On March 5, I was sipping coffee in the UNL cafeteria and flipping through USA Today, when a story about new iPod mini sold out in all major retailers caught my eye. Being a technology geek, but never owning any iPod, I suddenly wanted one. Later that day, I stumbled upon silver iPod minis inconspicuously stacked in a local university store, and for sale with 10% academic discount. My MasterCard was immediately charged $229+tax.
Mini was slick, slim, and elegant with beautiful clean voice and incredibly hot looks... I fell in love at first sight. We were inseparable. Fortunately for me, it was early Spring, so Mini fell in love with me too, or so I thought.
Like so many Spring romances, ours was short lived. After mere two weeks, for no apparent reason, Mini started to hate me. Hate me as much as one electric gadget can hate a human being. If I just touched her beautifully curved anodized body, pressed on her elegant click-wheel, or pinched her shiny white bottom, Mini would scream in crackling, horribly distorted sound. If left alone, she would occasionally come back to her senses and sing in her pure voice, but slightest touch would bring the monster back .
I was desperate to save our romance. Resetting Mini, reloading her memory, giving her gifts of rose buds and white ear-buds, did not help. Reading Dr. Phil’s “Relationship Rescue” helped me to realize that it was not me, but her, little aluminum monster, that needed counseling.
I faced two choices: 1) send my love back to Apple parents for counseling or 2) follow Greg Koenig's detailed “Taking apart iPod mini” to figure our what was wrong. Having lost in desperation my mind , I decided, to do the latter while keeping my Mini turned on. This way, I would be able to figure out the reason Mini hated me...
Here I was, at 2 am, with a screwdriver in my hand staring at my love – all her guts out - and Mini still crackling. I disconnected her long term memory - hard drive – but she would still crackle, apparently out of her short, 25 minute internal shake-protection, memory.
Suddenly I noticed something … near Mini's head or what I thought to be her head, her nerves were severely damage. My heart sank and melted … Mini did not hate me - all this time she had been screaming because of this excruciating pain! To prove her love, Mini collected all her strength and revealed the secret recipe of her delusional behavior:
Easy Recipe for a Faulty Gadget:
Ingredients: 2 circuit boards, 1 stiff plastic connector, 1 easily deformable case (an aluminium case would work great)
1) Connect two circuit boards solely via rigid & fragile connector. Under no circumstance replace rigid connector with a flexible one. Do not reinforce the connection between the boards with screws, epoxy resin or anything else.
2) Put the connected boards into an easily deformable case.
3) Presto! Just normally use the resulting gadget for several weeks until it gets "cooked" (occasionally applying light pressure on the case will shorten "cooking" time)
Mini, as many minis, was born in China out precisely this recipe. She had two circuit boards inside of her: the main board and the small board with the headphone jack. Both boards were connected only via one rigid & fragile black connector that itself consisted of two parts. The female part was on the main board, while the male part was on the small board. A set of ten pins supported by shoddy soldering was holding each part in place. The pictures are from a brand new mini, not from my beloved Mini, and therefore do not do justice in showing the extent of the damage to Mini's nerve system. The stiff connection has essentially zero flexibility. Since aluminium easily deforms, repeated pressure on the case - from inserting and removing the headphones, attaching it to a belt clip or an arm band - creates tension in the connecting pins. Eventually, the pins get loose resulting in that scratchy "mini hates me" sound.
At her deathbed, Mini took my word that I will share the secret recipe. Then, it can be fixed and her future siblings saved. Heartbroken, I shared the recipe and my grief on iPodHacks.com and iPodLounge.com. To my surprise, it took off from there to news services including BBC. I was told even reached Mini's parents in Cupertino, California, promised to look into it. I've never heard or expected to hear from Mini's father Steve, but his beautiful creation - Mini - gave me a gift of knowing what a great pleasure one little gadget can bring ...when it works.
I do not wish what happened to Mini and me, happen to other love birds. It is Spring in the air and Apples are blooming. Save love and save minis!
Frequently Asked Questions
1) I have no girlfriend. Should I hook up with mini now or wait for a fix?
If you can find mini, by all means, hook up. Remember, minis are so hot, that even dead mini is a good mini - her folks in Cupertino will quickly replace your mini via boy-friendly AppleCare (and they won't ask a dime for the first six month, for the next six month you have to cough up 29 bucks).
2) Will all current minis go nuts?
No, not at all, many minis will be healthy. Any production design of a device carries a positive probability that a device will not fail for any given time.
However, I think that the current design with its stiff connection inside of a soft aluminum body is not ideal. All other main parts in mini: click-wheel, screen, hard drive, and battery already use flexible connections, which withstand the deformations of the body much better.
3) What else can you say about this connection?
The small board is screwed to the aluminum body. The main board in not screwed to the case, but is inserted into it. This unevenly translates deformation of the case to the two boards. In addition, my Mini had poor soldering between the black connector & the main board. The pins were literally falling apart. Perhaps, my mini was coming from a bad batch, and other minis have quality soldering. If so, then the very fact that the reliability of minis depends so much on soldering quality, underlines my point that stiff connection inside of a soft aluminum body is not ideal.
4) Does this problem somehow relates to the prolonged shipment delays of minis in the US or to the delays with mini's global launch?
Shortage is the result of two opposing forces: supply and demand. Apple states that the shortage is caused by the insatiable demand exasperated by the severe shortage of mini's memories - 4GB Hitachi hard drives. However, Apple ships miniscule quantities of minis to retailers. Moreover, Apple notified some retailers that they should not expect any new shipments till June 1. This means that the supply is low. Is it possible that Apple is redesigning minis meanwhile shipping small quantities of old ones? On MacRumors.com, I suggested such a possibility, but who knows? If Apple is already redesigning minis, this would be good news. Such a redesign will save love and save minis.
5) Are you some kinda psycho that falls in love with gadgets only to rip them apart?
None of the gadgets can compete with my darling wife. But as far as I remember myself, taking apart faulty toys and gadgets to figure out how they work brought me plenty of joy. Perhaps, it is this unwarranted curiosity that led me to science, in particular, to research on how globally elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) affects nutritional quality (stoichiometry) of crops and wild plants.
Questions or comments? Please, email me.
This site was last updated on 05/10/04
