Regardless of what your opinions are on their OSes, choice of microprocessor platform, or that darn single button mouse, there is no arguing that Apple has been able to introduce some of the most attractive designs ever seen in the computer market. The new iMacs, the G4 series and Apple's gorgeous Cinema Display LCD panels all have design and usability elements that remain unparalleled by any company in the computer industry. Unfortunately, the biggest limitation for Apple's computers continues to be the lack of x86 support, thus preventing all of this stylish hardware from being used on over two decades of the largest software user base.

Apple has had a few successes among PC users however; their Cinema Display LCDs, although pricey, are the displays of choice for some high-end workstations through the use of an ADC-to-DVI converter (ADC is Apple's digital interface standard). The only other time you will see an Apple logo anywhere near a PC user's desk is with the incredibly successful iPod MP3 player.

We reviewed the original iPod back in January of 2002, shortly after its release. Although it was released as a Mac-only product, through the support of third-party developers like Mediafour the iPod was brought to the PC long before Apple released a "Windows" version of the unit. The iPod wasn't the smallest MP3 player on the market back then, but it featured the absolute best user interface (a undeniable strength of Apple's), and a very strong feature-set. The combination of those two key factors made the iPod a huge success, and crowned it the king of all MP3 players.

In the year and a half that has passed since the iPod was released, the market for MP3 players has continued to increase and the number of devices on the market has grown tremendously. Despite an increase in competition, no manufacturer has been able to dethrone Apple and offer a better solution than the iPod, although many manufacturers have definitely put forth more affordable options. In Apple's usual style, information on an iPod successor was kept under extremely close guard and nothing surfaced even on the rumor-ridden web until just before the launch of the new iPod.

Now a one-size fits all solution, the new iPod can be used on both Mac and Windows platforms right out of the box and it features a number of other evolutionary improvements that compelled us to go out and purchase one to see what all the fuss was about. Apple is very strict on sending out review samples of their hardware, but regardless of whether we get a product or not, if there's a demand for a review we'll do whatever it takes to make sure you get the information you need to make an educated buying decision.

Last month we went onto Apple's store online, took advantage of their student discount and two days later had a new 15GB iPod for $369.99 plus tax. Was it worth it? Let's find out…

iPod Basics

The original iPod offered improvements in virtually every aspect over the competition, but with the new iPod it is understandably difficult to make quite as large of an impact as the original (Matrix Reloaded vs. the original Matrix anyone?). With the iPod, Apple got so much "right" with the design that it wouldn't make sense to change what they've done an excellent job at already. Considering that there are still quite a few users out there that have never used an iPod, we'll start with the basics of the unit before looking at what improvements went into the new models.

The iPod is and always has been a hard drive based MP3 player; on the inside of every iPod unit you will find a special low-profile 1.8" Toshiba hard drive. The original iPod was available in 5, 10 and 20GB versions, while the new iPod comes in 10, 15 and 30GB SKUs. Obviously with such a large amount of storage, Apple fully expects users to store more than a handful of songs on their iPod, so the player is designed from the inside-out to support and manage all of the MP3s in your collection.

Before talking about how the interface helps achieve Apple's goals, let's talk a bit more about the hardware. In order to fill up the multiple gigabytes of storage on the iPod, Apple outfitted the unit with a 400Mbps Firewire interface, allowing you to transfer songs to your iPod at the maximum sustained write speed of the unit's hard drive (which is considerably lower than 400Mbps). The new iPod also features a USB 2.0 interface in order to tailor to the Windows user base, but we'll talk about how Apple implements USB interface later in this piece. The bottom line here is that getting songs onto the iPod is quick enough so that filling up your hard drive isn't a painful task.

In order to maximize battery life and reduce the risk of damage to the hard drive, the iPod attempts to keep its drive spun down as much as possible. Aiding in this is the use of a total of 32MB of on-board SDRAM that acts as a buffer for music you're playing, as well as a prefetch buffer for songs that you may listen to next. The prefetching algorithm isn't well documented (partially for IP reasons), but you can guess that it basically looks ahead at the next 32MB of songs (including the current one being played) and pulls them into main memory, thus spinning down the hard drive. If you happen to pick a song that's not in the buffer, the prefetching replacement algorithm kicks in and begins replacing songs you are less likely to play with ones that you are more likely to play. When songs are present in the iPod's 32MB buffer, flipping through them occurs instantly, but if you have to wait for the hard drive to spin up there's a noticeable pause as the drive spins up and begins copying data to memory. With the music always playing out of memory, the iPod will never skip, which is a feather in all solid state MP3 players' caps.

