The back of the circuit board is dominated by the LCD display and the controls, which are attached directly to the board. The largest item, by far, is the Sony-Fukashima lithium-ion battery, molded to fit over the HDD. The iPod's PCB is a marvel of parts density-so much so that I was almost completely at sea when confronted with it. The essential innard is the hard disk drive (HDD), which is amazingly tiny-a 1.8" Toshiba design built to fit Toshiba's PCMCIA cards. Parts vetted include PortalPlayer's own MP3 decoder and controller chip, a Wolfson Microelectronics D/A converter, a Sharp flash-memory chip, Texas Instruments' IEEE1394a interface controller, and a Linear Technologies power-management and battery-charging system. Parts choices are said to have been made with an emphasis on sound quality, availability, and "time to market" considerations. The iPod is so easy to use that it's obvious Apple chose the right company for the job. PortalPlayer, a company that specializes in developing OSes for cellular phones, PDAs, and other streaming and wireless applications, designed the iPod's human interface.
One item that's invisible but indispensable is the iPod's operating system, which, I've been informed, is not of Apple design.
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