The race is on the be the first to identify the components of the new Apple iPad, writes GABRIEL MADWAY

THE iPAD will hit US stores tomorrow, but the race to unlock its mysteries started several weeks ago in San Luis Obispo, a picturesque college town roughly 320km south of Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

On March 12th, Kyle Wiens and Luke Soules woke up before dawn. Their plan demanded that they be among the first to get their hands on the device.

So at 5.30am, the minute Apple began taking iPad orders on its website, Wiens and Soules – do-it-yourself repair evangelists and co- founders of a company called iFixit – placed theirs.

As delivery addresses, they entered several US locations where their research determined the iPad was likely to arrive soonest. They could tell you which ones, but they would have to kill you.

Armed with heat guns, suction cups and other tools of the trade, the duo will set out to reveal some of the tablet’s most closely guarded secrets: the design and components that make it tick.

If all goes according to plan, by the time the lines outside Apple Stores start to thin, iFixit will have provided a blow-by-blow account of its “teardown” to the world, complete with a photo montage.

Such details are manna for the Apple faithful, and iFixit has made a name for itself in technology circles by providing them fast. To do so, Wiens and Soules must above all make sure they are among the very first people to be in actual possession of these hotly anticipated gadgets. And this being Apple, one of the world’s most secretive companies, each launch presents a different set of challenges.

Apple’s mostly unsung suppliers, which are barred from talking about their most famous customer, will admit in private that they love these teardowns by iFixit and others. The spectacles trumpet to the world that a manufacturer is good enough to make it into an Apple product.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Apple, which declined to comment, does not like anybody monkeying around with its devices. This, after all, is a company that won’t even let users change their iPod and iPhone batteries. It has fired executives over leaks and sued bloggers to halt their revelations.

There is nothing Apple can do though about teardowns.

“What we do is completely legal, but if they could stop us they would,” Wiens (26) says with a touch of pride.

What Apple can and does do is make its devices tougher for him and others to decrypt. Teardown firms say the electronics giant forces some suppliers to stamp their microprocessors with the Apple logo, making it harder to determine their provenance.

One reason Apple frowns upon teardowns, say experts, is that it is reluctant to broadcast that it doesn’t manufacture the widgets itself. “Apple really wants end users to think that Apple makes this thing, that Apple makes the iPad, not Foxconn, Samsung, Toshiba,” Soules says.

For iFixit, these techno-stripteases are more than just publicity stunts designed to promote its business (although they are that for sure). They are also, to hear Wiens and Soules tell it, a cause.

The two businessmen say one of their goals is to cut down on electronic waste that ends up in landfills by demonstrating the old-fashioned virtue of repair, extending the lifespan of devices.

Wiens says his mission is to make repair “sexy”. He refers to Apple as a “closed company” because it doesn’t want its users repairing its products. “We used to fix things in this country. Back in the 1950s it was cool to tinker with your car, but that changed as it became more of a consumer culture.”

Wiens and Soules launched iFixit, which sells Apple parts and provides free online repair manuals, as teenagers in 2003 out of their college dorm at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. It is now a thriving small business that employs about two dozen people and generates more than $2 million in annual sales.

With so much riding on getting hold of the iPad first or close to it, iFixit is playing the odds, flying representatives to multiple cities that Wiens and Soules are keeping to themselves for the moment.

The iPad is Apple’s most high-profile product launch since the iPhone three years ago. Starting at $499, the 9.7in iPad represents a new category of device, an always-on, all-purpose tool for media consumption.

Shops are sure to be packed on launch day, but Wall Street is still debating its long-term impact on Apple’s bottom line. Many analysts expect the company to sell four to five million iPads this year.

Whether it flops or becomes the next big thing, the competition to divulge accurately who made which microprocessor and sundry other parts will be fierce.

Stripping down a device can last a week or more, requiring a variety of tools. Just opening an Apple gizmo can be tricky; the first generation iPhone, in particular, was sealed up tight enough to frustrate Harry Houdini.

“Apple thinks of the iPhone as a magical black box,” Wiens says. “They hate screws.”

Besides heat guns for melting seals, suction cups for manoeuvring screens and a small hooked stick called a spudger, some less-conventional instruments sometimes come into play. “It turned out the best tool to take apart the original iPhone was a dental pick,” Wiens says.

Identifying certain computer chips takes some digital sleuthing. The web is awash with lists of component serial numbers, so parts often can be tied to the manufacturer simply by plugging them into a search engine such as Google.

However, divining the origin of other parts requires more expensive hardware such as X-ray machines or a scanning electron microscope, a desk-sized device that provides pictures at the nanometer level. Chips are carefully sliced open, then examined from the inside, which can take days.

Francis Sideco, an analyst with research group iSuppli, calls the process of identifying parts “doing triangulation”. He says iSuppli expects to put out an iPad teardown analysis a few days after the launch. “We like to get it right; we don’t want to wait two weeks, but we do want to get it right.”

There is only one iPad component that is known for certain: Apple has already announced that its very own A4 processor is the primary brains of the device. The chip is reportedly manufactured for Apple by Samsung.

The iPad display and touchscreen are the most expensive part of the device, likely to be about $80. They are also the biggest engineering mystery, Sideco says. The iPad’s screen measures 9.7-inches.

“Capacitive touchscreens are typically three to four inches and increasing sizes is one of the biggest challenges. The display is key, and what it costs,” Sideco says.

In the past, iFixit’s teardowns have turned up parts from companies such as Wolfson Microelectronics, Skyworks Solutions, TriQuint Semiconductor and Marvell Technology Group. The team also discovered a small space in the iPod touch meant for a camera, although the device doesn’t yet include one. They don’t know what they’ll find when they crack open the iPad, but they plan to be among the first.

Wiens and Soules own homes next door to each other in Atascadero, a 15-minute drive north from San Luis Obispo. Soules’s house doubles as an office for about 10 employees, as well as an Apple parts depot.

The house is an Apple geek wonderland, with a cat named Midnight prowling the halls. The decor is dominated by a life-sized suit of armour and racks filled with parts for iPods, iPhones and Mac computers. A jacuzzi-style tub in the bathroom doesn’t appear to have been used in some time, as it is piled high with boxes.

Soules just shrugs when asked about the clutter, but he seems right at home. He got his first Mac when he was in first grade and worked as a computer tech through high school. His grandfather fixed typewriters, so repair is in his blood.

Wiens’s father ran a Harley-Davidson dealership. He believes Apple’s cult appeal has a lot in common with that of the motorcycle maker. “Mystery attracts attention and Apple is a master at getting attention.” – (Reuters)