The strength of the iPod mainly lies in its interface, which is virtually flawless for navigating through the thousands of songs you will be able to put on the unit. There isn't an aspect of the iPod that's not designed for large numbers of MP3s; if you're able to fit all of the MP3s you'd like to listen to on one 128MB card then the iPod isn't for you.

The first screen you get when you turn on the iPod gives you access to the main menu settings. From the main menu you have the following options by default:

- Playlists
- Browse
- Extras
- Settings
- Backlight

The playlists menu will take you to a list of all of your pre-configured playlists and on the new iPod it will give you instructions on how to configure a playlist on the fly. The old iPod's firmware would not let you construct a playlist using just the iPod itself, you would have to use the software that came with the unit to do so.

The browse menu will let you browse through your music collection according to one of five browsing criteria - artist name, album name, song title, genre or composer. All of these fields are taken directly from your MP3's ID3 tag, so you'll want to make sure your ID3 tags are done properly before transferring over your music collection; luckily there are a number of free utilities on the web for batch editing of ID3 tags for just this purpose.

The extras menu will take you to the clock, contacts, calendar, notes and games that you'll find on the iPod. Getting your contacts and calendar onto the iPod isn't as easy as you'd think, as the device will not sync to PIM software such as Microsoft Outlook. You have to copy the actual contacts and calendar entries over to your iPod if you want to have them there; definitely not a PDA replacement.

The settings menu will let you configure all of the various options associated with the iPod, such as the randomize feature, backlight timer, language, etc… The latest firmware on the new iPod lets you even customize the main menu by adding any of the submenus to it; for example, if you want quick access to browse by song title or quick access to any of the games. You can also turn off what items appear on the main menu if you prefer a simpler interface.

There are a number of equalizer settings that you can select from in the settings menu as well.

The final option on the main menu is the backlight option which, on the new iPod, not only turns the backlight on the screen on but also illuminates the text on the buttons in red for use in low-light situations.

Overall the iPod interface is extremely intuitive and continues to be the easiest and quickest to get around your MP3s with.

Evolutionary, not Revolutionary

At this point we've discussed the basics of the iPod, but what about the new iPod? We'll split the discussion of the new iPod into two categories - hardware and software. The reason for this is because a number of the improvements of the new iPod come in the form of its upgraded firmware, which in theory should be able to run on the old iPods as well, whereas the hardware improvements can't possibly be added to the old iPods. Apple has not yet released the new iPod's firmware for use on the older models, and it's debatable as to whether or not they will (they have no good reason to).

Old iPod (right) vs. new iPod (left)

New iPod (top) vs. old iPod (bottom)

The first major change that you'll notice with the new iPod is that it is considerably smaller. The 10/15GB models are both the same dimensions (the 30GB is slightly thicker), and are both considerably smaller than the old iPod. The dimensions are as follows:

Navigation through the iPod is handled through a jog dial and a set of five buttons on the face of the iPod. The basics of navigation haven't changed with the new iPod however, Apple has made the transition from the moving parts of the original iPod to the completely touch-sensitive controls of the new iPod. The scroll wheel on the new iPod is much like a trackpad on a laptop, you simply glide your thumb across the surface in order to scroll through menus and songs.

The new iPod (left) has no moving parts, you can see the ball bearings and the sensors used with the moving jog wheel on the old iPod (right)

The buttons on the new iPod are also only touch-sensitive with no moving parts, they aren't physical buttons. There is a sensor behind each of the buttons that responds to pressure, unfortunately a downside to these buttons is that they don't provide any tactile feedback. There are a number of times when you'll hit a button and won't know if the action actually registered; the iPod does, by default, make a clicking noise whenever you do properly hit a button however with your headphones on you cannot hear the click.

The new iPod also moves the four playback control/menu buttons from around the scroll wheel, to directly above it. Although you would think that this reduces the usability of the iPod, you're still able to use it just fine with one hand which is very important.

