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.
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Or you could (Score:0, Insightful)
49 + 50 = 99 (Score:3, Insightful)
at least $50, including the service fees. that's how much the battery (sans installation) costs here [ipodbattery.com].
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing battery prices... (Score:5, Insightful)
A replacement battery for my cell phone cost $10; one for my cordless phone cost $10;
Both your cell phone battery and your cordless phone battery are, presumably, removable. Now, maybe Apple made a mistake in not making their battery removable (but it sure makes the unit smaller), but regardless, there is a lot more effort involved in replacing the battery for the iPods.
In addition to this, I'd like to know where michael gets his cell-phone batteries; my last replacement would have run me $40 if I hadn't purchased "insurance" when I got the phone that covered dead batteries as well.
Re:Washington Post's slanted slant (Score:5, Insightful)
This is slanted *against* Apple as much as most Apple zealots are slanted *for* Apple, and it will all balance out in the end. Too many Applefans are prepared to push their favorite company to everyone, facts/figures be damned, and when something like this comes out, somehow the world is 'against' Apple. It's ridiculous.
And yes, I own a Mac.
Apple Battery Engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
If those guys used their iPod for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, that comes out to about 546 charge cycles in an 18 month period. That also doesn't account for poor battery usage by the user (half charges, etc.)
The guys who use their iPod all day long everyday should expect the batteries to die after a shorter period. If I ran my car 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, and then complained when the engine blew up I'd be laughed at by the dealer.
Dealer: "You put how many miles on it in 18 months?"
Me: "220,000. Why did it die so soon?"
Dealer: "Because you're an idiot."
Re:Lithium Ion Dummy! (Score:2, Insightful)
And in spite of any fancy regulation requirements, lithium-ion isn't exactly rocket-science. I doubt the circuitry is that expensive. Design a blob to do it right, and make lots of them...
Re:Disagreed (Score:2, Insightful)
You may resume your vigorous defense of, um, well, nothing.
Re:I once wrote a petition draft... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or you could (Score:3, Insightful)
What a dumbass. He bought another anyway... An experience like that would force me to look elsewhere. I'm sure apple wishes they had more customers like that guy. Spray paint campaign aside, he bought 2 ipods and will probably never use anything but apple anyway.
What's wrong with this picture? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to get back at a company that screwed you over, don't turn around and give them $400.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is actually a quote from the article. I guess Apple has nothing to do with expensive branding and corporate identity.
What world am I living on?
Blame Canada!^WApple! (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming Apple's engineers or design staff is at most a reach, because they didn't manufacture every piece of the iPod, they spec'd out the available technologies and then put them together with some creative hardware and software to (undeniably) create the best mp3 player currently available.
Do we see people blaming Maxtor for every hard drive (and it's quite a few) that fails after 18 months, espeically since their warrenty now only covers the first 12? How about the fact that 1 out of about 10 Maxtor drives is either DOA or dies within the first month? (Yes, I'm using a small sample size of my and friends purchases of aroud 14 Maxtor hdds in the last 2 years)
If you're buying a product with a 1 year warrenty, realize that you might just have to replace it after that time, or repair it. Hell $99 for a new iPod battery? Sounds like a good deal to me. I'd gladly pay Apple $49 to make sure I don't fuck up my iPod installing a $50 battery. This is a case of Apple finding a need of their customers that managed to get some of the shorter life batteries (and eventually the other customers) and responding.
The iPod video idiots and Washington Post are the ones who have been irresponsible in this case. Taking company policy from peons in the service department (of course they're going to say you have to buy a new iPod back _before_ Apple Corporate got the battery replacement in the pipeline) is not responsible reporting, nor is reporting on company policies that have been outdated by 6 months to a year.
Standard batteries = better (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, as noted, when AA rechargeables begin to crap out, they are cheaply and easily replaced.
Of course, it may be the case that the iPod draws too much power to subsist on AA's. To this I say: if Sony can design their Minidisc players to use AA's, and Apple cannot do the same for iPods, then Apple ought to hire some better engineers.
Re:Apple Battery Engineers (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time you ran into a dealer that said they wouldn't replace the engine in your car after it blew up?
Re:But...The high price of individualism. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Disagreed (Score:4, Insightful)
I suggest that because they have been able to correct SOME battery status/recharge problems with firmware updates that the problem is most likely engineering.
