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iPod Shuffle 4th Generation Teardown

Teardown

Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.

Featured Guide

This guide has been found to be exceptionally cool by the iFixit staff.

This is the first of three iPod teardowns this week! We'll be taking apart the new iPod Touch and iPod Nano the moment we get our hands on them. Stay in the loop on twitter as the week progresses.

In case you missed it, last week we celebrated a major milestone. In addition to enabling Apple repair, we now have parts and repair manuals for most game consoles! We decided to celebrate by taking a trip through time and ripping apart five retro consoles:

Magnavox Odyssey 100 released August 1975
RCA Studio II released January 1977
Atari 2600 released October 1977
Nintendo Famicom released July 1983
Nintendo Virtual Boy released August 1995

Still want to keep your old Shuffle running? We have complete iPod Shuffle repair manuals and parts.

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Edit Step 1 — iPod Shuffle 4th Generation Teardown ¶

Apple's latest incarnation of the Shuffle bears little resemblance to its immediate predecessor.
Although the Shuffle features "new, smaller packaging," it doesn't feature a similarly resized shipping box. Apple could have shipped 30 iPod Shuffles in this box. Literally.
Its Apple model number is A1373, updated from the previous Shuffle's A1271 designation.

Edit Step 2 ¶

The 4th Gen Shuffle is priced at a paltry $49.99! The original iPod shuffle cost $99, and had only 512 MB of storage.
There's a button just for VoiceOver: push once for artist and song, twice for battery status, and hold for playlist menu.
Apple admitted that people actually like buttons and brought them back for this generation.
- Pshhh! Those of us with 3rd Gen Shuffles just printed out this convenient chart and carried it around for reference.

Edit Step 3 ¶

Here's the full lineup.
- There seems to be pattern here: skinny, fat, skinny, fat. It seems like Apple can't decide what shape they like best.
iPod Shuffle 4th Generation:
- Height: 1.14"
- Width: 1.24"
- Depth: 0.34"
- Weight: 0.44 oz.
A bank was robbed last week in Ba Sing Se. Witnesses were given this lineup to identify the perpetrator.

Edit Step 4 ¶

Although this step makes it look super-simple to open the Shuffle, it's not. It took us a good half hour of prying and heat-gunning to open the little guy.
- Pro tip: Aluminum gets hot when it's heated!

Edit Step 5 ¶

The exposed internals.
The logic board is stuffed alongside the battery in the outer case.
Notice the glue residue along the edges of the opening.
- Apple press-fit and glued the back clip onto the body. No wonder it was such a doozy to open!

Edit Step 6 ¶

Even the seemingly simple task of disconnecting the control pad ribbon cable turns out to be quite a chore when the connector is 1/8" wide.
We have a feeling that as technology advances, we'll need smaller and smaller tools to take devices apart. You won't be able to see our hands in pictures, just little pointy tweezers.
We already have a microscope ready and waiting in the back room for when that time comes -- but we're not there quite yet (thankfully).

Edit Step 7 ¶

Our huge #00 screwdriver makes short work of the logic board screw.
A plastic opening tool is needed to lift the battery off the light adhesive holding it to the case.
After the battery is out, a small plastic logic board retainer must be removed with none other than a dental pick.

Edit Step 8 ¶

We remove the logic board and battery together from the iPod, because Apple once again chose to solder the battery to the logic board.
The loss of user-serviceability is the price we pay for small, sleek design.

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