Just as before, some of the buttons are multifunction; holding down the play button will shut off the iPod, but unlike the old iPod the new one keeps time while shut off so the clock is actually useful.

Holding down the menu button will turn on the backlight, just like in the old iPod, however the difference here is that it isn't only the screen that lights up - but the buttons as well.

Backlight enabled

The text on the buttons glows a bright red with the backlight turned on, making it very easy to see in the dark.

You'll note that the ports on the iPod have changed slightly; for starters there is a new port for the remote control on the top of the unit. Many users had complaints about the original iPod's headphone jack, and apparently those problems have been fixed with the new iPod.

The 15/30GB iPods come with a remote control, which is a wired remote that features all of the buttons that you find on the face of the iPod so you can skip through songs without ever taking the iPod out of your pocket. The biggest drawback to the remote control is that its wired design adds to the incredible tangle that inevitably happens whenever you have the iPod in your pocket.

Remember that you plug the remote control into its port as well as the adjacent headphone jack, and then plug your headphones into that jack. The resulting mess of wires is a burden to deal with in most situations.

There is a hold button on the top of the iPod that will render all buttons inoperable; very useful when you have the unit in your pocket.

You'll quickly notice that the thin form factor of the new iPod didn't allow Apple to place a Firewire port on the unit itself. Instead, Apple put a thin proprietary connector on the bottom of the unit that connects to a cable with a Firewire connector on the other end. As we mentioned before, the new iPod is designed for both Apple/Windows operation, instead of offering two separate SKUs. You can use the Firewire interface on either Apple or Windows platforms, however Apple also outfitted the new iPod with a USB 2.0 controller for Windows users that don't have a Firewire port.

This USB controller can be found on the iPod motherboard

Although USB 2.0 support is enabled right out of the box, you need a special cable to actually gain a USB 2.0 interface. You can buy this cable from Apple for $40 and is a three connector cable; the first connector is the proprietary iPod interface, then in the middle of the cable you have a 6-pin Firewire connector and finally at the other end you have a USB connector. The reason for the inclusion of a Firewire connector on the USB cable is so that you can still use the iPod's AC adaptor, which features a Firewire-style connector. In theory you could also use an older USB 1.0 interface with the iPod although at 12Mbps, it would take quite a while to transfer files to your iPod.

We'd recommend sticking with the Firewire interface if possible, mainly because the iPod will charge its battery off of your Firewire port whereas it won't do the same off of the USB interface. Instead of spending $40 on the USB 2.0 cable, spend the $40 on a Firewire card for your PC if you don't have one.

The new slim iPod interface connector

With the new connector at the bottom of the iPod, Apple also introduced a new docking station for the iPod to make it more at home on your desk. You can simply sit the iPod in its cradle and it will connect to your computer and begin charging (assuming you're using the Firewire interface).

The iPod docking station

The cradle also features an 1/8" unpowered line-out jack, so you can even directly connect your iPod to your stereo or a pair of powered speakers.

The cradle comes with all 15/30GB units, you have to purchase it separately with the 10GB iPod. Is it worth it? It definitely makes for a cleaner desk, if you're the type of person that appreciates a desk with less clutter then it is useful. The line-out is an added bonus, as your iPod can now become more than just a portable MP3 player while sitting in its cradle. Apple sells the cradle for $40, which may not be worth it just for the cleaner desk - it is an added perk for the 15/30GB owners though as it comes with the bundle.

New iPod headphones (right) vs old iPod headphones (left)

Some users complained that the iPod's headphones were a little too large, so with the new iPod Apple bundled headphones with slightly smaller earbuds. The difference is noticeable, and if you thought that the previous earbuds were a little too big then these will feel just right. Compared to most earbud headphones, the new iPod comes with a set that are about the same size as most common earbuds as opposed to being noticeably larger.

New Firmware

We just went through a number of the hardware improvements that made it into the new iPod, but a good part of the feature set of the new iPod isn't hardware related at all but rather a function of the new firmware that comes with the new iPod.

The first thing you have to keep in mind (and we'll confirm this when we take the unit apart later in the review) is that the new iPod has no more memory and has a processor virtually identical to that of the old iPod. Any software that can run on the old iPod should have no problem running on the new one. With that said, it doesn't make sense for Apple to release the new firmware for the old iPod as it could potentially reduce the number of iPod upgraders out there.