Apple engineering, or Apple PR? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real alternative from the corporate dominated, expensive label, universe is any free Unix (*BSD, Linux, whatever) on cheep hardware. I'm too poor to pay an extra 10-15% for "Apple Engineering", or (more realistically) the Apple Image(TM).
Again, I'm not trying to flame or troll here, I do know that Apple generally produces very high quality products, and I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't use Apple, I just can't see how they got a "rebel" image...
Re:I once wrote a petition draft... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Wuh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Standard batteries = better (Score:5, Insightful)
If apple is guilty of anything it's making the battery not easy to replace. You know, when you buy the thing there's no easy battery door, and you know batteries don't last forever.
Apple designed this exactly the way they wanted it. So they would be doing the replacements on the batteries and profiting.
iPod rocks because no-one else tries (Score:5, Insightful)
All the other devices have lame interfaces, poor displays, and require lots of button pushing. No-one has approached Apple's interface for the iPod. I don't like the iPod, personally, but can recognize it's the best. I don't like the chrome back (why can't it all be in the one material?) which, on my friends iPod, looks all smudgey and dirty from finger prints, and I think this whole 'snow white' phase is going to fall on its ass within the next couple of years anyway. Colored/textured iPods (a la the old iMac) might be a hit.
If there was something designed a little like the iPod (i.e. easy to use, nothing fancy, clean and simple, not 100s of buttons) for around the $200-$300 mark with, say, recording, and a 20-40GB hard drive, they'd sell like hot cakes.
As it is, the iPod sells like hot cakes because it's the only viable choice without getting something that's ugly and angular as fuck, and with the world's shittiest interface. Apple knows this, and their computers operate on the same principle. They might not be perfect, but they're better. (Come on, OS X is not the best we could be doing right now, but it's better than the alternatives)
Owning an iPod is going to be like a chick owning a Chanel purse. Cool, and expensive, and they can keep stuff in it.. but they need to keep changing it every couple of years to stay 'in fashion' and to stop it wearing out.
Re:Wish I made batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not Apple's battery, it's Sony's, and it has nothing to do with the DMCA--which as the name, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, implies, concerns copyright, not patents. I don't like it any more than you do, but at least understand what you're criticizing.
Re:Damn battery. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless the reviewer can come up with recommendations for an all-in-one alternative to the iPod, it's a meaningless list. He appears to have simply taken several aspects of the iPod, and then individually come up with alternatives for each aspect. (without applying the same cited standards to those alternatives) Which would suggest in turn (if you follow that logic trail) that it takes 5 different other players to become superior to one iPod.
Not that I think that's the case, just that I think it was a poorly-written article.
Re:Apple Battery Engineers (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. First of all, I have an Audi with over 240k miles on it and it still runs great - I regularly drive between DC and Philly, so it is a myth that a product "should" stop working after a "reasonable" amount of time.
Secondly, car parts (and entire engines for that matter) are replaceable items. Sure, some of them you can do yourself, and others required an experienced mechanic. There are certain items like batteries, belts, filters, etc. in a car that are known wear items with known wear intervals. Consumer electronics should be the same way.
Telling an ipod owner that he should plunk $400 on a new ipod because the battery is dead is like telling a car owner that he should plunk $40000 on a new car because the battery is dead. It's obnoxious and reflects poorly on the manufacturer of the product. Having said that, I'm glad apple has started offering a battery replacement service (although IMO $99 is a big rip off).
Re:Reminds me of Sony (Score:2, Insightful)
Some things to consider. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a stupid argument. Your cordless phone battery is probably NiCd or NiMH. Ditto for your cell phone battery. Those are old technologies and our dirt cheap at this point. The iPod battery is a Lithium-Polymer, which is much more expensive, even with wholesale prices. Is Apple making a profit? Probably. But the price of your cordless phone battery has nothing to do with it.
Also, keep in mind that Apple is charging for installation. The battery is only $50 (as evidenced by the price you pay from suppliers), so $49 is for shipping and installation. Now, a hard drive is easy to install, right? So ask CompUSA how much they'll charge for installing one? Much more than it's worth, I'm sure.
Re:Why not use NiMH batteries? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bottom line: ANYTHING with un-attachable/proprietory batteries is a BAD thing and should be boycotted. Look at the difference between most Ipaq's and the Dell Axims. You can pay 700 clams for an Ipaq with a battery that is not really that easily replacable...Or you can buy an Axim that has an easily detachible battery. Buy a couple extra and don't worry about running out of juice.
