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Washington Post Covers iPod Battery Ruckus
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.
It's an Apple battery. That's $99 of quality Apple engineering you're paying for.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
It is a rather lousy design. I have a new 30GB iPod and the battery status and recharge times are just goofy and all over the place. Yes. I have upgraded software.
Just poor design. Nice and shiny on the outside, but terrible engineering elsewhere. And yes. This battery problem is simply terrible, embarassing engineering.
Mr. Jobs' ego is too big to admit to this problem. Anyone who defends Apple in any other regard just has to look at how they handle goofs like this. It says an awful lot about the company.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Prices for Sony's lapttop batteries are even more obscene. $300 for a new batter??
Or you could just head over to ipodbattery and get a replacement battery for half of what apple charges.
Sure you have to install it yourself, but it's not hard at all.
http://www.xpurple.com
I read the Post article this AM, before it hit Slashdot.
Apple's support has a long standing reputation for being friendly and helpful. Everyone knows the products and peripherals are priced higher than PC products - but you shouldn't mind paying for superior design and quality in hardware. Don't compare apples + oranges (compare Mac hardware to standard hardware.)
The Post didn't have to write (or edit) the article to slant against Apple, but they did, based on one or two support conversations.
It's not an Apple battery.
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.)
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
This is exactly what Apple does to all of its customers. My G4 cube had that stupid fracture, and my iBook's power supply connector kept breaking. Apple pretty much told me to fuck off, so I sold all my Apple crap, and switched to the PC. Apple should be called the Impersonal Computer.
APPLE: Hello sir, what seems to be the problem?
USER: Ummm.... I can't turn my iPod on anymore.
APPLE: Have you tried using the power button?
USER: Ummm.....
APPLE: Try pushing the little button to turn it on.
USER: Umm.... It doesn't work.
APPLE: Have you tried recharging your iPod?
USER: I want to listen to my music.
APPLE: Well sir, it seems like your battery might be dead. You'll need to buy a replacement for $99.
USER: I got new shoes today.
APPLE: That's nice.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Apple is presumably making a good deal of money on their $99 replacements
at least $50, including the service fees. that's how much the battery (sans installation) costs here.
pirates
Is it?
I mean, no Apple product could have a defect. Certainly not a predictable one. Certainly not one designed to improve profit margins at initial sale and revenue growth after the warranty period. Not Apple. Not Steve Jobs. Not the Dread Pirate Roberts of Silicon Valley...
Basically, a group of college students have discovered the short life of IPOD's battery(approx. 200 hrs.) Washington Post has done a follow-up to the story, dismissing their false claims & stating (correctly) it is only ~150 hours.
If i'm not mistaken, the iPod batteries are the same as my iBook's. Litium Ion, which needs to be regulated harshly to prevent it from burning up or frying your computer/iPod.
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.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
...on how laptop batteries should be standardized. It never received any feedback, though, so I didn't start the petition.
But I still wonder why companies still don't come up with a standard form factor. Come on, it's a GOOD thing to have a standard battery form factor. Where is the business sense in keeping a large stock of special-sized batteries for your product that may become useless before you can sell it to your customers?
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
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.
I haven't had any problems with my ipod's battery is this is 1 year aniversary problem or what?
uidzer0.org
I'm willing to bet the battery is lithium ion, unlike the $10 batteries you talk about. Lithium ion is really nice in that it gives you a lot of playtime, but they suck in that they start going bad after a year, and new ones cost big money. New lithium ions batteries for laptops are in the $150+ range. Stop your bitching and moaning.
Man, I wish I made batteries. I would make one for the iPod and charge half as much. I think that I could make a fortune.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
I have a 1st gen 10GB that is 2 years old, I beat it, drop it, drain the battery, do 5% charges, 95% charges, it's plugged in 50% of the time, and in use the other 50% of the time. My iPod NEVER sees a day of rest, never leaves my side, and pretty much never is inactive.
It runs my work stereo, my house stereo, and my car stereo. Literally, it's ALWAYS ON.
Last week I turned it on at 9am, and ran it with Sound Check and EQ's turned ON, and it ran until 5:30 where it politely told me it was about to die, then died about 2 minutes later. I'd say 8 1/2 hours is fine out of a 2 year old machine that gets abused as hard as I treat it.