So what does the new firmware offer? For starters, it finally allows playlists to be created on the fly. Previously, you could only create playlists on your computer and sync them to your iPod. But if you wanted to add songs to a playlist or even create one while you were away from your computer armed with nothing more than your iPod, you were out of luck. To fix this, the new iPod lets you create playlists "on the go."

Creating playlists on the go is quite intuitive; while you're browsing through your songs, holding down the center select button for a few seconds will cause the item you're currently highlighting to flash briefly. This flashing is a confirmation that the song you just selected has been added to your playlist on the go. You can even add entire folders by following the same procedure. The beauty of this method is that while listening to a song, you can continue to add songs to your playlist without interrupting playback; the playlist is cleared the next time you sync to your computer.

The rest of the features of the new firmware are much less dramatic, but the sum of them all definitely adds some value to the new iPod. One of the simpler but more useful features is the addition of a "Backlight" choice on the main menu; selecting the backlight option will simply turn on the backlight as you'd expect, but this simple feature is quite useful.

As we mentioned before, the new iPod actually keeps accurate time even when you turn it off manually (by holding down the play button), which enabled Apple to introduce this next feature in the new iPod - an alarm clock. The alarm clock can be set to either beep or start playing music using one of your playlists, unfortunately you need to have a playlist already created as it will not work using a playlist created on the fly. The beep is fairly useless as the iPod will beep three times and that's all; chances are that won't wake you up so you're better off looking at other options to make sure you get up on time. In order to wake up to music you'll obviously have to be wearing the headphones since the iPod has no external speaker. This brings us to the next feature of the new iPod - a sleep timer. With so many songs, it becomes very easy to fall asleep while listing to a long playlist. The sleep timer is perfect for long haul plane flights or just falling asleep to music, as you can set the iPod to shut off after 15, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes of playback.

The new firmware also comes with a couple of new games; back from the original iPod is breakout (called "Brick" for some reason), which is a toned down version of the arcade original - Arkanoid. The new iPod adds parachute as well as solitaire; solitaire is actually controlled quite well using the scroll wheel and the center select button. The inclusion of the new games is nice, but they don't transform the iPod into a gaming platform by any means; with that said, solitare is a good way of killing time while listening to music.

We mentioned earlier that the new firmware allows you to customize the main menu, by allowing you to add what are normally submenus to the main menu itself. The new firmware also doesn't reboot the iPod upon connecting it to your PC, it's not a huge time saver but definitely cuts down on the annoyance level.

The final feature of the new firmware is the notes utility, which we briefly mentioned earlier. As is the case with the contacts and calendar utilities, you can't sync your notes on a PIM to the iPod, you have to manually copy over any text you want to have on the player. The notes feature is somewhat useful for keeping flight information, directions, etc; do keep in mind that you can't create new notes using the iPod as they must be added while the unit is still connected to your computer, which reduces some of the usefulness of the feature.

All in all, the additional features provided by the updated firmware probably account for a good 30% of the improvements seen in the new iPod, with the rest being the reduced form factor and other hardware level enhancements. As we've mentioned before, there's no reason that the new firmware shouldn't be able to be ported to the old iPod, whether it is an effort from Apple or from within the iPod community is up in the air.

What's in the Box

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we purchased a 15GB iPod for this review simply because it comes with the full bundle of accessories that we'd need to completely review the product.

Apple, as usual, was very quick in shipping and there were no problems with the ordering process. Many cities have Apple Stores that you can drop by and pick an iPod up locally from, and retail outlets like Compusa also stock the new players (many retail shops are heavily discounting the older units if you're on a budget). As long as Apple has a location in your state, you will be paying sales tax on your order, so keep that in mind so that there are no surprises when you're done ordering.

Apple redid the boxes for the new iPods as you can see from the picture above, the stylish black box is home to a very well packed iPod and set of accessories. In the usual Apple style, each of the accessories is individually wrapped and packaged, almost in an effort to justify the iPod's high price (although I don't know a single user that wouldn't opt for a lower price at the expense of fancy packaging). It's much like the feeling of sitting in a luxury car, Apple's intent with even the packaging of the iPod is to convey the impression that you've bought an expensive product - if your credit card statement doesn't convey that, then the iPod's excellent packaging absolutely will.

