MacWeek November 2004

2uiPodPP 22 2ui io

U2 iPod Revealed.

iPod Photo Revealed.

MacWeek November 2004MacWeek November 2004

iPod Photo

U2 iPod

Table of contentsMary Franciono, Editor in ChiefJil Lilliannas, Hardware Editor

Gene Miller, Senior PhotographerSeth Furchgott, Photographer

Jim Louis, Hardware TesterKeith Loe, Software TesterKen Loeny, Game TesterJona Thon, Beta Tester

Financers:Apple BungeeAdobe Spy MacMacally Mac MallMemorex Game SpotEpic Records iPod Lounge

Job, Credits, Help

MacWeek November 2004MacWeek November 2004

Nov. 8 issue - Steve Jobs is feeling rather vindicated these days. “The iPod is three years old,” says the Apple CEO. “When we started this, nobody knew what it was, or they didnʼt believe it would be a big hit.”

But last week at San Joseʼs vintage Cali-fornia Theatre, Appleʼs CEO, apparently at full strength after cancer surgery last summer, was triumphantly unveiling the newest twists on his megahit digital music player—with the extra oomph of a performance by U2ʼs singer Bono and

guitarist The Edge. As the game Irish frontman belted out a tune from the bandʼs upcoming CD, a verklempt Jobs punched a colleague on the leg and said, “Weʼre going to remem-ber this for the rest of our lives.”

Financial analysts will more likely re-member the sales results that Jobs un-veiled. Specifically, 2 million iPods sold between July and September. It was more than Apple had planned—which didnʼt stop Jobs from announcing two additions to the iPod collection.

While Jobs believes that screens on hand-held devices are too puny for mov-ies, theyʼre fine to view personal pictures (and can be easily plugged into a TV set for group appreciation). Ergo, iPod Photo, with a color display and storage for up to 25,000 of your favorite digital snapshots. The two-inch screen isnʼt spacious, but Jobs feels that the ability to bore anyone, anywhere, with images of your recent vacation—and Appleʼs clear interface

and painless integration with your com-puter—will make the iPod the palm-size photo viewer of choice.

Also, consumers with bucks to burn may spring for the $499 and $599 photo pods just to get a color screen, which makes the bundled-in Solitaire game ac-tually playable.

THE DIGIT

8.7: Percentage decline in worldwide shipments of PDAs (i.e. Palm and Pocket

PC). Sales have dropped for three straight quarters compared with previous years.

Source: IDC Market ResearchThe second innovation is the $349 U2 iPod, which is colored the same shade of midnight as Bonoʼs leather jacket (the click wheel is fire-engine red) and fes-tooned with the band membersʼ laser-etched signatures on the back. The real significance, though, is the relationship

Apple has forged with one of the elite bastions of rock, possibly a harbinger of new business models in the digital age. For the last few weeks weʼve all been in-undated with Day-Glo iPod commercials featuring U2, which previously had not lent itself to ad campaigns. But as The Edge explains, “Itʼs easy to be in the iTunes ad because iTunes is

MacWeek November 2004MacWeek November 2004promoting us.” In addition, Apple will be exclusively selling a $149 “digital boxed set” consisting of all of U2ʼs official re-cordings, plus 25 previously unreleased cuts. This can be purchased with a single mouseclick (you might want to buy a case of Guinness to pass the time while the songs download, since Jobs esti-

mated it will take “a few hours” to get the 400 songs).

Down the road, Bono and Jobs both en-vision new opportunities to sell songs and build fan communities, like offering concert recordings at the iTunes store. “Weʼre getting ready to do it,” says Jobs. “Wouldnʼt it be great if the morning after

the concert, you can buy it on iTunes, and anyone in the world can listen to it the next day?”

The bottom line for U2 is that success of the iPod and other initiatives has firmly discredited record executives who prophesized that the digital transforma-tion would doom the music industry.

November 5, 2004 By Jeremy Horwitzcontributer to Ziff-Davis electronic entertainment magazines.

