Here’s an article about how Apple is starting to offer an expanded program for recycling your old computers. I guess they already offer this program for i-pods. Well, i would hope the fuck so…i’m on my second i-pod in two months. Why don’t they just make better products rather than offer to recycle the ones I buy for thousands of dollars that break…for free.
Damn you apple. leaves to go buy new i-pod
They should have a year warranty. You shouldn’t be buying new ones.
If you’re buying used, try refurbished instead. Check store.apple.com, macmall.com, smalldog.com and others.
I get ya…problem is that it is hassle of the back and fourth of the shipping. i’m using the warrenty. But for $350 a pop…I really shouldn’t have to.
At least I know they are recycling them…or selling them back to the general public. 
I love my Mac. I don’t think I’ll buy a computer that’s not a mac for the foreseeable future.
But that said - the iPod is a piece of shit that needs to die. We got one as a Christmas present a year and five months ago, give or take. During the first year we sent it back twice for completely dying.
The second time, they sent a brand new iPod. A few months after we received it, it started to drain battery power at an alarming rate - from full to empty in two or three nights of complete non-use. Not long after that, it started to hang occasionally and take thirty or forty seconds to warm up sometimes.
It’s been - maybe - seven months since the last exchange, and just two days ago the thing completely died; the hard drive just makes clicking sounds over and over again. Apple has always made great, high-quality computers - and their recent comeback has all been because of such a shittacular design?
But they look cool. Sleek design and all that.
Will we not go through this again if I compare the iPod to Hitler?
I have heard similar stories from people who own non-iPod mp3 players – apparently there’s a whole model line of Creative Zen jobbies where the headphone jack stops working after a week. I doubt the iPod is a standout offender. This sounds like the Ford/Chevy thing guys in my high school use to do.
Disclosure: I have an iPod and it’s worked fine for going on 3 years now. (I’m thinking of geting a sticker for it that shows Calvin peeing on the Rio logo.) However, it pretty much just sits on my car seat or in my backpack and doesn’t get knocked around.
So why are you buying another iPod if they break on you? It’s the silhouette ads, isn’t it?
I guess I’m one of the lucky few - got mine Christmas ‘04 and it keeps on tickin’. I thought I’d have had to upgrade to one of those fandangled video iPods by now. Thankfully, I haven’t.
Although I do have the ‘drained after a few nights of disuse’ thing going, but I don’t mind.
Jesus, don’t those things go for $300 a pop?
Seriously, this is what I’m wondering as well. If I bought one and it broke that quickly, I’d be looking elsewhere. Two, and I’d be pitting myself for being a sucker.
I’d have to agree with this, since my Zen Touch performs like a champion with regards to battery life, build quality, and general tolerance for physical abuse.
While my neighbor’s newer Zen Micro has done the run of warranty replacement three times.
Mine’s a few months older than yours, and likewise still working just fine. I wouldn’t mind upgrading to a newer, more powerful unit (mine is a 15 Gb), but unfortunately Apple has ditched the firewire interface, severely reducing the usability of the iPod for someone running a six-year-old iMac without USB 2.0.
Tip to minimize the draining-while-idle problem: never just shut the unit down in the middle of a playlist. When you’re done listening, scroll down to the last song on the playlist, press Play, then press Forward (which returns you to the playlist library), then power down. That way, the iPod isn’t keeping a song in memory the whole time it’s sitting on top of your dresser.
Thanks, that’s a great tip.
I remember reading that what really drains the memory is the number/size of songs that end up in the cache, so that in theory playing the beginnings of a lot of songs and skipping through playlists (like I often do) would drain about as much power as playing them through, but in less time. Any thoughts on this? And do you think “shuffle” uses up more power than just playing playlists straight through? A few months ago on a long car trip I just let the thing play straight through everything – no shuffle, no skipping – and it seemed to last quite a bit longer on a charge than it usually does.
I understand that letting the battery completely drain before recharging will also keep the battery life up significantly.
My Zen Micro has worked just fine. Love how I can customize the entire thing. I had it since Christmas 2005, I guess I got the lucky one, haven’t experienced any of the problems I heard they are prone to.
I use my iPod on a laptop with USB 1.1. I thought it would be slow as shit, but I was amazed at the speed. It transfers to the iPod at the same rate it took me to rip my CD collection, and since the files were already on the computer, I didn’t even have to swap CDs.
Then again, I did spend 5 years with 24k dialup, so I’m a very patient person.
if I were you, I would seriously consider investing in an mp3 player with a warranty.
perhaps one that’s not the kind that keeps fucking breaking.
The batteries are darn easy to replace- there are tons of tutorials with lots of pictures on the web. It should cost you $30.00 and that’s a good price for not having to treat your iPod like it’s made of gold just to keep it playing.
FWIW I agree with the OP. Ipods suck and I hate mine only a little bit less than I’d hate not having one.
I fell for the iPod hype too and I regret it immensely. It worked fine, and dandy, and great. I bought it used, but it was still pretty new - the guy selling it just wanted to get a video iPod instead. I had it for about 7 or 8 months. It was still under warranty. Then, 12 days before the warranty was up… BAM, Apple releases new firmware!
I’m generally too lazy to upgrade things that already work, but I’ve got one of Those Boyfriends, so it went like this:
Boyfriend: Ooh, new firmware! Let’s upgrade!
Me: Ehh, why? It works fine already.
Boyfriend: But it’s new! Maybe it’ll be better!
Me: Ehh. I dunno. I can’t be bothered with stuff like that. It works just fine as it is. I don’t need it to be better.
Boyfriend: Come on! It’s NEW!
Me: I really can’t be bothered to do that when it already works!
Boyfriend: But this is the new version, it’ll be better!
Me: ALRIGHT! Jeez! Just do it already if it’ll make you stop talking about it!
Next day… I get the stupid ridiculous sad iPod face. Following the steps listed on the site fixes it. This happens twice more, and the third time my iPod has decided that following the steps listed on the site no longer works. It’s completely shot now. GREAT FIRMWARE UPGRADE!!!
The sad iPod face pisses me off, by the way. It just makes me feel like they knew it was going to break, or else they wouldn’t have bothered to make a cutesy little icon with a stupid SAD FACE on it. Gah!