Or should I be a bitch like everyone else and complain because I'm not getting the advertised 10 hours?
We had the lead Apple battery engineer speak at Carnegie Mellon a month or two back and he stated that the charge cycle for their portables totalled out at about 500 charges.
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."
That's bullshit. My disposable contacts does not cost a few hundred dollars every other year. I get my contacts from a local optometrist who charges 50 bucks for a year's prescription. Disposable contacts are no more expensive than glasses if you consider the fact that glasses lens cost more than 100 bucks and many people change their prescription every two years.
I got to where the article said "yoga-tech times", and then hit my browser's "back" button.
Egh. Journalists. What a damn joke.
as well.. For instance you don't need to edit some strange text file with Vi, you can just plug it in and it all works.
It also tells you in your choosen language if you have managed to insert it incorrectly.
Praise Apple!
"And soon enough, Casey Neistat went back to the Apple boutique and bought a new iPod for $400, which, he says, 'is totally unfair.' He took it back to the office and showed it to his brother, and they vowed to find a way, Casey says, 'to get back at them.'"
If you want to get back at a company that screwed you over, don't turn around and give them $400.
It's an operating system, not a religion.
I was given an iPod as a gift and I adore it. There's one thing to keep in mind that isn't covered in the Post article, nor in the iPod's Dirty Secret film. As the Post mentioned, the iPod is good for something like 500 charges. Now the thing to keep in mind, is that if you don't listen to tons of music, 500 charges amounts to many, many years of use. A charge lasts me a good six or seven hours, and I doubt if I listen to more than an hour of music a day. So figure one charge a week, or fifty charges a year. So, for somebody like me, 500 charges lasts nearly a decade (assuming the battery doesn't crap out before that due to old age.)
There are two things that separate people like me from the Neistat Bros. First is that they listen to a whole lot more music than I do. Second, it seems like they listen to all of their music on their iPod. By comparison, I listen to most of my music on my stereo, and only put on my iPod for trance and classical stuff, where I prefer headphones. For people like me, who listen to their iPods for less than an hour a day, battery life is a non-issue. In five or ten years, I would hope that it would not be worth my time to replace the battery. At that time, I'd be more than happy to plunk down, say, $200 for a low-end iPod capable of storing 100,000 songs and twelve feature-length movies ;)
One last thing to keep in mind. Good old Steve has had a thing for hermetically sealed boxes since the days of the original Mac, when opening up one to insert a hard drive would void your warranty. And for most people, hermetically sealed is the way to go. If you're a power computer user, you want an expandable computer; and if you're a serious music lover, a sealed solution like an iPod is a poor solution. But there's a certain beauty in keeping things elegant and for making something meant for everyday users.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
my iPod, ordered the day it was announced, still works perfectly. Knock on scratched Lucite.
sulli
RTFJ.
First, lithium-ion batteries are not as simple as other rechargeable batteries. If the battery and control circuitry aren't set up right, the battery will explode or catch fire.
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.
...
Yes, and that's propably why they go *BOOM*.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
IBM Thinkpad 600 series has been know to have crappy batteries. I have read reports where a new battery had died within a few months
Personally, I'm going to be needing one for my 600E
Ummm...excuse me. Why are people getting so upset about the price of Apple accesories, but when the subject of the cost of Apple computers comes up. Apple zealots are coming out of the woodwork defending the price. Isn't this all part of the "Apple experience"?
Common guys. This is one of the strongest cases of placing undue blame that I have seen. Manufacturing isn't perfect, and it seems that the number of people having their batteries fail at 18months is the minority. Why not just blame Sony while we're at it for inconsistant manufacturing or testing of their batteries, after all that's who makes the Li-Ion battery found in the iPod line.
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.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
The iPod's battery is one of the main reasons I've held off on buying one. I refuse to buy a portable music device that doesn't take AA or AAA batteries, since I need to be able to swap in a fresh battery while on the go. (Of course, my Minidisc player gets 40 hours of play time from a single AA battery, and it's not often that I go that long between recharging...)
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.
If the battery dies (batteries are like that) have it replaced by Apple for $99 or replace it yourself for $50. I just can't see any reason for all the whine-age that goes on over this.
I've looked hard, but I can't find anywhere in my iPod literature that suggest it or its battery is supposed to last forever.