This stuff is not desposible razor priced...we are talking electronics between $300 - $900 dollars...the consumer deserves better.
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
Right. I imagine that the battery itself wasn't the entire problem, anyway. Most likely the guy didn't take care of how he was treating it. Lithium Ion are the best batteries in my opinion, but they still can be damaged by overheating or overcharging, as well as random failure.
Dan's Data had a link to this site [buchmann.ca] not long ago about it.
Re:Or you could (Score:1, Insightful)
Devices like PDAs, MP3 players, and cell phones often push the boundaries of how much can be squeezed into the smallest amount of volume. Engineers have to make sacrifices because a desirable feature (such as a user-servicable battery compartment) may be mere millimeteres from fitting. Sad, but true.
User-servicable batteries come in several different form factors, but they tend to be blocky or cyllindrical. If you provide an opening for battery replacement, this adds size from the thickness of the compartment walls and the kind of connectors used. The compartment door must be durable...better to not have one at all than to have one that is flimsy.
The iPod battery is a thin, flat rectangle that is about a third as big as the face of the iPod itself. Choosing this unique battery configuration apparently allowed them to squeeze in other components, with the tradeoff being that they apparently felt that they couldn't make it user-servicable without sacrificing the durability of the iPod as a whole, and/or without sacrificing something else.
You might be able to better visualize the engineering constraints by looking at the innards of an iPod [ipodbattery.com]
If they could have provided the capacity and features of the iPod without making such a sacrifice, we would probably see more competing products with the same features and capacity.
From my perspective, the competitors aren't even close. It wouldn't surprise me if their refusal to make a similar tradeoff were part of the reason.
Re:Blame Canada!^WApple! (Score:2, Insightful)
1)The fact that people continue to "Think Different" about Apple, when in fact Apple itself generally "thinks" (or at least acts) pretty much the same as any other corporate behemoth.
2)The compelling wonderfullness of the iPod.
To imply and summarize: Go ahead and buy an Apple, but don't buy into Apple.
Re:GBA SP battery (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But...The high price of individualism. (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing Apple has to offer (for now anyway) is the fact that they make (or at least have made to their specifications) the entire package, from hardware to OS to many of the basic applications, including (as with iPod, and iTunes) significant peripherals and online content. Nobody else can make that claim for now, be it Microsoft, Dell, HP, nobody. As a result, Apple can get away with charging a premium price for every item in their product line.
As a fan of Apple, I HOPE they have an exit strategy however, because I don't think the party will last much longer. With everyone copying Apples' successful marketing efforts and then chopping large percentages off the cost Apple is in the position of having to hit a home run every time they step up to the plate (or almost) and I am concerned that as the cost of computer components approach zero, and with many software costs already at zero they will not be able to compete.
If no US companies get a clue soon I would not be surprised if we end up buying computers of the future from companies like Sony, Panasonic or Gold Star at $75 a pop and throwing them away whenever they don't match our color scheme. In that world, companies like Apple and Microsoft have no place, companies like Intel become more like Texas Instruments, only something you know about if you break the seals on your computer and look at the components with a magnifying glass.
After having paid top dollar for three incrementally newer Palm Pilots in a row I finally figured out that the "trouble with this picture" was me. When I saw the iPod I knew that one of these days I'd have one, but not for more than about $100. I'm still waiting. I think a lot of other people will too. At some point I think it would be worth Apples consideration to just flood the market with iPods at their cost plus a small percentage. If you could buy the whole thing for $75 then nobody would complain about it not having replaceable batteries.
My letter to the author... (Score:5, Insightful)
Subject: iPod story
Date: December 20, 2003 6:18:37 PM CST
To: stueverh@washpost.com
I'm very disappointed with your iPod story, for several important reasons. If you only read one of the responses you get about this story, read this one:
1. Apple began offering the battery replacement program as early as November 14, before the ipodsdirtysecret.com domain name was even registered (November 20). While coincidentally close, Apple released both the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod and the battery replacement program BEFORE anyone had ever seen the videos, and indeed before anyone at Apple or otherwise knew anything about the Neistat brothers' video. A small - very small - amount of research would have revealed this. (Also, the battery program was in the works since at least June.) The reason this is important is that you make it seem that it's only because of the brothers' tactics that Apple responded, the implication being they otherwise wouldn't have. That is false.