Unfolding the box you'll find a single installation CD that contains both Mac and Windows installation programs (interestingly enough, iTunes 4 for the Mac doesn't come on the CD, an older version 3 was on the C instead). The rest of the box includes the following:

- the iPod 15GB unit
- a set of earbud headphones
- two sets of black covers for the earbuds, just in case you lose one set
- the wired remote control*
- a 6-pin to 4-pin Firewire adapter
- an AC adapter
- an iPod to 6-pin Firewire cable
- the iPod docking station*
- a cloth carrying case*
- a rigid carrying case*
- two covers for the proprietary connector at the base of the iPod

The * denotes items that only come with the 15/30GB units.

The inclusion of two sets of black covers for the earbuds is quite handy, considering they are some of the first things you'll end up losing if you carry your iPod around a lot. Interestingly enough, these sets fall off the earbuds just as easily as on the old iPod. Covers with a slightly tighter fit would definitely have been appreciated, rather than simply supplying more.

6-pin to 4-pin Firewire adapter

In order to satisfy the vast majority of mobile users out there without powered Firewire ports, Apple does provide a 6-pin (powered) to 4-pin adapter plug. Remember that the 4-pin Firewire ports on notebooks and desktops are not powered, meaning your iPod will not charge itself while attached to these ports.

An unpowered 4-pin Firewire connector

Now you can hook your iPod up to a laptop with ease

The carrying case set that comes with the new iPod is quite impressive, although it does add considerable bulk to the unit. The rigid carrying case fits the unit like a glove, but unfortunately removes all ability to use the controls on the iPod itself (here's where the remote comes in handy). The cloth case can be used in conjunction with the rigid case or by itself, although keep in mind that the cloth case provides no structural support, it's only good for keeping finger prints off of the chrome backing.

Speaking of durability, the iPod does continue to be remarkably durable, even when dropped. Considering that even normal use will result in fine scratches all over the back of the unit, dropping it will absolutely leave a mark. The beauty of the iPod design is that the hard drive remains spun down as much as possible, which means that chances are if the unit is dropped that it won't suffer too much.

Apple does ship the iPod with a decent one year warranty, which is much improved from the original warranty that shipped on the iPod.

Taking it apart

Of course what review of the new iPod would be complete without a complete dissection of the unit?

Although taking the new iPod apart follows the same principles as the old one, its small size guarantees a slightly tighter fit that required even more finesse initially. The process is simple; the iPod's casing consists of two parts, the white face and the chrome backing. The two parts are held together through a total of 12 plastic clips. You have to unlatch each one of the 12 clips in order to separate the two parts, and the only way to do so is by wedging a rigid piece of plastic (or metal, although plastic is less likely to scratch the unit) between the two parts of the iPod's casing and work them apart.

After a bit of patience and elbow grease, you'll begin to separate the two parts and things will become much easier. After you've fully separated the two you'll see the following:

Click to Enlarge

On one side you'll see the back of the LCD display as well as the controller logic for the LCD and the buttons on the front. The other half of the iPod will be covered completely by the 1.8" Toshiba hard drive.

Since there's not much to see on the LCD side, let's focus on digging out that iPod motherboard. The hard drive is set in a piece of blue rubber that boarders the drive, we're assuming its purpose is mainly shock absorption and to keep the drive's casing from touching any PCB (and causing a short).

The old iPod HDD connector (top right) vs. the new iPod HDD connector (lower left)

Apple improved the interface between the hard drive and the iPod motherboard; reducing it from a fairly large connector to one that is extremely small in comparison, in an effort to keep the size of the unit as small as possible. Lifting up the hard drive reveals the iPod's battery and motherboard.

The first thing you'll notice here is that the iPod's battery is significantly smaller than what was used in the old unit yet the new unit provides the same 8 - 10 hours of battery life (interestingly enough, the default contrast ratio on the new iPod is noticeably lower than on the old unit, luckily it's adjustable). While the old battery was just as large as the hard drive, the new battery is around 1/3 the size, although slightly thicker. Instead of being mounted directly on the hard drive, the new battery is placed in a rectangular cutout section of the motherboard as you can see below:

Click to Enlarge

This leads us to the next point about the new iPod's internals - the motherboard is considerably smaller.