Karma Schmarma
The battery on the iPod is the one and only reason I won't but one.
Here is a CNet article on other reasons not to buy one...
I've looked at cell phone batteries before. I've never seen one cheaper than $40 for any phone I've owned. Where the HECK did the original poster get a $10 battery? I bought a battery for my first notebook. It cost me $120 and drained in under an hour of use. It drained when it just sat there powered off. I looked at the cost of getting a second battery for my current notebook. $200+. And people are complaining about the iPod batteries... -V
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
Lamer, I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds like an operator error. Can you be more specific? I'd really like to know what a "stupid fracture" is.
switched to the PC
Hmmm, good quality there. Well, good enough, but have you ever heard of bad capacitors on a Mac? All a google search turned up for me was an air station example where Apple admitted to the problem and replaced the thing out of warranty in less than two days. No PC maker I've heard of was spared the bad capacitor problem and some big dumb ones still get burnt.
That being said, I run crappy x86 hardware myself. If all I was had was one computer, like most normal people who hate computers in general, I'd have a Mac. But I don't, I pull PeeeCeees from the trash because even crappier software made them useless to their owners. Ha ha ha ha. Free software makes them sing again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Unfortunately, this is only half the truth. I have a cordless V-tech phone that has a dead battery pack in it. Yes, I could buy pack that fits, and I have plenty of experience soldering replacement connectors. But I've yet to find a replacement battery that costs less than I paid for the entire phone including battery ($9.99 plus tax), and many places want $15 or more for the damn replacement battery. In fact, I replaced the phone with another cordless phone that I got with a battery for less than I could get the batter for. Clearly there's something wrong with an industry that deal with customers this way, but it's common pratice.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
1. My iPod also had the battery die early and out of warranty
2. I contacted Apple far before the $99 replacement offer
3. Apple replaced the battery. In short, I just plain don't believe the Neistat's story. Yes I've known people whose battery has died, and NONE of us have been told to get a new iPod. We had them replaced, by apple, for substantially less than the cost of a new iPod. I suspect the Neistat's are either lying or attempting to take advantage of an utterly atypical customer experience for a bit of showmanship. Apple's customer service has made me all the more likely to buy a mac, and soon.
Read about the Neistat brother's refusal to point out Apple's true replacement policy until they had no other choice. Finally after more than a month the link is there to Apple's replacement program. Their site wasn't about information, it was about being drama queens.
In any case, whatever you believe or don't about batteries and how long they should/shouldn't last, all battery tech is a tradeoff between weight, size, capacity, cycle life, total life, storage life, charge time, etc.
Read Batteries in a portable world with some simple explanations of the chemistry in batteries. After seeing some of the crap about battery life thrown about here, it's eye opening to read the truth.
They want $99 for another AC adapter for my laptop. Never mind you can get a similar one at Radio Shack for $12 -- sleaze-balls.
#6495ED - cornflower blue
But all the ones I've ever owned use either lithium ion or lithium polymer battries. Prior to that, they were nickel metal hydride or nickel cadmium.
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.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"If you want to get back at a company that screwed you over, don't turn around and give them $400."
And yet the geek crowd drools over Firefly and LOTR, even though we hate the MPAA.
Apple is a fucking garbage piece of shit company that bases its image and market on "young" and "savvy" people. Fact is, it's a typical "base our company by the cover of a book, not by the content" company. If you haven't realized this by now, you have serious issues.
Shithook
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...
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
he didnt actually say FIRST POST, so you FAIL IT.
ironic, isnt it?
See?
" you use your iPod away from any source of recharging power so much, then I guess you just have to live with it"
It is a PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER. It is sold as a portable device for people to use on the go, away from outlets.
Can't help getting a chuckle out of this, but disappointed that all those iPods will be contributing a lot of additional toxic waste to our landfills. Guess it isn't chic for Apple to have a disposal plan.
Sad.
sig mind freed
Why don't we just call it what it is, a hardware license. If it works just until the warranty expires, then great, you got your money's worth. But if it lasts longer, say two whole years, then you make out like a bandit.
Honestly, I have no idea what these people are talking about, I think this is just sensationalism. I have a 1G iPod that I bought about 1 month after they came out, and the battery is still at about 80% of it's original capacity.
