also adopts a feature from TiVo’s playbook: if you need to take a break, hit the center button to pause live radio. You can store up to 15 minutes.

If you’re listening to a song and want to remember the name for later, you can “tag” it (but only if the station supports iTunes tagging). When you connect the iPod to your computer, iTunes will show you a list of the songs you tagged and then gives you the option to purchase the song from iTunes.

At first, I fumbled with the tagging and live pause on the iPod’s dial – inadvertently pausing the radio when I wanted to pull up the tuner to change stations. It takes some getting used to, but it’s worth the effort.

When I tested the pedometer, it seemed mostly in step with my steps. But as many of you know, none of these devices that measure steps or distance or routes are 100 percent accurate. You can set it to be “always on” or set a daily step goal.

The Nano also has a video camera, a stopwatch and a voice-over feature that tells you the name of a song from your playlist. Of course, you can still listen to podcasts and your own music. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have Bluetooth, so if you want to use wireless headphones, you’ll need an adapter.

The Nano is available in two capacities, the 8-gigabyte version costs $149, the 16-gigabyte is $179.



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Walkman Outsells iPod in Japan

You read right. Sony’s Walkmen are selling more units than Apple’s all-powerful, all conquering iPod. In the week ending August 31st, Sony’s share of portable music player sales hit 43%. The iPod struggled at a terrible 42.1%. Is Sony’s W-series Walkman bringing back Sony’s glory days of the 1980s?

The answer is, predictably, no. It also shows that the financial sector’s obsession with market share is flawed at best. The figures, reported by Bloomberg, give figures for market share in terms of units sold, not in terms of revenue or profits. Here are the prices quoted: Sony’s players all come in at under ¥1000 ($108), whereas Apple’s range from ¥8,800 ($95) to ¥47,800 ($516). Clearly, then, Sony is outdoing Apple at the bottom of the market, but has nothing to rival the top-end (cough netbook cough).

Further, these figures completely exclude the iPhone because it is a “wireless handset” (unlike the iPod Touch, which, wait…). Apple itself has reported dropping sales for the iPod as the iPhone and iPod Touch sell more and more. In fact, sales of vanilla music players fell 13.5% last year in Japan. So the takeaway from this seems to be that Sony has gained victory by challenging a weakened, diminishing enemy and beating it. Well done.

Does this remind you of anything? Barely six weeks ago, Apple was found to sell a huge 91% of computers over $1000.




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