:mad: My beloved iPod mini is dead. DEAD. I don’t know if I should blame myself of Apple for their shitty design. Here goes: I bought it over a year ago and have used it almost daily. About 6 months ago the battery got to the point where it would only hold a charge for a couple hours before dying. So, I looked online about a fix (battery replacement). Apple, in all their really, really cool design principles decided to make the iPod a sealed fucking thing to behold and that the battery should last the life of the unit. Yeah, ok, shitheads. So I pick one of the numerous websites out there that explain battery replacement and buy a new battery. I didn’t mind forking out $35 for a new battery after getting almost 6 months out of my last one. So with the new battery in hand I begin to take apart the iPod per instruction. Well, I buggered the thing all up by gouging the really, really cool plastic top and bottom and really, really cool aluminum case. Again, no biggy, just cosmetic. I get the battery replaced and put it back together. I did all this 5 months ago and it’s worked great since. At this time I got a car kit for it- one of the ones that hook to the cigarette lighter and broadcast to an unused FM station. This then became about 75% of my use from it (the sound was great, surprisingly). I also noticed that the new battery seemed to last longer on a charge than the original. Now to about a month ago. I’d be playing my iPod and would hit the wheel to skip a song, and the thing would turn off, then go through a reboot- all by just trying to skip forward a song. Hmmm, but still no biggy, once in a while is ok, I guess. Then it got to the point where plugging in the headphones caused it to turn off, then reboot. Grrrr. Then it started rebooting in the car adapter, too. Well, it got worse and worse. For a week now if I so much as breathed on it then it’d do a reboot. Sometimes it’d do a reboot after a reboot! Fuck! Now it won’t even turn on- just keeps going through the reboot. I found that is seemed to work best in the car cradle. Weird. Then I noticed that if I plugged it into the computer chord and fiddled with it enough then it’d work again (by this time the computer would no longer recognise it). So this worked for a few hours tonight, and now nothing! Just a pathetic flash of the screen as the Apple Logo shown on, then reboot. Then reboot again. Well, a size 12 shoe finally did it in (oh, it felt SO good! 
). So, did I somehow cause this whole problem by replacing the battery? Why the fuck didn’t Apple just design it to have a battery that snaps out like every fucking cell phone on the market?!? Now I have all this music on iTunes that I can only use THROUGH iTunes (don’t even get me started on that shit). And yes, I could have brought it to Apple, but once they saw I replaced the battery they would have turned their noses up to it. So now what? Buy a Nano? I’ve nothing but BAD about them (sorry, no cites). Fuck you Apple! :mad:
Do what I did. Buy a Palm TX and a couple SD cards and enjoy not being a Pod person anymore.
I’ve cursed and ranted enough about my own iPod woes on these boards already, so I’ll try to go easy this time. However, I will say this:
How fucking hard is it to design something that isn’t hermetically sealed shut, and that actually has access to the battery and a replaceable flash drive, like any *sensibly *designed gadget on the market? Or, for that matter, something that doesn’t fucking break from perfectly regular use? Once upon a time, I used to think those Apple designers were geniuses (I think it was for about 20 minutes, some time in 1960). Now, after about a year and a half as an iPod-user, I’ve come to realize that they are either complete idiots or actually insane.
Thank God that nice, affordable cell phones with integrated mp3 players are right around the corner, so the blasted piece of crap iPod can die the miserable death it so rightly deserves.
That is all.
How hard is it to just not buy something if you think it’s so poorly designed? It’s not like Apple advertised replaceable batteries and then pulled some kind of bait-and-switch.
iPods are “hermetically sealed shut” because a lot of people think it looks nicer that way, plain and simple. If you don’t agree, just buy a different product. It’s not rocket science.
Yeah, because all good pod people prefer form over function.
I bought the iPod believing what Apple said- that the battery would last the life of the unit. True, I didn’t do research first. I tried an iPod and loved the sound, the size and figured to buy it. Frankly, the battery sucked. And the fact that it died as it did (perhaps not even the battery) was something I never anticipated. I just don’t get the whole form over function thing. Eye candy in any way is shit.
Why anyone buys an iPod is beyond me. My sisters have had one each, one of them didn’t work at all and had to be replaced by Apple, the other died within three months of purchase. They weren’t even the same model - they were bought a year apart.
I have a Phillips mp3 player, bought from Tesco. For half the price of the iPod it is much smaller, better designed and doesn’t force you to use iTunes, which is perhaps the biggest selling point - that software looks like it was designed by an open source programmer 
Knock on wood…
My wife and I have both been extremely happy with our 3rd generation iPods. Mine is still going strong on the original battery after 2.5 years, and my wife is still on her original battery for 2 years now.
Never had a reboot or any other problem with them.
I understand that a lot of people have had issues with their iPods, but is there any evidence to suggest that the failure rate for the iPod is any higher than any other consumer electronic device? Ironically, I believe the same effect is at work here as the one that plagues Windows–the sheer prevalence of the OS means that most of the viruses are written targeting it. The prevalence of the iPods means that although perhaps 1% of the product is exhibiting failure, that 1% represents a large number of units and appears disproportionately large.
Is there any third-party group that tracks this stuff? For what it’s worth, Consumer Reports says
as late as January of this year (From here).
Really, I don’t understand the huge degree of animosity. Apple’s tech support is consistently ranked the best in the computer world (cite) and like wm– says, everything’s laid out for you.
