Washington Post Covers iPod Battery Ruckus 923
An anonymous reader sent in a link to 'Battery and Assault: When His iPod Died, This Music Lover Tackled Apple. Stay Tuned.' in the Washington Post. The article (good reading even if you're familiar with the situation) has Apple reps being rather callous about the issue - I think it's a fairly reasonable assumption that if you spend several hundred dollars on a gizmo, it shouldn't be "disposable". A replacement battery for my cell phone cost $10; one for my cordless phone cost $10; Apple is presumably making a good deal of money on their $99 replacements.
Or you could (Score:5, Informative)
Sure you have to install it yourself, but it's not hard at all.
Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:3, Informative)
It's a battery from a third party manufacturer.
Apple doesn't make batteries.
(PS. Apple has switched to a new battery manufacturer)
(PPS. My old first edition iPod still works perfectly. Most of them do.)
Re:Or you could (Score:1, Informative)
Lithium Ion Dummy! (Score:4, Informative)
The iBook batteries are expensive too, same concept, they both have built in circuit boards to make sure the batteries or device is not damaged, unlike this guy's cell phone which is much cheaper akaline (?) or something of the same caliber.
Re:Or you could (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But... (Score:3, Informative)
What drive brand are you using?
Re:But... (Score:3, Informative)
If it's "off the shelf" why are you asking about a replacement?
Re:Or you could (Score:4, Informative)
I know you're bound to tell me that they are idiots for breaking their iPod. Personally, I think they're right to direct their anger at a company that [a] Made the battery non-user replaceable, and [b] presumably knew that the batteries could die in about 18 months. If [b] isn't true, then it's just incompetence.
Disclosure: I own an iPod, and it's working ok, but the battery no longer holds its charge for longer than about 3 days, which is kind of annoying, but iPods are so great otherwise I can live with it. I'm not looking forward to my battery finally dying though.
Re:Or you could (Score:5, Informative)
"Some of the e-mail the Neistat Brothers received from "iPod's Dirty Secret" came from people who were quick to tell them "that we're [bleep]ing imbeciles, [because] you can buy a battery online and do it yourself," Casey says.
The brothers already tried that.
They Googled around and ordered the battery from a different vendor that came with complicated instructions and "these two plastic gigantic toothpicks," Casey says. It took a while to pry the back cover off the iPod's impenetrable design. Beneath that was "a gummy adhesive" which covered the mini hard drive, "and there were these two very tiny connectors with three prongs," in a work space "about the diameter of a needle."
He felt as if he was performing amateur neurosurgery."
Of course, I can't have any sympathy for the guy for going out and buying another iPod after the incident.
Not that outlandish (Score:5, Informative)
Second, whose cell phone batteries are only $10? A new lithium-ion battery for my phone costs about $50, and that's just something you can snap on and off yourself. To have someone open up your iPod and replace the battery, then mail it back...doesn't sound that unreasonable.
It's just what you get for buying a device that doesn't have an easily replaceable battery.
That said, there are ways to increase the lifetime of a lithium-ion battery. Back when I started college, we were all required to buy laptops. I was one of the few who actually read the manual, and it said the battery was good for a couple hundred full recharges, and about 800 partial recharges. Some people don't understand that lithium-ion batteries don't have the same memory effect that nickel-cadmium ones do. So for the duration of college, I kept the laptop plugged in whenever possible, and only ran the battery all the way down when I needed to use it for that long. Other people had to buy new $250 batteries, but my old laptop still gets about 2 hours life out of its five-year-old battery. I do the same for my cell phone; keep it on a charger whenever possible, and it still had good battery life when I need it.
If you use your iPod away from any source of recharging power so much, then I guess you just have to live with it. It's a fact of lithium-ion batteries, Apple's doing the best with what technology is available. And $99 isn't too expensive a replacement cost, if you had 18 months of wireless music. If you're willing to plug in whenever you sit down near a wall outlet, and don't wait until the battery is dead before recharging it, then your iPod will last much longer.
Damn battery. (Score:2, Informative)
Here [cnet.com] is a CNet article on other reasons not to buy one...
