Pre-release tear-down of the iPad

David Heath
Saturday, 03 April 2010 22:45

Your IT - Mobility

Thanks to a small mistake by the FCC, a full internal view and complete identification of the circuitry of the iPad was made possible the day before release.

Available on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website, the internal photographs submitted as part of the mandatory evaluation process may be downloaded by anyone.

As requested by Apple, details of the chips used in the iPad were covered prior to the release of the information.

Unfortunately, as has happened all too many times in the past, the person performing the hiding process (probably in Adobe Acrobat Professional) neglected to flatten the images before saving.  This means that anyone with a copy of Adobe Illustrator can very easily open the images and delete the obscuring rectangles.  iTWire also understands that Adobe Acrobat Professional can achieve the same result.

This author does not have the technical wherewithal to perform an exhaustive analysis of the contents of the iPad; we'll leave that to the guys at iFixit who published a preview of their analysis in the past few hours based on an equivalent reveal of the chip IDs.  The iFixit guys hope to have their own unveiling as soon after release as possible.

By the time most iTWire followers read this article, the iPad will have been sold to the fans queued outside the doors of every East Coast Apple store (and hopefully also delivered to those who pre-ordered via the website).

We'll attempt to summarise the reactions as they come in.