A Moment of Silence for my iPod

Well, my slow conversion to being an Apple support ended abruptly today.

Exactly 19 days out of extended warranty (2 years), my iPod hard drive bit the dust. Apple wants $200+ to fix it. I laughed at the guy on the phone and said I'd probably be switching to a competitor. He actually said that that was okay, Apple can afford to lose one customer in the world.

Now if that comment didn't piss me off enough, what really gets to me is I am one of those people who take extra special care of their tech. I mean I have a polishing cloth exclusively for this iPod, for example. When I travel with it, it's incased in 2-inch foam.

It's never been dropped, jarred, jostled or anything like that. It backplate is still like a perfect mirror.

And the more and more iPod support sites I visit, the more and more people I see having iPods 'mysteriously' die 2-2.5 years after getting them. When you try to get support for shoddy hardware, Apple is rude and insists the user did something to it.

Shouldn't something that cost close to $400 last more than two years? I think so, especially when its supposed to be the 'Rolls Royce' of MP3 players.

So, my view of Apple, which was low before I got my iPod but steadily increased the longer I owned it, is now back to pre-iPod levels.

Any suggestions on a replacement?

Can't suggest any as I don't own one. I'm a troglodyte. I'm just wondering if this means you'll be changing your forum icon anytime soon?

i've not owned one yet myself... as enviable a toy as ipods are (and even as much of an applefan as i am), i've always been a bit suspicious of the longevity of any hard drive you're invited to "go jogging with", lol...

if they improve the capacity of solidstate ones, like the shuffle, i'm there.

Shhh! Silence !

My Ipod started to give up the ghost, with over 50gig of stuff on it! Sooooo... Nano all the way baby!!!

I LOVE MY NANO!

That's lousy news and even worse service.

Do you live anywhere near an Apple Store (preferably the one where you bought it)?

My partner's iPod mini died thirteen months after I bought it for him... and one month after the guarantee was up! He took it back to the Apple Store and, after the guy had a word with the manager, got a new replacement. It's not really in their interests to be so penny-pinching, you're rightly pissed off and of course you're going to tell people about the lousy service you got. Apple *can't* afford that kind of reputation and bad word of mouth.

I'd take it back to a store if you are able to, it's much harder to treat you badly face to face than over the phone.

Good to know i'm not the only person like this. I do the same thing with my cell phone. As soon as I finish a conversation and hang up I wipe the screen in case my hair or face got it dirty, lol. I refrain from touching the screen or the camera lens with any part of my body, and I absolutley hate it when I give my phone to someone who does this.

I wonder if there is a sort of 12 step program for this?

I have three iPods. The first one died after eighteen months. Just mysteriously *poof*. I still have it in a cupboard somewhere. I was moving back from the States at the time - perhaps it didn't want to leave home.

I then got an iPod Shuffle, and recently I've got myself a new flashy video iPod, sixty gig, which is terrific.

Really, though, for me, who only listens to the thing on the way to and from work, the Shuffle was quite fine. I only listen to songs on shuffle normally anyway. Occasionally I get the urge to listen to a specific album, but not that often. And Shuffles are very cheap and immensely easy to use. In the context of Audiogalaxy being termed a "celestial jukebox", I called my Shuffle "God's remote control". Don't like the current song? Fast forward it. No way are you going to start repeating songs on the way to work, no matter how picky you are.

I've had an ARCHOS Jukebox for about three years now. The battery life is starting to wane a bit, but it still works just fine. 20 gigs, plays MP3 and a few other formats, and .AVI movies, on a built in screen. All for less than a 20 gig iPod *at the time I bought it*.

Ooooo I had one of those way before I got an Ipod, but it just disappeared and I got bought an Ipod as a replacement.

I miss Archie

Well, I was all set to recommend Dell MP3 players since my husband and I both have one (he has the Dell DJ 20 and I have the compact Dell DJ Ditty). However, after a quick check of Dell's site, I see they no longer sell anything larger than the DJ Ditty (which is 512 mb and holds about 220 songs). I love my teeny-tiny mp3 player because it's so portable and also plays the radio, but I know most people want something bigger and fuller-featured.

I have to say, though, that one of the main reasons we didn't go with iPods was because of the cost of downloading songs. I refuse to pay $.99 per song. We have a subscription to Napster and pay $15/month, and we both use it. The only real down side to using Napster is that if you don't periodically re-sync your device with Napster, the songs won't work on your player (I think it's at least once every two weeks). But it works for us.

People pay for music on the internet?

My husband holds a PE (professional engineer) license in our state that carries an ethics clause. It would cost us far more in lost wages if he lost his license (e.g., his livelihood) due to pirating anything online than it does to pay for a subscription.

Always wanted an iPod but then I keep hearing about the problems with using your tunes instead of iTunes and some issues with PCs. Otherwise I'd have one... just cuz they have some sweet accessories.

$200 for a hard drive?

Are they custom hard drives or something you'd find in a laptop? Being the technical type, I'd prolly go track down a site selling iPod parts (if Apple allows it to exist) and try to put one in myself.

I still have my Rio Riot, the bettery isn't too good on it, which means charging before use, but it still works perfectly. 3 years after I've had it. Would never touch an iPod. iPointlessly iExpensive.