Old iPod motherboard (left) vs. new iPod motherboard (right) - Click to Enlarge

Here we can see the same PortalPlayer MP3 decoder (although the model number is slightly different) that handles all MP3 and AAC decoding.

Old iPod processor

New iPod processor

Apple also used the same Texas Instruments Firewire controller in the new iPod:

The new iPod uses a single 32MB BGA SDRAM chip (as opposed to the TSOP chip in the old iPod) capable of running at either 100 or 133MHz. The benefit of moving to BGA is, of course, ease in routing and reduction in size.

Old Memory

New Memory

Working with Windows - MUSICMATCH Jukebox

As we mentioned at the start of this article, the iPod is now a one-size fits all solution, with both Mac and Windows software utilities on the CD.

For Windows users, the software will install Apple's iPod Manager that formats the unit with a FAT32 partition and allows you to use it as a removable drive in Windows Explorer. Unfortunately you cannot access any of the songs you've placed on the iPod through Windows Explorer using the iPod Manager.

To actually get songs onto your iPod, Apple bundles MUSICMATCH Jukebox with iPod support. The software works reasonably well at getting music onto your iPod and will even let you sync your music collection, but it definitely isn't the best solution.

Working with Windows - Xplay

Our recommendation is still for Mediafour's Xplay software, which unfortunately isn't bundled with the iPod. Xplay is much more straightforward of a solution than MUSICMATCH and integrates much better with Windows.

The downside to Xplay is the fact that it does cost an additional $29.95 on top of the multiple hundreds you've already spent on the iPod. We think it's worth it, but not everyone will agree. Luckily you can try the software for free using a time-trial that's available online at www.mediafour.com.

Looking towards the future - iTunes 4

The most popular feature of the new iPod actually has nothing to do with the hardware or the firmware of the unit, but rather the Mac music manager software - iTunes 4.

The reason iTunes 4 has been given so much attention is because of Apple's iTunes Music Store. The iTunes Music Store is accessible directly from the iTunes application, and allows you to search through a library of around 200,000 songs. These songs are all officially licensed from the record labels that own the rights to them and you can purchase any song for $0.99. The song is then transferred to you legally and you then own the song.

All music downloaded from the iTunes Music Store is encoded in Apple's own AAC format, which is a MPEG-4 derived standard meaning that file sizes are smaller than MP3s while supposedly retaining identical levels of quality.

The iTunes Music Store has been a marketing success for Apple, however it has yet to be seen whether the sales through the store will continue to be strong. Currently the iTunes Music Store is only made available to Mac users, which is definitely not a large enough segment of the population to make the store a success. Apple has seen some relatively decent sales in the first couple of weeks of the store's operation, however there is no data to support continued profitability without tapping into a larger market.

Apple is apparently working on a Windows version of iTunes but there is no timeframe set for when we can expect Windows support for the software. One inconvenience that Windows users may run into is the lack of AAC support in Windows MP3 players, and we can't see most users using the iTunes software as a replacement for Winamp in order to play those AAC files. What we'll need in order for this to work is good AAC support in something like Winamp before the Windows version of iTunes debuts. Regardless, Apple needs to work on releasing the Windows version of iTunes as soon as possible in order to capitalize on a larger market before the competition does.

Final Words

With the original iPod, Apple had a clear winner on their hands with a revolutionary new approach to portable MP3 players. The new iPod, albeit only an evolutionary improvement over the old unit, continues to extend Apple's dominance in this sector.

For current iPod owners, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to upgrade to the new iPod, although the small size of the player is definitely tempting. The functionality of the player remains virtually unchanged, which means you'll still probably want to hold on to your expensive investment.

If you don't already have a MP3 player, then the iPod is definitely a good solution and arguably the best you'll come across. The strengths of the unit continue to be its excellent interface, extremely high storage capacity and very fast Firewire interface for getting your music collection onto the iPod.

Our only complaints about the iPod continue to be that its chrome back gets dirty and scratched way too easily (brushed aluminum anyone?) and of course the price. Starting at $299, the iPod is definitely not the cheapest solution on the block but in our opinion if you're a music junkie then it's definitely worth it. If you don't mind lugging around a slightly larger unit, you can always buy one of the first generation iPods at a significant discount either through retailers looking to liquidate stock or on eBay.