I wonder what they did with this iPod to reduce it's battery life so significantly, short out the contacts or something?
- Sherman
I've had an ipod for 2 years now. I use it so much, that I tend to have my battery lose power by the end of the day. When I'm at home, i usually have it hooked up and charging. Am I the one out of a million or something?
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
You tool, do you know *anything* about the iPod? It uses a fucking HD, for chrissake!
A tiny ass little non-backlit LCD and a little tiny optical drive with a low-power decoding chip uses an assload less power than a backlit LCD, expandable dual ARM processors for decoding and supporting *NEW* formats (can your fucking minidisc do that, tool?), and a mini-HD?
Idiot.
It's iPod, not Ipod. Anything else is trademark degradation, and we all know there's enough of that these days.
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.
I have to agree with your complaints, but I don't think they're that important to Apple. After all, how many other people have come close to making a similar device?
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.
mogorific carpentry experiments
go fist yourself and die, mac faggot
> 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
You make sense. I can't believe the number of people who DON'T read the most basic of information about their new hardware, or services they sign up for.
Here, a pet peeve is users of my ISP who complain that "you're not offering a truly unlimited service, I'm suing!" when the description of the service says, quite clearly "This is not an unlimited service". They didn't read that info, or if they did they chose to ignore it.
Much with the iPod. Anyone who has half a clue will know lithium ion batteries DO NOT LAST. They die of old age before any other batteries will, and that's what their chemistry dictates. It's a tradeoff for light weight, fast recharging and a small battery size.
If someone buys a product without putting any kind of research into it AND THEN WHINES ABOUT WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN KNOWN then they're morons and should be shot.
your post is offtopic flamebait
You tool, do you know *anything* about the iPod? It uses a fucking HD, for chrissake!
"Oh, it's true, I'm a rageaholic... I just can't live without rageahol!" Chill out dude, you'll live longer.
Someone scientific might be able to tell me this. Why didn't Apple just use NiMH batteries? They're high power in a small package, have no memory effects, and can last thousands of recharges. Why did they go with LiIon which seem to be plagued with problems/explosions and the sort?
Just asking this question as a vaguely misinformed consumer.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Based on the email i sent the guy: Like many other e-mails you may have recieved, I just wanted to point out that I have had two iPods that have lasted more than the supposed "18 months". From the looks of you in the video, if you grow the hell up and take better care of your toys, then maybe they will last longer. What you did was completely unacceptable. I hope you get charged with vandalism. While you're at it, the seventies called, they want their haircut back. Please write back if you have anything intelligent to say.
...
But that's just it - they do die of old age/ Lithion Ion batteries are essentially good for two years, no matter what.
Charging, no charging, heavy/light use, no use, doesn't matter. They die in two years. The chemical reaction is constant and degrades over time.
I'm in agreement with the others in thinking that Apple should just include a damn detachable battery in the next iPod rev. That's really the solution.
I'd be willing to bet the non-removable battery has more to do with Jonathan Ives' pen-chance for 'seamless design' rather than a good technical reason.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
lol.
dumbasses cant find a battery for $10 (plus $10 ship) which means the battery in hong kong cost about $3 lol.
This is a faggy apple thread. Real hackers would just figure out an equivalent design and not pay $50 for a battery.
geezus.
then again this is an apple product where folks actually call tech support when their batteries go dead. I guess their mommies changed their diapers and batteries in their toys too.
Or perhaps they don't want to break a nail.
You apple people are gonna be really miffed when your G4 battery goes dead huh.
--
I am cool for a variety of reason, but mostly because I use Oddpost
My battery died under warranty, 3G 30gb, it always had battery issues, never seemed to hold a charge very well, so I sent it back, and they replaced the whole unit as they mentioned may be done.
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..
I hate spyware and spies
That is probably why, even those mexicans aren't cheaper than chineese for $6/day.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Spoken like a true apple sycophant. They do no evil in your eyes no matter what proof is sitting in front of your face. So it's ok to pay excessive amounts and pay even more when your pretty device no longer works because it's pretty? You must get ripped off a lot and it's thinking like that that keeps making things like this happen.