2. Since the battery replacement program - that the Neistat brothers themselves say is "fair" in their statement - was already in effect when they rolled out the video, they KNOWINGLY let almost a half million people see the incorrect and inaccurate video without telling them the truth: that Apple DID offer a battery replacement program. I'm sure they felt like their little video would be essentially negated since Apple already released a replacement program, so they went ahead with it anyway.
3. ALL lithium ion batteries fail after a period of time. ALL. The fact that the iPod's battery is not user replaceable, i.e., is a custom form factor carefully engineered into the product, is one of the things that makes it so small, and thus, so desirable...tradeoffs.
4. The Dell DJ's lithium ion battery is also not user-replaceable, and Dell officially has no repair or replacement plan (outside of warranty) for the battery.
5. They are currently hosting their anti-Apple video on Mac.com - Apple's own servers! (albeit paid by another Mac.com user - yes, I realize that a Mac.com user can do whatever they want with their webspace; it's just ironic).
6. I offered to host their video for them when they were begging for mirrors in the first few days...with ONE condition: that they post/link to/etc information about Apple's battery replacement program that had ALREADY BEEN ROLLED OUT that they were essentially denying existed. They NEVER posted the information after several promises to do so (while I was hosting the video) and taking complete advantage of my offer. See http://das.doit.wisc.edu/neistatoriginal.txt for proof of this.
7. My girlfriend and I both - and thousands of others - have first gen iPods over two years old that have no problems with the battery. The blanket statement that the batteries only last "18 months" is also false. Do the have a finite lifetime? Yes. Is it always, or even mostly, 18 months? Nope.
Disappointed,
Dave Schroeder
University of Wisconsin - Madison
das@doit.wisc.edu
http://das.doit.wisc.
608-265-4737
Yet more proof... (Score:2, Insightful)
Marketing. They know their demographic, and what they respond to. Microsoft may have the "Budweiser" demographic (largest market share, mass appeal), but Apple has the "Sam Adams" (small but higher-spending) nailed...
Re:Apple engineering, or Apple PR? (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's the whole point of the Cult of Apple with some people. It's kinda like a kid who thinks of himself as a "rebel"- he doesn't buy $200 basketball shoes, won't wear sideways facing baseball caps or baggies below the waist, and his speech is unaffected by the rap patois- y'know- trying to sound like you come from the inner city when you actually live in a farming town in Kansas. So what does this kid do? He buys only a certain brand of black boot (often Doc Martens), a certain long black overcoat, with matching black t-shirts, dyes his blonde hair black, all because he is 'anti-fashion'. Hey- marketers know these types of people exist and know they can sell stuff to them easy.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to listen to some tunes on my iPod.
Cool Factor (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the most important reason is the status. It looks cool. I know someone in my school who has the same Archos, and I don't recall him ever getting a compliment on it. I, on the other hand, always get attention, compliments, and general respect. (It has not, unfortunately, gotten me laid). People are incredibly superficial. One prick in my grade has spoken to me for the last 2.5 years on only two occasions: once for the iPod, and a second for a real Burberry scarf I have (check the price on burberry.com, if you wish). Why the scarf and the iPod? Both are expensive and "designer". They make me, the ugly and dorky atc24, not so bad, and since I'm friendly at let everyone try it, people are a lot more friendly with me. The iPod is like an ice-breaker with people. I know I sound like an image-driven, pretentious, rich prick, and if you'd like to think so, fine. But this world is dominated by idiots who look only at image; if you get used to it, and forgive yourself for being a fueling the system, you can learn how to work the system and be not only "cool" but still a nerd. Now, please excuse my long rant.
Re:Or you could (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice to know that complex technical arguments can be solved using a simple personal insult.
Perhaps explain why every operating system for the last 3 decades have defined 1KB = 1024 bytes, 1MB = 1024**2 bytes, and when large storage became available, extended that to 1GB = 1024**3 bytes.
Then along comes a hard disk manufacturer, unilaterally redefines it, and suddenly they're right? And fdisk is wrong. And ls is wrong. And format is wrong. And hdparm is wrong. And Windows Explorer is wrong. And all the computer science papers since 1955 are wrong. Somehow, all those technical people who created the computers, the hardware, and all the programming tools, they made some mistake, and were wrong all along. All it took was a hard-disk manufacturer to come along and correct them.
