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"iPod's Dirty Secret"
akpoff writes "Have you ever made a promise while in tech-support hell to let everyone know how bad the product is? The Neistat brothers followed through after the batteries in an iPod died and Apple told them it would cost US$250 to replace them. The tech rep told the guys they might as well buy a new iPod. The brothers thought differently and made a movie showing how they got the word out in a large metro area. Of course it was made on a Mac with iMovie." Their statement is a bit misleading: many people have iPods that have lasted a lot longer than 18 months (the iPod was released over two years ago). But the batteries don't last forever. What is their life expectancy? Does Apple notify consumers of a life expectancy?
Batteries don't last for ever and it costs money to replace them!
Seriously, what were they expecting? When I bought my iPod, I don't remember Apple ever saying they would replace the batteries for free, and I'm sure I don't recall them saying used magical batteries that never die.
Apple's iPod support page says you can get your battery replaced for $99 - not cheap but not $250 either.
PDA Smart offers $69 replacement service or a do-it-yourself kit for $59. Which Geek.com raved about
If the guys can't Google, they shouldn't buy expensive toys.
Quite honestly, if someone insists upon Authentic Apple Parts for everything, when there are commodity parts available -- this goes especially for RAM, and now also apparently for iPod batteries -- I don't see how they've got a leg to stand on whilst griping and moaning about how unfair life is.
As a rule, consumer electronics factory repair prices have been at or near replacement cost for all but high end gear (ie. >$2000US) for years. Consumers with enough brains to program their VCR who want to flog their gear a little longer have long been buying DIY books. As others have pointed out, Google is the friend of modern man.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Does anyone else find it amusing that they use and advertise Quicktime on a website meant to put down an Apple product?
More like buying a car and having to replace the "gas tank" after 350 miles. They were recharging their battery after all with electricity. And I'm sure that Apple didn't advertise the fact that batteries need to be replaced after a year or so. In fact, I'm quite sure that Apple was playing up the "rechargability" as a feature.
First of all, as many have said before me, the battery costs $99, not $250. Also, the site went up days *after* the announcement, which means they were irresponsible enough to keep it on.
Second, batteries don't last forever. There can't be a life expectancy because that number is dependent on number of charges, hours used, length of time used, and other factors. If they said "13000 hours" and some fool's iPod went dead before that, then he'd be compelled to put it on a site like these people did, which IMO, is ridiculous.
It is very possible their tech support guy was a moron, but they shouldn't tarnish the reputation of iPod or Apple. It's so pathetic how they always go for the most successful products and attempt to break them to pieces.
A blog like any other.
I don't understand why everyone is so quick to jump to Apple's defense. If you are paying $400 or more for a music player, you shouldn't have to pay another $100 every year to replace the freaking battery. I started having battery probs with my 10GB second gen. model a few weeks after i bought it. the replacement they eventually sent me (it took more than a month.) crapped out a few months later. and apparently that's all you get for $400. Two broken ipods and a years worth of headaches. If I had known the batteries would die so soon I wouldn't have bought an ipod in the first place. It was a really big financial sacrifice in the first place which i justified because music is my life and i thought i was buying the greatest device ever. But even $50 dollars is too much for me to spend right now, and i'm afraid i'll just get another bad battery. $400 is a hell of a lot of money, and it should buy you a product that works for longer than a year. I feel like I deserve a better solution.
It is not acceptible design for a device with a part that will wear out during the useful life of the device not having that part serviceable. This is as bad as the old V-8 Mustang-IIs that required the engine be dropped to replace the back two spark plugs. Even the game boy advance has a user replaceable battery (albeit behind a screw).
While Apple might not be guilty of any crime in their handling of this, they are definately guilty of:
o Very poor design
o Very poor handing of the problem.
Apple relies on very high customer satisfaction to justify their premium products. This type of incident does not bode well.
Not taking the first no for the final answer, and working a bit with the company, goes a long way towards fixing most issues.
Get off my launchpad!
The cost for repairing an iPod is $250, however if the battery is the only problem it costs $100. So either:
1. There was something wrong with the iPod other than the battery (maybe it fell our of their pocket one too many times?)