So if I buy a car that looks great but has an "expiration" date I should pick it over a normal looking car that has a normal shelf life? Ho sure I can pay an excessive amount to get the pretty car running again after all it's only money and I am paying for superior design and quality in hardware. It's just to bad my superior designed car's hardware has to be defibrillated to work again at at premium price
Completely idiotic thinking.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
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.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
A Lithium-ion battery slowly looses its charge even when no power is being drawn from it. So when your iPod indicates that the battery is low, charge it. Don't let it sit around in a low-charge state, it will only discharge itself more. And remember that when an iPod is off, it is not really off, it goes into a sleep mode where it draws a minimal current from the battery.
This won't be a problem for me since I can't go more that a couple of days without using my iPod. But if you leave your iPod sitting around (not charging) for a while, eventually the iPod will drain the battery until the battery level gets so low that the iPod actully turns fully off and then the battery will continue to loose charge because of the nature of Li-ion batteries.
Call me a ludite, but I try and stay away from any electronics product that doesnt run on ordinary, buy 'em in the grocery store batteries (AAA, etc). I'm still using my 15 year old HP 41 calculator, since I can still get batteries for it and the thing just works. Not so for my old TI laptop and countless other calculators and gizmos that you have to recharge and the built-in battery eventually dies. My Palm III runs on AAA batteries, is 4 years old, and is going strong. Until they come out with a PDA that takes cheap and easily replacable batteries again, and is not "disposable", I'll hang onto it as long as possible.
Wait until the RIAA make you pay 49 cents for those 10,000 tunes you have on your ipod
Before I had this unit, I used a MiniDisc, which took a replaceable, rechargeable Li-Ion gumstick battery. So I was surprised when mp3 players started coming out and none used this type of battery. It's smaller than AA's, and wouldn't add much to the size of a case. My minidisc lasted 5 years, largely in part because I could buy new batteries for it. I have no sympathy for people who are just learning now that their fancy iPod is disposable.
First off the iPod does NOT have a lithium ion battery. It has a Lithium Polymer battery. The battery is similar to a LiOn (Lithium Ion) battery, however, they can be made basically any shape, whereas LiOn batteries are much less flexible for shape requirements.
On the iPod, the battery itself has no electronics. All the monitoring circuitry is intigrated into the iPod motherboard itself-the battery is the battery and a connector-that's all. No electronics at all.
The iBook, along with essentially all modern laptop batteries are Lithium Ion batteries. These batteries are not that expensive, however, all laptop companies really mark up the prices of the batteries.
Almost all modern Cell Phones use LiOn batteries (with the exception of a few new ones that have Lithium Polymer batteries)- identicle to the ones that Laptops use.
As to the iPod battery lasting such a short time, all I can say is it is poor design. I currently own a 10GB 3rd generation iPod, which has been used very little (about 25 minutes a day) and the battery treated as good as possible (often recharged, never drained fully, basically cared for in the ideal manner for a Lithium Polymer battery) After owning this iPod for about 6 months, I find the battery doesn't charge up all the way anymore. I have a friend with a 8 month old 1st generation iPod. This is actually his second unit. His first unit had poor battery life the day it arrived. Apple replaced it-about 7 months later the iPod only has a battery life of 4 hours. Yet another friend had a 2nd gen 10GB iPod-that iPod had the battery fail when it was about 8 months old also.
Basically, the iPod's batteries fail constantly. They are a huge design issue with them. Apple needs to admit there is a problem, and offer a reasonably priced replacement (Apple could sell that battery for $30 and make a profit)
Oh, one more thing-even if your iPod is still under it's original 1 year warranty, if it is older than 6 months old, you have to pay $30!!! shipping for it.
All in all, the iPod is a nice idea, having owned and used 2, the size is great, but it is overpriced and it does have issues, and the battery is a HUGE issue-I personally don't see myself purchasing another iPod-They cost too much for how little time they last. I will be looking to their competitors.
or through any of these retail channels
Alltel
Batteries Plus
Best Buy
Black & Decker
Cingular Wireless
The Home Depot
Milwaukee Electric Tool
Porter Cable ServiceCtrs.
RadioShack
Remington Product Co.
Sears/Orchard Supply
Staples
Target
US Cellular
Verizon Wireless
Wal-Mart
So I'm sure if you want to recycle you can take your iPod to any of these fine locations to have it recycled.