And suddenly, we're using SI conventions to explain our redefinition of the GB. Nevermind that the byte is not an SI unit, never was, never will be.
Nevermind that hard disk manufacturers for a long time defined a GB as 1000 * 1000 * 1024 bytes. Perhaps they didn't have the gall to change the value of a KB, which is fairly fundamental to computing. Talk about mixing your units.
Oh yes, and of course there's the Gibibyte. Invented in about 1998, in response to the hard-disk manufacturers redefinition of the GB, and not even heard of before that. Odd how that word was never used when Unix was being written. Perhaps those early programmers weren't technical enough, and it took the insight and intelligence of a marketing department to spot their mistake.
Hence followed such confusion that even the IEEE was duped into believing they should endorse the change. So somehow, all of our operating systems are now out of date. Perhaps you could be the first to update the VAX and Unix code to reflect the new standard. Perhaps you could change the FTP servers, HTTP clients, network monitoring tools, the formatting utilities. Perhaps you could get some of my 1980 programming manuals republished, to reflect the new marketing-friendly standards, and all those websites which refer to 1.44MB floppy disks, well history must be rewritten.
Re:Some things to consider. (Score:1, Insightful)
> That's a stupid argument. Your cordless phone battery is probably NiCd or NiMH. Ditto for your cell phone battery. Those are old technologies and our dirt cheap at this point. The iPod battery is a Lithium-Polymer, which is much more expensive, even with wholesale prices.
Ummm, so why not use the NiMH battery then? Regardless of life expectancy, the battery should be replacable just as it is on my cell phone. Period.
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not that strange. People shouldn't get free repairs forever on any device, and 1 year is much longer than the other hard drive based players offer.
On the other hand, Lithium Ion batteries last a long time in a small footprint, but they do die. And to replace them for ANYTHING is expensive, for whatever reason, it's why i made sure my latest digital camera ran off AAs. The $99 (you know, i heard $79 when I looked into it...it s inevitable with these things) upgrade includes some guy taking apart your ipod and replacing the battery, hopefully not messing up the delicate electronics while he's in there. $99 is not bad for invasive service on ANY device...I got charged $119 for Canon to CLEAN my printer a while back. Clean it!
I'd love to see Apple lower the price on these things, but it probably isn't going to happen. Best we can hope for is a third party to offer battery service for less money. There are battery sales for the 1 and 2G ipods...all it will take is one entrepeneur to offer these, with install, for a fair price. Maybe even auction off "battery repair" on ebay. Heckuva way to work yourself through an electronics trade school...
bottom line (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Disagreed (Score:5, Insightful)
This is because the amount and type of use dictate performance in ubiquitous devices. No two uses are the same. So no two variations are the same.
As for the iPod...one of the tricks with battery life is to keep the hard disc from spinning, and keep the backlight off. Do these things and you can get 8+ hours. If you listen to a song, then scan for the next one, and repeat rather than selecting a playlist all at once, your battery life will be much lower. Because the machine has to spin up the drive each time, wheras with a playlist it loads all the songs it can up to the limits of memory. If you do these things and DON'T get 8+ hours, tell apple and they will fix it within the first year of purchase (within 90 days you don't even pay shipping). Because even with the tightest controls, there are still lemons. It's not like you're stuck with your citrus, though.
I don't see how the mechanics of a platter hard disc running off a battery "speak directly to quality," but I'm guessing your point was to disrespect Apple. Good job.
Re:But...The high price of individualism. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, bend over and grab your ankles.
When apple gets around to making another PDA, it will cost $2500, but hey, it will be WHITE and have a cool name...
Ever wonder why Apple doesn't dominate (Score:2, Insightful)
I've never bothered taking Apple, it's supposed cult of coolness, or it's army of fanatics dubbed users seriously since then. Apple does some interesting things with industrial engineering, but realistically, who cares?
I think maybe they learned customer service from Sun Microsystems........
Re:Standard batteries = better (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong: I have an Archos Jukebox 15. But I also own an iPod: they both have their tradeoffs.
Because China hasn't started making them yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to trust your $400 iPod with a $20 battery, go ahead and be my guest. Just don't be too surprised when you see some liquid oozing out of it someday.
In regards to the user-replaceable battery, my thought is that if they wanted to keep the iPod relatively small, they had to give up putting in an accessible battery compartment.
