iPad 2 Smart Cover Teardown Reveals 21 Magnets

[Mark Booth]

Your pacemaker should alarm if it's disarmed by a magnet, no? My nephew just had a ICD implanted and that is the way that his is set up. IOW, you would know before it should ever cause you a problem if you accidently got it near enough and it was strong enough to interfere. The magnets that they use to disarm my nephew's device are much, much stronger than anything they'd use for a case.

There's no speaker built into my pacemaker so, no, it won't "alarm".

When a magnet is placed near the pacemaker at just the right spot (and just the right amount of magnetic force in the magnet), it sends the pacemaker into a test mode. The pacemaker manufacturer supplies the magnet for this testing. It is used to do periodic checks of your pacemaker over the telephone. The manufacturer also supplies an acoustical modem with wrist straps. You place the straps on your wrists and place the telephone receiver in the modem cradle. Upon placing the magnet over the pacemaker, it kicks the pacemaker into a test mode and the pacemaker increases the heart rate to 100 beats per minute. That is, as long as you have a full enough battery in your pacemaker. When the battery starts getting close to end of life, the magnet will only cause the pacemaker to kick up to, say, 90 beats a minute. When the monitoring station sees this decrease in BPM with the magnet, they know it is time to schedule surgery to have a replacement pacemaker implanted.

Again, that's with a magnet DESIGNED for such use with the pacemaker. If you get too strong of a magnetic field near the pacemaker, it can cause the pacemaker to be reset into default mode (default parameters). Every patient's pacemaker is programmed for their specific situation. Some people are pacemaker dependent. If the pacemaker gets kicked into default mode, it can be quite dangerous for people who are pacemaker dependent.

Per the article that was linked earlier in the thread, neodymium magnets can interfere with pacemakers. So, my question has to be... Did Apple use neodymium magnets in the Smart Cover or the iPad 2?

Mark

 

[Powerbooky]

Is anybody worried that these magnets might potentially affect the data on a magnetic HD in a macBook stored next to an iPad? Or are they not strong enough for that?

HDDs are far more resistant than you may think. Often even very strong magnets won't do any harm.
I reckon the cover magnets shouldn't cause any harm.

It depends... My Powerbook also has a magnet somewhere on the back of the screen, used for the closing mechanism. It did destroy the magnetic strip on some debit-cards. Happened while carrying my Powerbook and cards in the same backpack. But maybe the iPad cover magnets aren't that strong enough?
In the past I occasionally had to wipe a bunch of floppy discs using a machine that erases everything from compact audio cassettes up to big size broadcast tapes (betacam, 1 inch and 2 inch tapes). That thing has really powerful magnets inside. Nevertheless after one or two wipe runs, some floppies or even ZIP-discs were still perfectly readable.

 

[Macinthetosh]

The cover really works very nicely. It puts the iPad in a perfect position for typing on your lap.

 

[marksman]

It makes me nervous. I remember when magnets were the mortal enemy of data storage.

Nonsense! I used to hang 5.25" floppies on the refrig with magnets...


Come to think of it though a lot of them seemed to be empty...

 

[sircharlo]

It turns out that the cover doesn't work nearly as well once you take out the magnets, steel plate, and plastic structural supports.

Sigged lol

 

[Dave00]

You'd never let her near the cover, but let her near the iPad??

Yes, iPad is phenomenal for toddlers, at least, if they're not the type to throw things. They have interactive stories, language builders, educational games. No danger to my child, as I imagine it'd be awful hard to get the magnets out of the iPad. But the cover? I haven't seen one in person, but I'd imagine getting to the magnets just requires a sharp set of teeth.

 

[Dave00]

Just an idea.

How about buying your 2 year old items to use designed for a 2 year old and not designed for an adult?
Do you think an iPad with a sheet of fragile and very dangerous thin glass on the front would ever pass any safety test for approval as a product for a young child?

You must not have children.

There are thousands of apps designed specifically for children. My 2-year-old is learning Spanish from the iPad. She can navigate to our photos and home videos that she likes, or read a book.

I'd never get an iPad just for the kids, but my goodness, there's lots of wonderful things on it for them.

 

[marksman]

You have to be kidding. The smart cover is what convinced you to buy the new ipad? You are just the type of sucker that apple hoped to attract. The smart cover is a joke. It provides virtually no protection. It is just a gimmick. It provides no back protection, which is where most of the wear occurs, it can't be flipped onto the back when using the device. It provides absolutely no drop protection. Shame on Apple for coming up with a completely worthless cover and then soaking all the lemmings $39 - $69.

Wow. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. There's even a photograph in this thread (post #59) demonstrating that you're wrong. I'm holding an iPad with the cover wrapped around the back. That is how wrong you are. Congrats on being totally wrong.

The smart cover is genius because it CAN cover the back when it's sitting downnbeing used, and it ocovers the screen when your transporting it. On top of it neing an awesome stand. it's perfect.