Ok, not sure what kind of cellphone YOU have (Score:3, Informative)
Now I just picked up a new battery for my cellphone, a high capacity one since the normal one wasn't as big as I'd like. I decided to buy a genuine Motorola one, rather than a generic, despite them being more expensive. It was $30 all said and done, for the battery and a backplate to accomidate its physically larger size.
Now, given that, I cannot concieve how Apple thinks their battery ought to be $99.
Apple coming out with new batteries (Score:3, Informative)
sounds like apple is taking the steps they need to be taking, they just dont have a fix yet. On the other hand I think this battery bussiness is not so widespread but just a few defective ones. I know loads of people with ipods that have no problems.
Handspring Treo, same problem (Score:2, Informative)
There is simply no reason these devices can't use replaceable batteries. Nokia, Ericcson, and Samsung have mastered the ability to create replaceable batteries that take up no extra space, are inexpensive, and work great. Why should these Apple and Handspring devices be any different? It's planned obselescence.
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple doesn't sell Apple-branded mini-to-RCA cords.
Not sure where you saw that but it wasn't an Apple cable. Yes they are totally guilty of absurd mark-ups (they took a page from Sony's book), but not to that extent.
They do sell a Monster cable [apple.com] on the AppleStore that is mini-to-RCA. $46 CDN.
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't believe the FUD (Score:1, Informative)
Showed up a week later, brand new plastic, case, screen, wheel, and back case, all perfect. Plus a new battery.
Can't believe how much I missed it..
Except it's not. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll probably get modded flamebait for this, but the main reason Apple products cost so much is because Apple fans will pay that much. The best description I ever saw of Apple is that "Apple isn't a hardware or software company-it's a cult" (shameless ripped from an old
Seriousl, what's so great about the iPod? (Score:3, Informative)
So what does the iPod do that makes it worth more and require a more expensive battery? Is it just the firewire? Is it better at playing MP3s? Seriously, I'd like to know. I've never used an iPod, never even seen one up close, but the Archos does a hell of a job and I don't understand why people are willing to spend so much more on an iPod.
Re:Sony laptop batteries (Score:2, Informative)
YAW.
Wow, what wusses. (Score:5, Informative)
Recently, I did a battery replacement on my iPod. I wrote about it here [livejournal.com] in my journal.
For people who claim to be all for working on your own hardware, you're all getting pretty bitchy about performing a five-minute, three step process.
Oh, and my battery cost me half of what Apple is charging. So nyah.
Re:Not that outlandish (Score:3, Informative)
For a Li-Ion battery you are doing the right thing by keeping it topped off as much as possible. Li-Ion is a rather difficult battery to charge. If the remaining charge is close to nothing then the battery must be charged very slowly until it reaches something like 50% capacity because otherwise it could very well explode. If the battery is discharged too much it may not be rechargeable. However, topping off a Li-Ion is relatively easy and can be done fairly quickly.
Fortunately, the battery controller that is required for Li-Ion will take care of most of this. Just remember that the Li-Ion cells really want to be topped off unless you plan to store them unused for a while in which case I believe they like around 70% charge.
However, NiCd batteries are completely different. Since nickel cadmium batteries were the first popular consumer batteries, most people still think in terms of NiCd. For a NiCd you really do want to discharge it fully because the "memory effect" has a lot to do with the chemistry of the battery and the easiest way to avoid it is to discharge the battery until it is completely and totally dead before recharging it.
NiMH is somewhere in between. It doesn't have the pronounced memory effect of NiCd but a deep discharge isn't necessarily a bad idea from time to time.
The other popular battery you'll encounter is lead acid (e.g. a car battery). Lead acid does NOT want to be discharged fully. The exception to that is a "Marine" or "Deep-cycle" battery that is specifically designed to not completely screw up when fully discharged. Still, the battery doesn't really want to be fully discharged, but it's engineered to handle the situation.