Pretty happy with my 3rd generation, but I did have to replace the battery. That took * months * because apparently opening an iPod is an acquired skill and it took me forever to acquire it. Finally I found a decent Quicktime on the internet that showed the right technique. Yes, I don’t think Apple thought the battery thing all the way through.
As for the OP, to me it sounds like some bit of a circuit board was touching ground. So yeah – maybe replacing the battery caused it if you moved a piece of insulation. I’m thinking opening the iPod again and looking for a possible loose piece might have been a better option than stomping on $200+ of electronics. But I did once fling a portable CD player across the room under similar conditions, so who am I to talk?
The battery did last the life of the unit. Unfortunately for you, the life of the unit is entirely based on the battery.
I accidently sent my SanDisk MP3 flash player through the wash. It still worked.
I have no problems with my nano being sealed shut, if it wil extend the life of the unit. My last MP3 player, a plastic Diamond Rio, served me faithfully for 2 years but finally gave up the ghost when the case popped open after one too many falls.
I don’t understand why the whiners go into buying an ipod knowing fully well that it isn’t user servicable and that the battery will be the weakest link, I mean, that is pretty obvious from looking at it, is this the first portable electronic device you have ever bought?. Apple isn’t exactly known for producing products that can be opened with a phillips screwdriver and messed around with either. If that’s not your thing then don’t buy an ipod.
I’ve been using the Nano for 2 month and have been very rough with it. I don’t use a case, I throw it around, I even dropped it off a moving bike onto the pavement once. Nothing beyond a few minor scratches. I do have the extended warranty though.
I will gladly, right now, with the entire SDMB as my witness, bet you my ass that it will *shorten *the life of your unit considerably. When the battery goes dead or the flash disk breaks, your nano is reduced to a 200 $ bookmark. The nano is in fact an even worse design disaster than previous iPods. The battery is actually *soldered *to the circuit board, so good luck with replacing it without screwing something up. Also, unlike, say, the mini, it takes more than a screwdriver and some fiddling to open the case. More like a hammer or good kicking around the room a few times, and after that I doubt that you’ll get the blasted thing running again.
Finagle:
Yeah, I cheked the circuit board first and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I could see no sign of shorting out anywhere. Stomping on it as I did was a bit, um, stupid, but DAMN it felt good!
I knew going into the purchase that the battery was the weakest link. However, I expected to get more than 6 months out of a $250 item.
The flash disk breaking is really really far down on the list of things that are going to go wrong. It is solid state it will not break unless you break a lot of other things.
Well apparently you uinderestimated the “life of the unit” :smack:
Either that of If you don’t run out and buy a new ipod when the old one has a problem you are not part of their target demographic.
For heaven’s sake.
I don’t know about anyone else, but before embarking on a single purchase of more than… $100, say, I research that product first. I tend to go to the company’s own forum, since that’s the most likely place for both joyful users and frustrated ex-users. I check their FAQ and their tech support pages to see what the major issues seem to be. On the very rare occasion that I’m an early adopter, I check up on their usual support strategies and the problems their products tend to have. Armed with that information, I decide on my purchase.
I was reluctant to get a 'Pod, but I had HORRIBLE luck with the Creative player (a total of four returns, three of which were in the first month of ownership, mostly for HD issues) and my most major use of the iPod is for audiobooks from audible.com. Since the upgrade of the Creative player I was using did not yet have a firmware update that Audible accepted – and there was neither an ETA on that update nor any indication that there would ever BE one – I picked up an iPod.
Never regretted it. I’ve dropped the poor sucker half a dozen times, and apart from its incredible ability to get scratched it’s exactly what I wanted. No battery problems, though I’ve only owned it for about six months. I know they are prone to battery trouble – I think Apple even got sued – but I already knew the problems Creative was prone to…
That said, I have almost no sympathy for the OP. You didn’t research your purchase, and I’ve never been able to afford to throw money at some device without knowing it backward and forward first. That’s okay, though; you live and learn. But when you discovered that the iPod did not have user-serviceable parts and it needed service, you decided that you could do a better job than a trained tech (or at least the extra money you’d have to pay for someone from Apple to fix it wasn’t worth the hassle). And then, when your presumably non-professional self screws things up, you blame Apple?
If I pump gasoline into the oil reservoir in my engine, I don’t blame Saturn if my car dies.
The real kicker? iPods come with a one year manufacturer’s-defect warranty, so if this happened in the first six months you could have just sent the little nugget to the techs and had it fixed FREE. If it was in the first 180 days, that ‘free’ includes shipping and handling.
Ah, yes. The Sandisk. You can pry my cheap ass Sandisk player from my cold dead hands. I love that little thing.
Little Plastic Ninja: kindly take your logical approach out of my rant! 
Actually, you’re right on all counts. I didn’t send the iPod back to Apple like I should have. I heard from numerous people that had that Apple then sends you a refurbished unit to replace your original. To me that kinda sucks, especially if you’ve personalized it at all. Anyway, the whole battery thing looked easy to do, and so I did it. I now have my doubts that the battery replacement caused the inability of the pod to work. I was very careful doing the work (basically just open it up, pull out the circuit board, unclip the old battery wire and clip in the new battery wire, then slide back together). Given that I got a few months out of it problem free after the battery swap, I doubt it was the case. During my original OP I guessed maybe I caused it, but thinking back, seems doubtful. Anywho, my little rant got some steam out of me, and the follow up posts got me thinking. So, all in all good. Of course, still without an iPod 