Re:Apple Battery Engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Except it's not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mice, Laptops, MP3 Players, Monitors, Computers, etc, etc, etc. If it works with Apple products, they make sure they are the only ones selling it (and, especially since they opened the Apple Stores, they make sure they are the only VENDOR selling it). If it is branded Apple, you are going to be paying more than similiar products for other systems.
AFAIK, the Sacramento Assembly lines still run. (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, so don't buy it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But...The high price of SCSI cables. (Score:4, Insightful)
As usual, morons running the world (Score:3, Insightful)
But this guy...
I'm reading his whole experience, and it's frankly the first I've heard of it, and all along I'm thinking to myself "ok, this guy has a legit gripe, I'm behind him".
But then, as I've come to expect from everyone on this planet, he goes and blows it...
The story ends with THE PURCHASE OF A NEW IPOD!
Dude, if you were so f'ing outraged, don't buy a new one! Have some damned balls and stand up for your principals and refuse to buy another one. It's not dinner or clothes guy, it's a TOY!
The world at large (maybe just in America this is true I guess) has come to a point where they consider things that are in no way necessities, just that. They believe that every person is entitled to have a cell phone, a PC, a car, whatever else. They then feel slighted when they don't get the things they want.
If you can't afford to eat, you have a problem. If you can't pay for a roof over your head, that's an issue. If you can't put a pair of shoes on your feet, you need some help.
IF YOUR IPOD'S BATTERY GOES TITS UP, THIS IS NOT LIFE-THREATENING!!!! No matter how lousy you feel not being able to listen to your Hootie tunes on the bus while sipping your latee (and I'm not even going to bother looking up the correct spelling), it's not the end of the world.
And when a company does something unfair to you, even if you are 100% right about it, don't turn around and give in! Geez, that's like me saying "I can't believe this doctor is going to charge me $50,000 to lipo out my fat ass, that's unfair and I hate him", and then promptly writing out a check to him.
F'ing morons. Too many of them, all over the place. Very sad indeed.
Re:Does anyone else find it ironic... (Score:3, Insightful)
The replacements will cost you many dollars more than the actual products are worth after labor, disposal, etc.
The reason that Apple will not support WMA is that WMA is a closed and proprietary format. AAC is an open and universally licensable format. Whether Apple will ever license/open the proprietary FairPlay DRM they use is another issue all together.
No shit (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can buy batteries from unofficial online retailers, but supposedly its extremely difficult. If the product had been well designed you'd simply be able to pop in a new cellphone style battery when the old one stopped working.
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is changing a battery repairing something?
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but for a well designed product, a dead battery does not require "fixing" or "service", it requires a trip to Target, pushing in a button, and popping in new batteries.
On the other hand, Lithium Ion batteries last a long time in a small footprint, but they do die. And to replace them for ANYTHING is expensive, for whatever reason, it's why i made sure my latest digital camera ran off AAs. The $99 (you know, i heard $79 when I looked into it...it s inevitable with these things) upgrade includes some guy taking apart your ipod and replacing the battery,
This is just ridiculous. Lithium Ion batteries will fail and fail within a year or two of constant use. It's just the way they are. Batteries aren't like solid state electronics, which pretty much work forever, or even hard drives (which have a constant failure probability, meaning that it's as likely to break down 20 years after you buy it as the day you bought it).
An irreplaceable battery is simply a horrible design decision, and very poor engineering. Any other company, and people would be screaming to the sky at how shitty a job they've done. But since it's apple, they get a pass from all the people who worship the company.
was he supposed to make sure to leave it unsynced? (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact, if they do need to take care of that, it's a product design failure in and of itself. Users shouldn't need to worry about how long the thing is plugged in, that's just ridiculous. It's easy to have the charger stop charging when it's done. Even my $20 car starter can do this. So can the charger for my camera, my cell phone, my little memory stick music player, the PDAs I never use... I mean come on. Apple fucked this up, there's no getting around it.
Re:Apple engineering, or Apple PR? (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, it's funny. The "Apple : Computers
Re:Sounds like the Dell DJ (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay then, convincing a teen that Actual old faded t-shirts from goodwill are as good as pseudo-faded t-shirts from American Eagle for 5 times as much.