Hope that helps. I got most of this from some page someone else posted in a slashdot comment; unfortunately I didn't bookmark it. The bottom line is.. do NOT make a point of fully discharging Li-Ion. Doing so can do no good for the battery. However, sometimes the Li-Ion battery controllers will get confused and think the battery doesn't have very much power left when in fact it would be safe to discharge it a little bit more. Remember, the controller is trying to prevent damage to the battery. Discharging a Li-Ion beyond the controller's limits would damage the battery. Still, sometimes the controller's limits can get confused and so a deep-cycle will reset it.
Only do a deep-cycle of a Li-Ion if you are experiencing noticably diminished battery life. And even then, only do one deep cycle (which should reset the controller). If that doesn't help, then it's probably time to get a new battery.
Re:iPod rocks because no-one else tries (Score:2, Informative)
That was true 6 months ago, but not anymore. I owned an iPod and sold it; now I have a Rio Karma (which is the same size/weight as the iPod). The iPod's interface was a little simpler in some ways, but I prefer the Karma's. Even though its wheel is not as slick as the iPod's, the Karma requires fewer button presses to do many things. Also, the Karma has bookmarks, gapless playback, Ogg, FLAC, ethernet, over twice the battery life, and is more than $100 cheaper.
Apple replaces more than just the battery... (Score:5, Informative)
NOTE: iPod equipment that is sent in for battery service or service requiring other repairs will be replaced with functionally equivalent new, used, or refurbished iPod equipment. You will not receive the same iPod that was sent in for service.
iPod Battery Replacement [apple.com]
Getting a new or refurbished unit isn't all that bad of a deal. I'm pretty sure they won't send you a dinged-up scratched to hell unit
Re:I see you're become accustomed to being ripped (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seriousl, what's so great about the iPod? (Score:3, Informative)
Ipod dimensions-
Archos AV120 [thinkgeek.com] - 4.3" x 3.1" x 1.1"
The Archos is much chunkier as you can see. There are hard drive MP3 players that are actually smaller than the iPod.
But the Archos is not that much larger. Most of the larger size is due to the rubber things on the corners. But, the Archos seems to be the most feature laden product. At $359, the 20gb Archos it is cheaper than a comparable 20gb iPod.
But the iPod only plays MP3s. The Archos not only plays MP3s, but WMA and Ogg. It encodes MP3, as well.
But the really impressive thing is that it can play video. It also has a color LCD display that can play divx or xvid. It can encode divx from a video input, thus it functions as a PVR, which is completely beyond the capabilities of the iPod. It also has video out, so you can connect it to a tv.
It seems that the cheaper Archos is the better, more versatile player.
Re:was he supposed to make sure to leave it unsync (Score:5, Informative)
The damage comes from frequent short cycles since the battery itself is limited to a limited number of charge cycles (not imposed on you by some counter that ticks down, due to the way the battery works). The battery can also be conditioned into a lower capacity state with frequent short cycles, so the pmu thinks the battery is full when it isn't.
The days of non-intelligent chargers are long gone.
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Counterpoint: the GBA battery. (Score:5, Informative)
GBA: 13.5 x 8.0 x 2.5 cm = 270cm cubed volume
It's easy to add everything. Problem is, you end up with a "fat" product. Just ask MS. Apple know what to cut - and that's why people are comfortable carrying around an iPod in their pocket.
Oh, and the reason that those batteries are so cheap (relatively) is because they're AAs. Failed to mention that bit. Interestingly enough, it's Nintendo that are making the $$$ on the batteries - that's way too much for a set of rechargables.
I call bullshit. The battery service has only been offered in the last couple of months. How long has the iPod been around for? If it was designed to be a revenue stream, the battery service would have been around for almost as long as the iPod itself. It hasn't been.
-- james
Re:Surprised? (Score:3, Informative)
Somebody obviously forgot to tell Virginia Tech about your unsubstantiated garbage. It just so happens that the third fastest computer in the world is based on Apples.
You do know why they picked Apples, don't you? Because Dell, IBM, HP and everyone else selling non-Apple branded products were more expensive.
MS, on the other hand, are a great example of a Co that overcharges. Their OSes are more, their gaming consoles are more, even their mice cost more than the competition.
-- james
Re:Apple replaces more than just the battery... (Score:3, Informative)
How does that work for engraved backs?
They pop out the back, then slap it on the iPod they're sending you instead.