I was going to tell him that but you did it first and better. Blorzoga clearly has no idea how this cover is designed, and more importantly he doesn't understand the common and most normal usage and means of protections any sort of cases have for these devices.

 

[iamstevenobs]

Did someone point out how netbooks don't need a special cover?

If not,.. then I will. Netbooks have a cover designed in from the ground up, not added as an afterthought. Its a feature of having a clamshell design that lets the keyboard and screen be protected from minor scratches, knocks, etc, and then just like magic allows the screen to be viewed and the REAL keyboard accessed.

Yes.. I believe Steve is kicking himself for not having the balls to claim that Apple invented the clamshell or the netbook. He has instead to push this stupid cover to make up for the design shortcomings of a tablet. Lucky he is such as whizz at marketing and so many fanbois will spend spend spend because they think it fills the void in their life, and the compromise of typing on a touchscreen held at a usuable angle by this contraption is not as great as having to use a netbook. By the way, how much thicker is the ipad2 than the ipad when you attach the cover Steve? And $39 more expensive too.

 

[marksman]

This has potential to be a big problem for those of us with children. My 2-year-old LOVES the iPad, but I'd never let her near the smart cover. Those magnets get out (through chewing or just misuse) it's potentially deadly for a small child who swallows them. Guarantee you this winds up being an issue at some point.

Dave

Your child is going to eat through your iPad cover?

Don't wear your favorite Expensive automatic watch around that thing with all those magnets it will f-up and magnetize your movement and your watch will run extremely fast.

People under 65 should not be wearing watches.

Sorry, not usually a grammar nazi, but that first one is just a huge pet peeve of mine!

Good thing you are not, because you suck at it. If you are going to take the time to point out grammar issues, at least be correct on what you are doing.

 

[Dave00]

Your child is going to eat through your iPad cover?

Apparently, you don't have children. They like to chew on things. Find a toddler's household that doesn't have books, papers, etc with gnawed-on edges. Now add in the possibility of a household having a dog or cat, and the likelihood of these tiny magnets getting into the hands of a young one is magnified. A child swallows two magnets, which attract each other through small bowel walls, causing obstruction and death. It happens, and I'm concerned about it happening with the iPad cover.

 

[mrsir2009]

It makes me nervous. I remember when magnets were the mortal enemy of data storage.

Ah yes, back in the 90s when kids used to put magnets up to their CRT screens to distort the colours

CRT monitors and floppy disk drives are the only things that magnets can hurt - The iPad 2 contains none of those.

Oh, and the MacBook Pro's also contain magnets to latch the lid shut and the old white iMacs has magnets to attach the remote to the side of the computer. No harm was done there

 

[mrsir2009]

Apparently, you don't have children. They like to chew on things. Find a toddler's household that doesn't have books, papers, etc with gnawed-on edges. Now add in the possibility of a household having a dog or cat, and the likelihood of these tiny magnets getting into the hands of a young one is magnified. A child swallows two magnets, which attract each other through small bowel walls, causing obstruction and death. It happens, and I'm concerned about it happening with the iPad cover.

Get the leather one - Leather is very hard to penetrate isn't it? And it'll probably have some sort of chemical on it that'll taste disgusting.

 

[LightSpeed1]

I'm on my second already. The first was polyurethane, Held up well but the dried up baby drool on it looks horrible after time. Leather is doing a lot better. The teeth marks go away after a couple hours, sometimes days. As far as the drool, it wipes right off.

 

[George Knighton]

Im concerned that this cover wont provide protection for the backside of my iPad.. leaving it open for scratches and scuffs.. Any thoughts on this?

My thoughts are that we'll be putting the iPad face down on the desk instead of whatever we're doing now.

 

[George Knighton]

a LITTLE overpriced?

LOL.... Yeah, but what can you do. The high quality imitations are still some ways off.

Something I'll enjoy, I think, is how much thinner the iPad 2 with cover will be, compared to how thick the iPad 1 with ZooGue becomes. The ZooGue is great, but it does thicken up an iPad considerably.

The new iPad cover looks like it'll do basically the same stand up routine that the ZooGue does, but without any increased girth to speak of. The only thing I'll miss is that I was in the habit of sticking an occasional, important piece of paper into the ZooGue.

My iPad (1) experience has also taught me that I will need nothing close to 64GB of storage on my iPad (2).

 

[PwcrLinux]

Ah yes, back in the 90s when kids used to put magnets up to their CRT screens to distort the colours

CRT monitors and floppy disk drives are the only things that magnets can hurt - The iPad 2 contains none of those.

Oh, and the MacBook Pro's also contain magnets to latch the lid shut and the old white iMacs has magnets to attach the remote to the side of the computer. No harm was done there

Oh yea!, I saw my TV tech doing check on my tube tv. A tech pulls out the big magnet. Whoa! I told tech guy "Please don't put the mag near my cable box's hard drive", so he placed "Anti-Mag" protection over my cable box, so then he start the mag testing over the tube screen for a color and screen straighten out.

The magnet can damage to the cable box hard drive.