Re:Does anyone else find it ironic... (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason Apple has no competition for repairing the iPod seems simple to me: Most iPods have either not failed (despite the brothers' noismaking), or have failed under warranty. If/when we get to a point where there are a large number of iPods on the market needing repair out of warranty, then third parties will start offering services. When VCRs came on the market no-one could fix them but the factory. Same with camcorders, CD players, etc. In a capitalist society you don't get a market until you have a demand and a supply.
I can tell you from experience that any sufficiently low-volume product does not garner much third party repair support.
As for the maintenence of the iPod costing 33% of the unit's replacement value every 1.5 to two years, an automobile is slightly higher than that. At an average cost of $24,000, and an average driving distance of 15,000 miles per year at an average cost of about 50 cents per mile, automobile upkeep/operation costs about 50% of replacement costs in 1.5 to 2 years of operation.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/a
http://www.nctr.usf.edu/clearinghouse/costtod
Compared to a car, the upkeep costs of an iPod are low. And my dealer never advertises that the tires or wipers wear out, or that the oil or battery needs to be changed. These things are left as common sense or for the owner to learn about themselves.
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it's not irreplaceable. It requires a screwdriver to replace. Pop the casing off, unplug old battery, plug in replacement, put case back on. Wipe hands on pants.
Not much difficulty, and you only need to do it once every 1.5 to 2 years. And if you don't like doing it, you can pay someone to do it. Even the manufacturer, if you really want to.
The iPod is well designed. Look how small it is! Isn't that cool? Why would Apple ruin a device by making it butt-ugly 24/7 just to make a once-every-two-years task a little simpler?
Even if you do think it's crap, don't bitch about it. Go and buy an iPod competitor, which will either be bigger, have no hard drive, take longer to upload to, have a non solid-state controls, have jaggy edges, have a crap user interface, or some combination thereof.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever since then, Battery and Storage media type were much more important than zoom ability or pixel count. A set of 4 AA Nickel Hydride batteries powers my camera now. I have 3 sets charged and ready. If I need to do a graduation, birthday party, wedding, reception, parade, etc., I take extra CF cards, the 3 sets of batteries, ($12/set, not $40) and a 12 pack of alkalines just in case. So far I haven't needed them. A 200 shot wedding and reception seldom gets beyond the second set of rechargable batteries. (Curently using a Minolta using AA batteries and CF With the 8 meg buffer CF write speeds are not an issue.)
I've applied the same learning to my personal audio. If consumables are not readly available and inexpensive, I don't need it.
It's the same reason I use a laser printer for most of my printing. A $60 cart good for 7,000 pages is better than a $35 cart good for 300 pages.
My newest printer that came free with my wife's new computer will probably be recycled when the cartridges are dry. It is the most expensive to run printer I have. It probably won't get supplies restocked ever. It does have a built in low resolution scanner that is handy. We will see if the scanner dies when the printer runs out of ink. It wouldn't suprise me. (FYI Dell all in one with midget caridges. 300 DPI max scanner resolution.)
What was not mentioned in the article is what happens to the DRM files when the player dies?
How much music at $.99 per song is lost?
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, paying nearly 40% of the original purchase price (50% for the cheapest model) to buy a warranty that covers something that should be easily handled with the proper engineering, is certainly reasonable. *rolls eyes*
Whiners need not apply (Score:2, Insightful)
$99 to have Apple replace the battery is not that extreme considering how much labor is involved in doing so. This isn't a case of somebody popping open a door and dropping in a new battery, you have to take the entire thing apart. If you don't want to pay the $99, fine, go buy the battery [ipodbattery.com] for $50, do it yourself and risk damaging the iPod. At least if an Apple tech fucks up they'll replace the unit, probably with a better one then you sent them.
Christ.. bitch bitch bitcb.
Re:Washington Post's slanted slant (Score:3, Insightful)
I call bullshit. The iPod's non-replaceable battery is obviously not superior design. There are smaller hard disk MP3 players that have user servicable batteries. And it ain't superior quality. Also Apple doesn't make most of their own components. You aren't paying for superior apple design and quality. It's just another third party manufacturer.
Apple sacrifices function to improve form. Sure their stuff is pretty. But I don't care about pretty. I want function. At a tech class that I used to go to, we primarily worked on PCs. The PCs were extremely reliable. Over the course of a year we had one hard drive failure and one PS failure. Out of about 50 computers, that is pretty good.
