Howdy everyone!
It's my hobby to buy broken Apple products and refurbish them for reselling. I started a long time ago in junior high with my 1999 Lombard PowerBook G3 when iFixit.com was pbfixit.com! It's been a blast teaching myself through experience the Jedi ways of troubleshooting Apples. If one thing's for certain, it's that learning is constant.
I have been working as a circuit board technician and junior engineer R2Sonic, LLC since August 2010, and it's been an incredible educational process as well, particularly for repairing Apple circuit boards on the component level.
I believe we should all meet our challenges without trepidation and filled with excitement. That's what drives me, and I love that iFixit is a great place for us engineers and tinkerers to do just that.
I'm surprised that the speakers are being criticized in this teardown. Contrarily, it seems that Apple spent a lot of time designing the new iPad 2 speakers because their sound quality far outmatches that of the iPad 1. The wholesome qualities of it just blew me away when my brother and I compared his iPads. And we though the iPad 1 had great speakers! We were wrong compared to this new iPad! :)
Yes. The rectangular magnet, like in the iBook G3s is supposed to sit underneath the palm rest casing piece. I just bought a broken one only to find that it is missing this piece, and therefore having the same issue. It should be noted to make sure that the piece goes back in when you take it apart as it is with the iBook G3 Fixit Guide. I was surprised to see that this one did not note that problem.