Home: Updated 2007

Standard Components

Connectivity

FireWire connectivity is included except for the Shuffle and Nano, they use USB (USB 2.0). The technolgy is also integrated into Power Macs, iMacs, eMacs, PowerBooks and iBooks. The FireWire technology was developed by Apple ad was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2001 for it's impact on the television industry.

CPU

The first three generations have two ARM 7TDMI CPUs running at 90 MHz. The ARM7 TDMI core is a 32-bit embedded RISC processor and delivers a hard macrocell optimized to provide the best combination of performance, power and area characteristics.

This means that the ARM7 TDMI core enabled the iPod system designers to build embedded devices requiring only a small size, low power and high performance. Ideal for asmall portable media player. Models after the 3G version use chips of 80 MHz, the plus point of this is that battery life is saved.

Hard Disk

Standard Pods have a 1.8-in ATA hard disk from Toshiba. Weighing around fifty grams. When launched the 40GB of storage was the largest single platter capacity yet achieved on a 1.8in drive, or so Toshiba claimed. They later achieved a two-platter, 80GB version in 2004.

The iPod mini uses a 1 inch disk from Hitachi. When launched the six-week waiting list to get a popular iPod Mini digital music player meant Hitachi had to double production. Hitachi GST's Microdrive is also used in Creative Technology's Nomad MuVo MP3 digital music player.

Memory

All models with a hard drive include 32-MiB flash ROM chip, this includes a bootloader which informs the iPod to load the operating system from the hard disk. This process will start the operating system when the user turns on a computer system.

4MB of the ram is used for the operating system; the other 28MB are used for buffering data from the hard drive. Except for the 5G 60 GB iPod all of the models have 32 MiB of RAM. This ram contains all the firmware and and stores the cache data to load songs from the hard drive.

The new 5G 60 GB fifth-generation iPod now had 64 MiB of RAM, this will also extend the battery life as well. The more ram the less work is required of the battery.

Experts feel that Apple failed with the memory because the iPod does not have the ability to read from its RAM chip while writing to it.This results in the iPod which stopping for one to two seconds while it reloads the buffer after playing all 28 MB of data.