Remember when you don't want your old iPod Apple will take it from you and refurb them like alot of OEM's these days.Mr. Jobs is always right, although on numerous occasions the universe has disagreed with him.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
My iPod is 2 years old. 5gb. Dropped a number of times. Works flawlessly. Put it on shuffle the other day, at 7/8 volume (yes I like it loud) and it lasted 9 hours. Not sure if shuffle takes more battery than continuous -- probably not. But anyway, 9 hours is pretty damn good IMO. When my battery finally dies I will happily buy a bigger, newer, improved model. Gotta love all the iPod-haters here who don't realize the reason there are so many iPod/Apple articles on slashdot -- it's because your geeky peers all think the stuff KICKS ASS.
As far as I know, nothing from Apple is made in the USA. I know the clamshell iBooks were made in Taiwan. I know my iPod wasn't made in the US (though where escapes me) I don't think ANYTHING Apple makes is made in the US. /. post)
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
Edward Demming is your friend. Unless you like to make stuff that would be great if it didn't suck randomly.
Engineering, is fudementally the practice of controling failure. If your stuff is failing in an unpredictable or less than graceful fashion, you're either not doing enough engineering, or you're not doing it well.
So if something is failing in a manner that is unintended, it is because of the engineering.
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
...along with dozens of others from Newsweek and The Washington Post.
Why has this been moderated down to flamebait? It's actually a pretty insightful account of a direct experience with the guys who run ipodsdirtysecret.com. In fact, given the experiences described in the link, the language in the post is quite civilized and behaved. Have the moderators stopped reading the articles too?
Spoken like a true apple sycophant.
See this to the end
http://slashdot.org/~morelife/journal/51066
Take a look at a GBA SP. They're about as tiny as a portable game system can be, yet Nintendo (the Apple of consoles) still managed to make easy to replace the li-ion battery. This is either a short sited design, a deliberate disposiable design, or a form over function design. None of those reflect very well on Apple, IMO. Then again I bought an Archos. Cheaper, easily replaced cheaper batteries (NiMH), open source firmware, and a whole lot easier to hack.
From: das@doit.wisc.edu
e du/
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
His name is Steve. He inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, who wasn't the real Roberts either. His name was Gil. The real Roberts has retired 30 years since, and is living like a king in Patagonia.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
I've got an Archos Jukebox Recorder. It has a 20GB harddrive, digital output, can record, has replacable software so you can use open-source stuff on it, mounts as a USB harddrive using USB 2.0, and is powered by 4 AA NiMH batteries which give it lots of playing time.
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.
The ipod doesnt need to constantly keep the HD running, it can spinup, loadup the track into a 4-8meg or 32meg buffer whatever it has, and then spin down the HD. You gota be a fool to think it constantly keeps the HD running. After it is in ram, its the same as those memorycard mp3 players. LCD's never take much power and you dont always look at the backlite for hours on end, only briefly. Shit if a GBA can run for 15hrs on 2*AA on a full color LCD, or 7hrs with a backlite.
r ocessors/manuals/27878001.pdf
ARMs dont require huge amount of power, check intels website. ftp://download.intel.com/design/pca/applicationsp
1.4W is not that much. Less than my digital camera.
The only prob with AA/AAA is that the NiCd or NiMH cells is that it takes 10% of mA power to charge so it takes 5-10hrs to charge. LION AAAs I think are not quite common , batteries.com has them.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
are Apple's overpriced? maybe, but you are also paying for someone to do the work, right? the 3rd party replacement is always going to be cheaper (otherwise it would have to be a hell of a lot better to exist at all). i guess Apple will do ok with this service when people think of 3rd party batteries and those exploding Nokia phones. you get what you pay for?
if this turns out to be a major issue and not just a story picked up and overblown i would think Apple will do something about that. a revision or two of iPods will have a removable battery if that's really tha case. i guess it depends on how long it takes their engineers to do figure it out.
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...
Put that iPod down. Do you own the rights to all of those songs sir?
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.
Actually, in many consumer products the battery is not easily replaceable or very expensive to replace. The manual to my electric razor (which costs about the same as an iPod) include instructions for the safe removal and disposal of the batteries when they cease to work. The user is then instructed to discard the razor. The batteries on my Dustbuster are not user-replaceable, and manufacturer replacement costs nearly as much as a new unit. Rechargeable electric toothbrushes do not have user-replaceable batteries.