For years, iPodders have known that holding down the correct two sequences of buttons (currently, hold Menu plus central Action button, then Reverse plus Action button) would reset an iPod and then bring up a hidden diagnostic mode. Various tests, including hard disk, screen, and Wheel diagnostics would appear, and the iPod could even be forced into a slave-like diskmode from this menu system.

But the diagnostic menus were written in geek Greek – odd abbreviations that only techies (read: engineers, computer scientists, or trained technicians) would understand. Apple could plausibly blame the iPodʼs screen for this, as there just werenʼt enough characters per line (using Chicago or the bizarro Asiatic Times-alike font used on the iPod test menus, at least) to display more than a handful of letters for each test. The practical consequence was that few people played with the tests – incidentally a good thing, most likely – and the diagnostic menu became the sort of relatively open secret that someone would charge $19.95 to tell you about in an iPod book.

The iPod Photoʼs enhanced screen provided Apple with an easy way to create a far less

Byzantine iPod Diagnostic menu, which appears in the photo gallery attached here. At the top of the menu is what appears to be the

latest software revision (SRV), of October 8, 2004, which would be only slightly before the date of Appleʼs October 20, 2004 iPod Software Updater. Below are seven choices:

Diskmode is the same as the aforementioned slave mode from old iPods, and reset just restarts the iPod Photo, bringing up the Apple logo and then its main menu. The top five menu items are the options of most interest.

Memory Includes tests of the iPodʼs SDRAM, Flash memory, and IRAM. SDRAM has an option called SDRAM Fulltest which takes a few minutes, indicated by a percentage number at screenʼs bottom (picture 11), then displays a screen saying SDRAM OK. MENU cancels this, and many other tests. Flash runs a checksum test of the iPodʼs flash memory, verifying through a coded number that its contents (iPod firmware) are as expected. IRAM waits for a while, apparently runs a quick test, then resets the machine.

IO

MacWeek November 2004MacWeek November 2004

A deeper menu than Memory, IO has the following options and sub-menus.

Comms is the communication ports menu (picture 3). It includes USBTest (is a USB cable connected?), FireWireTest (is a FireWire cable connected?), and Remote (is an iPod Remote connected? If so, plug it in and you can test the five buttons, otherwise it reports nothing (NG) in the HP (headphone port)).

Wheel presents two options: Keytest (hit all five buttons to end) and Wheeltest (first checks the wheelʼs part ID, then gives you a readout of where your finger is on the pad),

LCD also has two options. Backlight tests the iPodʼs screenʼs backlighting, which defaults at 128 and can be lowered to 0 or raised to 255 – almost twice the default brightness level. Color lets you see the screen display flat colors, gradients, and a checkered pattern

HeadphoneDetect gives you two options, present and hold. Are headphones connected? Is the hold switch being used?

HardDrive includes four options. HDSpecs presents all details of the HD, from size and serial number to temperature. HDScan performs a full read verify scan of the hard drive, which uses the backlit screen (unlike most tests) for some reason. HDSMARTData presents more hard drive

statistics. Finally, HDRW is a read-write disk test, with pass or fail readouts.

Audio presents two options. Playback plays an audio sample and MIC performs a recording test.

Power A simple menu that either performs tests or puts the iPod to sleep. A submenu called A2DTests leads into multiple options: PhilipsID just checks to see that the power management system is active, while A2D lists a series of test results from other tests listed here (picture 10), namely Battery A2D, VCC, Battery Temp, USBDP and USBDN. These just measure the batteryʼs current strength and operating characteristics.

Status Displays the status of four potentially connected systems. LCD is listed as Sharp, the manufacturer of the iPod Photoʼs screen. HP indicates whether headphones are connected (0 = no, 1 = yes), while FWPWR and USBPWR say whether power is being transmitted via a cable to the iPod.

SysCfg Finally, the SysCfg menu lists your iPod Photoʼs serial numbers, hardware revision, and Apple part number.

MacWeek November 2004