We had one G4 cube. It was very pretty. Lots of lucite. The Apple engineers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that a typical power switch would look stupid. It had a power button on top that was heat sensitive or something. Unfortunately, it never worked. We had to take off the case to turn on the computer.
And after a while the PS failed. It was just about the most useless computer I've ever seen in my life.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple Battery Engineers (Score:3, Insightful)
That, to me, seems stupid. As it did to the guys who were told to buy a new one.
It's a battery. Batteries are generally considered to be user serviceable parts. Especially on a device that doesn't work without them. When was the last time you had a non-disposable battery powered device that didn't have a replacable battery?
I almost wonder if Apple is starting to follow the Nintendo school of consumer electronics engineering...
Re:Apple doesn't make batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I consider it maintenance, but then again, I do most of that myself - and, of course, I can diagnose a dead car battery. Some people are incapable of doing the latter, so "repair" probably qualifies when their battery fails.
Which is why I'm a little mystified at people getting their panties in a bunch over someone who can't wield a screwdriver. If you refuse to (or are so incompetant that you can't) do the maintenance yourself, you have to pay someone to do it. This is unusual... How?
Brand Sycophants (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're an Apple fan, that's fine, but making excuses for any shortcoming of their products doesn't help your cause. It's the people that complain about deficiencies that are most-likely to get the company to resolve these issues. If the sycophants get uppity at the slightest mention of a flaw, they do themselves and the object of their affection a great disservice.
This reminds me of another piece of audio equipment I purchased recently, and thought was very good. I found an online forum where enthusiasts discussed the product. When I discovered a bug in the product's firmware, a number of "locals" on the board engaged me in hostile argument that it wasn't a "bug." Eventually a rep from the company actually made a post and acknowledged the bug and promised to fix it in a future release. The sycophants harbored animosity towards me for not blindly, unconditionally accepting the product as it was. Think about this the next time something doesn't work right, and rally against the boneheads that harbor unconditional loyalty towards any corporate interest. It helps no one.
Re:What's wrong with this picture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally, totally backwards. The portion of Mac users vs portion of PC users who've given more than one platform a shot isn't even in the same order of magnitude. Apple customers, by and large, are the people who think there's gotta be a better way.
I've worked on VAXen, DOS through Windows XP, a few flavors of UNIX, and the Mac since 1988 (not to mention the various home computers of the 80's
I don't think I'm unrepresentative of the Mac user base -- perhaps a bit more tech savvy, but even among the design staff where I work, over half of the designers are familiar with both Macs and PCs. There's one or two who are familiar with PCs only, and they, I find (not the Mac users!), are the ones who curse and scream when they have to take "ten minutes to learn a different way."
Apple *does* make mistakes, and this iPod battery fiasco is one. The halt-and-catch-fire powerbooks of years ago are another. The "wind tunnel" noise level fans on the G4s are another. Motorolla as a primary chip supplier was one. There were some durability issues with the early Titanium powerbooks. I could go on, but that's not the point. I don't care. Apple, by and large, tries harder and gets to a higher level of product design than most PC manufacturers, who then follow with more proletarian and pedestrian implementations months later. They, probably as much or more than other companies, do respond to consumer pressure (the iPod problem is now solved, the Motoralla supply issues are being addressed, the exploding batteries were recalled, the TiBooks were fixed, the wind tunnel issue was compensated after some pressure).
Remember the people who paid $8000 for a Lisa?
Weren't most IBM PCs $4000 back then?
Re:Counterpoint: the GBA battery. (Score:3, Insightful)
99 times, that's what, 3 months?
Hmmmm...99 bucks to apple after 18 moths, or (20 * 6 = 120) 120 bucks to Nintendo after 18 months.
So your point was that Apple's design was greedier than Nintendo? Funny, because it seems 20 bucks cheaper to me.
Re:Apple engineering, or Apple PR? (Score:3, Insightful)
too expensive for anyone but the yuppy elite? Listen, you can nerdulate all you want about fancy-shmancy uber-elite PC configuration at 3.2Ghz you built from scratch for $400, but then you'd be behaving like the nerdy elite.
All i know is that right now i'm looking to get a low-end computer for my Dad that'll allow him to easily:
What's a thousand bucks? [apple.com] for a system he'll keep a long ass time (note that each revision of Mac OS X actually runs better than its predecessor even on hardware from back in 1998.), and, more importantly, will keep him outta my hair.