2. Or, the tech support rep from Apple goofed and forgot that battery service is cheaper. Heck, not all of the Apple tech support reps can be stellar. If you don't like what you hear, call back.
So basically, if I go out and buy a new portable CD player, a pair of AA batteries to go with it, and start feeding it CDs for me to listen to, I should expect to get more than 18 months out of the batteries? If that's the case, then we all need to be suing the Energizer, and Duracell makers.
I typically listen to my iPod for about 6-8 hours a day. I charge it up every two days. I've had it for almost a year now. The battery is fine for me. But of course, being an audio engineer, I don't listen at earsplitting levels so my battery isn't used up by driving the output amplifier.
Let's do a little basic math here. I spend $3 on some batteries...long life Duracell or Energizer. I go through a pair in two days at my usual listening rate of 6-8 hours per day. So that's $1.50 a day in batteries. In a month, I've spent $30 (an average of 20 work days a month, at $1.50 per day). In a year, I will spend $360 in batteries. If you stretch that out to the 18 months the guy is complaining about, you end up spending $540.
So, in 18 months, he can spend $540 on batteries, or $499 on a new iPod and $41 on music from the iTMS.
Or, he could spend $499 on a new iPod, and in 18 months, for only an additional $10 investment, get a new battery. So he now spends $550 and get's an iPod for 36 months.
This is utter silliness.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
I am almost ashamed to call myself an iPod user. First there was yelling about how the older iPods didn't get the features from software v3.x. Boo Hoo Hoo.
Now they're complaining that the battery doesn't last forever. I find it amazing that after Li-ION batteries have been out for years that people don't understand that these things don't last forever.
When i purchased my Powerbook G4, i was told by the reseller that i would go through about a battery every year. I opted for the Applecare and they have given me a new battery every year. My first battery dropped to about 50% life after a year and now i'm on number 2. While this isn't great, it's certainly better than my fathers Dell laptop that has about 20mins of life after about 1 year. For those of you who don't understand why Apple will not repair things like powersupplies, it's because it would cost more to fix one, than buying a new one.
As for batteries, has anyone looked the market full of portable electronics lately. A large share of PDAs do not have replacable batteries. Once your Clio battery dies, you have a $200 paperweight.
Unfortunately, i have yet to find a battery that lasts forever. You have to change the battery in your car every 3-5 years, and it's only really used to start the car. PDA, Laptops, Cellphones, none of these devices have batteries that last more than a couple years, yet it is the iPod that gets complained about.
People need to realize that every device has a "cost of ownership." With most devices this consists of purchase cost, maintanence costs, repair costs and so on. Having a battery fail in a device after 18 months is not out of the ordinary, especially with heavy use. You have to change the oil in your car, rotate the tires, and tune it up every 60,000 miles, yet none of these things anger people as much as the battery failing in the ipod.
Just sit down, shut up, and stop blaming Apple for the simple fact that their hardware makes it through the warrenty period without issue.
I believe there are some relevant issues with lithium batteries and product safety. If the iPod is only designed to work safely and reliably with Apple specified and tested batteries, they may want to prevent end-users from mucking with the battery. Nokia has been blamed for catastrophic battery failures that were caused by sub-standard counterfeit battery packs. Apple may have decided that making it a user-replaceable part wasn't worth the risk. Plus, it avoids the added cost and reliability issues of a case with a user-accessible battery compartment.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I don't think these guys had all the info, or were possibly led astray by the Apple rep. But really, as big an issue as this has become, Apple would do well to offer a 4G iPod with an external battery pack. I mean, c'mon, Ives and crew are more than up to it. If the design was more or less exactly like the PowerBook design is, it would make no difference at all to daily use (i.e. battery flush with the body, like a cell phone).
In fact one of the unexpected bonuses to this kind of design I've observed, on my T68i, is that if I drop it the phone has tended to land on one of the bottom corners, or scrape the back - which is the battery itself. I can remove the cosmetic damage to the phone by changing that battery.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.