You'll probably need to find an alternative source for your iBuzz then (Warning! Warning! NSFW!)

Sorry to hear of your troubles, Aaron. I'm sure the mac cult will jump down my throat (again) for saying this, but I really, really, really don't like Apple. They're just not a positive company. To be fair, Dell's customer service sucks too (they all do, really), but to tell you "we can afford to lose you" is just so wrong. That's really awful.

As much as I hate Apple, I did end up buying an iPod anyway, just because nobody else makes anything comparable. I've heard some good things about iRiver, but not enough to convince me it's anything near comparable to the iPod. The day someone else comes out with an mp3 player/portable storage device with as much capacity and functionality as the iPod is the day I can go back happily to no longer doing business with Apple. Until then, they're kind of the only game in town, unfortunately.

If you do find a sutable non-Apple replacement, I hope you'll come back and post whatever it is.


As I said, I'm not an apple fan by any stretch of the imagination, just to be fair, downlaod cost is not a valid reason to avoid the iPod. Just because it's an Apple device in no way means you have to buy your music from the Apple Musuc Store. The iTunes client happens to be the interface for putting music on the device, and of course it's got links to the music store all over it, but you can source your music to the iPod from anywhere, not just the music store. All that's required is like 2 clicks to import all the audio files on your hard drive into the iTunes library, and then a third to transfer it all to the iPod. It takes just a few minutes the first time, and then just a few seconds each time after that.

You can do the same for your whole CD collection too. Just import the CDA files to the library, and then transfer them to the device. That's it. iTunes will automatically convert them to the right format.

Does anyone have either of the new(ish) Creative players? The Zen Vision, or the VisionM? Ages ago I bought the Nomad and loved it, and it works great to this day but it's massive. Just curious why they never get mentioned - maybe there's something about them I don't know

Sorry to hear about yer loss

I have a completely diffferent experience with the ipod. My first ipod is a G3, last model with the buttons seperate from the wheel. I've had it for over 4 years and its still in fine shape. I upgraded to the new G5 solely for the video capabilty.

-Ghoti

I knew that CDs could be converted to mp3s playable on an iPod, but I didn't know I could access other music services; I thought it was proprietary in favor of iTunes only. If I knew I could have used Yahoo or Napster music services, I might have considered an Apple mp3 player.

To be clear, it won't access other music services directly, but if you've got an mp3 or any other audio format file on your hard drive, iTunes will import it and convert it (if necessary) to a format the iPod can use. It probably won't work with Napster's proprietary format, but for most files it will work.

(And as for the Napster proprietary files, of course I'd never condone using something as simple as the Windows mixer to record audio data to new files from a company that made their start by promoting piracy to begin with. I'd never suggest that, never.)

The ipod will play the MP3s in that format. Itunes does not convert them unless you tell it to.

-Ghoti

Good catch. I guess I wasn't quite clear. I've edited the sentence to include "if necessary".

I have one of the new Creative Zen Vision M players... I really really debated between it and an Ipod video, but when it came down to it, the vision being thicker than the 30 gig ipod and having only a 30gig model were the only draw backs.

The Pros:

The screen is -far- better. The guy in the cubicle next to me actually started swearing when we put the players side by side to see the screens together. He got his iPod 60 gig a week before I got my Zen.. he still occasionally looks over at it if I'm watching a cartoon (yes, I finish my days work in an hour and then watch cartoons) and mutters darkly about how he should have waited. If you ever intend on watching cartoons/movies/tv shows on your mp3 player, get the Zen for the screen alone.

Everything I've dumped into the thing so far has played, or prompts me to hit the 'okay' button for the software to convert it for me. The software is really simple, my last mp3 player from Creative had the software-from-hell with it, so that was nice. Itunes is the only format that I've heard it doesn't like, mainly because apple is angry.

It comes with an FM tuner inside, which you can record off of, as well as a mic to do recordings. As well as a wall adapter... which, for some reason I totally don't understand, apple makes you buy seperately.

It has a shortcut button that you can link to anything you want.

You can set files to hidden if you want to show someone it without letting them know there's 10 gigs of porn or back street boys on it. (No clue if Ipod does this). Syncs with your outlook address book/appointment book thingies.

The battery lasts longer than the listed times for the iPod 60 gig.

The down sides:

It's almost twice as thick as the iPod 30 gig. I don't mind it, since the iPod felt like it was going to slip through my hands.

No 60 gig model, although people have already been speculating on what it will take to change the hard drive... there's a 40 gig hard drive on the market that'll fit in it, the 60 is took big still.

It has an attachment piece that goes into the bottom, that's what the usb cord, the TV out cord (sold seperately) and the wall adapter plug into. I'm terrified of loosing it.

The touch strip is trickier to get used to. I figured out how to use the iPod wheel in about a minute, it took me probably less than half an hour to gain mastry over the strip (I also think I might have had the sensitivity set too high)

Anyone wondering anything about it?

Oh my one.. my only.. my precsssious.... *wanders off snuggling her mp3 player*

I have the Zen Vision:M and I love it - I have had no problems with it and have nothing but praise for it. I addicted to downloading music from my Napster to Go subscription.

Hmmm... sounds like I need to find a Zen Vision:M to play with and see if that would work for me. Thanks for the input!