Filed under: Hardware, iPod Family, Hacks
Apple trying to keep iPod nano chip manufacturers a secret?
I should have noted this when we found iLounge's 2G iPod nano dissection gallery, but it seems that Apple has (strangely) opted to take a step towards keeping their new iPod chip manufacturer's identity under wraps (strange because we already knew Samsung won PortalPlayer's old contract). As iLounge notes about their gallery, you can see three chips stamped with Apple's logo, and absolutely none from PortalPlayer (which we were expecting). It is believed that Wolfson and Philips are the other two namelessly Apple-branded chips, though I have to admit I'm a bit perplexed as to why Apple went to all this trouble in the first place. I mean, their attention to detail is admirable, and their logo is cool and all - but how many nano owners do they expect will ever check under the hood?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan said 12:45AM on 9-19-2006
Because the ones that care will do exactly what iLounge just did.
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Alex said 4:18PM on 9-18-2006
It's not much trouble for Apple to do this. This type of branding of IC chips is very common in the industry. If you order large enough quantities it's usually free.
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Oliver said 4:19PM on 9-18-2006
A lot of semiconductor companies provide this type of service to their customers (granted that they order in large enough quantities). It's pretty much just a "place this stamp on the chip" instead of whatever you'd normally do. Sometimes it doesn't even cost any extra, so I don't think Apple went through much "trouble" to do this. I bet if you opened up various other devices, you'd find similar markings (such as Nintendo hand-helds, etc.)...
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Oliver said 4:20PM on 9-18-2006
oh, Alex beat me to it. =p
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Brian Baute said 9:37PM on 9-18-2006
And it's not about "how many...they expect will ever check under the hood." Because all it takes is one to take a picture, blog it, post it to Flickr, etc.
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skipandmadge said 4:52PM on 9-18-2006
Apple isn't concerned about Nano owners figuring out whose ICs are driving their nano. Apple just wants to make it that much more difficult for 3rd parties to dupicate/reverse engineer their design and thereby avoid the following potential situations.
"Hey everyone, our mp3 player uses the same chips as Apple at 1/2 the price".
or
"Our player sounds just as good as Apple's - we use the exact same chips!"
Its significantly more difficult to reverse engineer the functionality of a "black box" IC than one whose datasheet you can Google.
Plus it makes it look like Apple has (or could have) more IP in the design than if everything is branded by the true manufacturer.
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sama said 5:08PM on 9-18-2006
"I mean, their attention to detail is admirable, and their logo is cool and all - but how many nano owners do they expect will ever check under the hood?"
It only takes one. As evidenced by your photo here.
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GadgetGav said 5:18PM on 9-18-2006
Come on guys... Think a little. They don't care two hoots about users opening it up and finding the chip sources. They do care a lot about Creative and SanDisk and the like doing it. Even the people who try to work out the profit margins based on the content. In Apple's world iLounge are not a big threat.
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matthew said 5:28PM on 9-18-2006
"but how many nano owners do they expect will ever check under the hood?"
Well you lot, clearly!
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Fredrik said 6:07PM on 9-18-2006
Doesn't it say "ARM" in the lower right corner? http://www.arm.com/markets/showcase/ ;-)
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Brian P. said 6:46PM on 9-18-2006
As people already indicated, they might be doing it for competitive reasons to prevent the competitors from getting too much information. If that is the only reason, I always found that naive and amateurish. I say that because industry people talk and vendors/customers talk. It's easy to find out what kinda chip who is making for whom. If it's a branding issue where Apple is just trying to communicate unified look to the customers and whoever else, well I can't say much about that. I am sure Apple knows what it's doing in that regard.
Also ARM wording might be just that it's using ARM core (IP) and not necessarily communicates the actual vendor. IMHO.
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Alex in Amsterdam said 1:40AM on 9-19-2006
My comments are similar to other posted here, except that it's not about companies copying the chip, or knowing who made it. I think it's about Apple using more than one vendor for the chips and they don't want each vendor knowing what % of the total production they are getting. If they open enough ipods and get the idea that they are getting 90% and the other vendors are getting more share of the pie, then they are going to use that information as a bargaining point. Taking off the vendor information means that the vendors may not know what their share of the market really is. And the manufacturer in China is not allowed to tell either. I'm guessing.
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