Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/08/ifixit_apple_ipod_shuffle_teardown/
Fourth-gen iPod Shuffle dissected
Miniaturisation 1, Repairability 0
Posted in Hardware, 8th September 2010 11:29 GMT
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The gadget take-apart guys at iFixit.com [1] rate Apple's latest generation of iPod Shuffle [2] at two out ten when evaluating the ease with which the device can be repaired.
In other words, it's next to impossible - "you have to break it to open it", says iFixit.
Of course, it is a forty quid music player - even Apple won't bother fixing duff ones.
So, having broken the Shuffle, what did iFixit find within [3]?
Answer: a 51mAh lithium-ion battery that takes up half the volume, and an equally diminutive motherboard (top) that fills our the rest. There's an Apple-branded ARM chip on one side of the board, and a smaller Apple chip on the reverse. One of them contains the Shuffle's 2GB of Flash storage.