iPod Nano, the Genius

Apple just announced the new version of iPod Touch, iPod Nano and iTunes 8. These new products, as announced on 9/9/08, all include a new features called "Genius", which is a new technology from Apple to create playlists based on the song you're listening to and the music in your library in an easy way.

The fourth-generation iPod Nano is only 0.2 inches thick, the thinnest player Apple has ever made. The screen size, however, is kept as previous model. In addition a new accelerometer is built into Nano to enable resizing photos and menus based on the orientation of the player which was available on iPhone and iPod Touch previous models.

The new cool feature "Shake to shuffle", which senses when you shake the player and automatically enters into the shuffle mode. The "Shake to shuffle" feature also uses accelerometer technology.

The user interface of new iPod Nano has much improvements that attempts to solve some of the limitations the Clickwheel has in the iPod Touch and iPhone UIs.

The iPod Nano can play 24-hours of music or four hours of video in a single charge. The prices are set for $149 for an 8G and $199 for 16G.

The new model of iPod Touch has a new look with a curved back, similar to iPhone 3G, kept it's stainless steel as previous iPod Touch model. It's being advertised by Apple as very capable when it comes to play games. The new iPod Touch also has volume control on the side of unit and comes with it;s own build-in speakers. Another fun feature of iPod Touch is a build-in sensor for the popular Nike + iPod system. Unlike the previous model, you can get the shoe attachment and activate the included software.

iPod Touch can play 36 hours of music and six hours of video on a single charge. The prices are set as $229 for 16G and $399 for 32G. The previous owners of iPod Touch may get all new feature by software upgrade and no need to purchase a new unit. The update is free for users who already have the 2.0 version, and $9.95 for users with version 1.

More than 160 million iPods have been sold worldwide since 2004, and sales of the device account for almost 75 per cent of the MP3 player market.

Architecture

The iPod Nano uses general-purpose integrated circuits (IC) instead of smaller, low-cost custom-developed chips, possibly to reduce time-to-market. This design, however, increases the number of electronic components and increases the cost. It uses PortalPlayer PP5021C "system on a chip" with dual embedded 80 MHz ARM 7TDMI processors. It also uses "surface mount technology" which was employed in mobile phones in 2005.

Surface-mounted technology is a method for constructing electronic circuits in which the components are mounted directly onto the surface of PCB (Printed Circuit Board).

PortalPlayer is a fabless semiconductor company that supplies system-on-a-chip semiconductor, firmware and software for personal medial players. PortalPlayer was acquired by NVIDIA on January 2005.

Past Incidents

1. In Australia, an iPod Nano flamed up while being charged on a PC.
   
2. iPod Nano set a man's pants on fire while he was working in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
3. In Japan, an iPod Nano sparked while it was still recharging. Apple still is investigating this incident.
4. Last report came out from Japan in August 2008 indicates that 17 incidents of abnormal overheating with 1st-generation iPod Nano units while recharging, causing the cases to catch fire and burn.
   

About me:
bruce atlasi is a professional computer engineer, skilled in telecomm and datacomm technologies and architecture. He has diverse working experience with many telecomm start-ups and fortune 100 companies, including Cisco Systems, IBM, and Siemens. He regularly blogs on About Hi-Tech site.