What’s Inside an Ipod?
Every now and then, we will take a deeper look into some of our favorite gadgets in order to get a better understanding of how they work and the technology they involve.
To start, let’s examine the iPod craze. Besides their small size, light weight and aesthetic beauty, what is inside the iPod that makes everything click so well? More generally, what allows us to take these MP3 players anywhere and listen to thousands of songs, TV shows or movies in the palm of our hands, or in the iPod shuffle’s case, our fingertips?
To give you some perspective, consider burning a CD from your computer. On average, one CD holds about 15-16 songs, right? Think about that for a second…how can something less than half the size of a CD hold hundre
ds more songs? MP3 files enable the storage of musical information by squeezing the data into about one twelfth as much space. You can make MP3 files that are smaller or larger by compressing them by different amounts, but the more you compress them the worse they’ll sound.
Inside an MP3 file, music is stored as long strings of binary numbers (zeros and ones) in a series of chunks called frames. Each frame starts with a short header, including the track name, artist, genre, etc, almost like a table of contents. The music data is stored directly afterward. The reason MP3 players, namely iPod’s, have become so popular, is because they can store many many more MP3’s in a smaller space. A normal track from a CD requires about 60 Megabytes of storage space, compared to an average of 5 Megabytes per MP3 file.
An MP3 is just another type of computer file (jpeg, doc to name a few others). Therefore, the iPod, or any MP3 player is essentially a miniature computer. In fact, these handheld “computers” are more powerful than the early desktops from 20 years ago that would fill up an entire room!
All MP3 players have similar components under their pretty shells:
|
Component |
Function |
In English Please! |
|
Memory |
Store data |
Small hard-drive or flash memory to store MP3 files |
|
Processor |
Work on the data |
Reads MP3 files and turns it back into music |
|
Output Device |
Transmit data elsewhere |
A socket where you plug in your headphones |
Most MP3 players have another output as well: a little display that tells you what’s playing. It basically just relays the information in the short header discussed earlier.
Next time you turn on your iPod, imagine what’s going on inside the gadget. As you scroll to your favorite song, the processor searches the hard-drive for the desired track, matching the short header. Next, it reads through the frames related to that specific MP3 file. It displays the artist and track name on the display, then begins to turn the digital information stored in each frame as ones and zeros back into sound frequencies that travel through your headphones. Music to your ears!