Jesus people, this is a device to listen to music on. Anyone who would pay $400 for a 'walkman' is a loser and deserves to be fleeced. Just because Apple markets and sells it does not make it the 'deal of the century' or innovative. In light of that, if the product was within the warranty guidelines so be it; if not, buy a new one.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
Name me ONE wintel based PC you can buy ( not build, buy ) use it for a year, and sell it for damn near what you paid for it? You cant. PC's are like new cars, half their value goes out the window the second they are yours.
So much for cost arguments.
As far as the iPod battery goes, I dont have one, but I personally would not be pissed if my battery lasted only 18 months. I dont see anyone complaining that their new cam, even with the best rechargables money can buy, only get 80 shots before charge time. They just accept it.
why can't Slashdot editors type "iPod" correctly?!?
My iPod's battery died. Rather than get a new iPod, I got a Zen with a user replaceable battery that works just as well. I understand that this sort of thing is par for the course for Apple (see http://www.igeek.com/articles/Opinion/PowerBookRep air.txt.) This experience has not convinced my to buy any more Apple products.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Apple doesn't make ANY hardware... It's all "third party" now.
The brothers were right to be enraged, and were right that others would be enraged, and right that it's a rediculously complex procedure for battery replacement.
Apple's representatives were right that it wasn't intentional - I imagine that it's merely a great benefit.
The fans of the iPod are correct in that it's a handy device. In fact I'd daresay that it and it's ilk will end up being the PCs of tomorrow, at least in terms of overall design (I'd imagine that the overall iPod innards, combined with sufficiently powerful connectivity, CPU and memory horsepower, could be an excellent portable substitute to a 20 pound tower or a three pound but still somewhat awkward laptop).
And finally, tragically, Apple is right in that it won't be that big of an issue. Because it SHOULD BE. Unfortunately our disposable economy is pushing irrevocably to a disposable/rental everything to wring every last cent out of you.
Sad. Everyone can be so right, and everyone loses... well, except Apple.
I have the original iPod (almost 2 years old and the battery still lasts about 8 hrs), and much of the reason people like has already been mentioned: The interface, with the wheel, is very clean and easy to use. It's slim and fits in a pocket easily. The synchronization with iTunes is seamless. I can even start my Mac off it.
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.
"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"
Yeah, I know, recommending a Dell over Apple is the like trying to convince a teenager that Old Navy clothes will do the job just as well as Abercrombie & Fitch.
And the news is?!?!? I have recived the same response from PALM every time I tried to get a replacment battery for my m500. However as long as there are alternatives, I don't see what the problem is.
Except you don't pay for it if your battery goes dead during your warranty period.
Yeah, but you're missing the point entirely. The high maintenance cost when the iPod is out of warranty is ridiculous. Do you really think it costs Apple very much when they replace a battery? The out of warranty price is inflated for a reason: increased iPod sales.
Apple really went into high gear with this practice and I don't know why people aren't bitching about this more. It's not just the iPod, it's all Apple products. I'm a Mac user and I'll stick with it (good for cross-platform development)...and Apple damn well knows it. They have a loyal customer base that will make major and minor purchases at certain intervals. People at Apple (esp. Jobs) are very aware of this. These people (consumers) are the "engine" and Apple is turning it faster these days. Consider:
- $130/year for the latest version of OS X
- Each new iPod model has new features and compatibility that compel (NOT force) people to buy the latest/greatest
- The iSight does NOT ship with drivers, and you can't download them either. You can only use the iSight if you buy iChat A/V for 10.2.8 or upgrade to Panther
- Old versions of hardware and software never receive feature updates, only security updates if any (OS X 10.1.x, 10.2.x, iDVD 2, 1st/2nd gen iPods, and more)
This isn't a conspiracy, it's just a really lame business practice. They're setting the end of life for most hardware at six months and software at twelve months. I absolutely believe Apple should make a profit for their collective effort....I also believe I should get more mileage out of my purchases. My $130 is worth more than a max of twelve months worth of updates.
so if apple isint making money on itunes, why dont they open up ipod and let it play wma? then they still sell more ipods, the other online music companies lose/dont profit much, and the customers win. the only reason not to is possibly because of the wma license.
its win/win/win/lose.
btw, there is a story about a guy who mirrored for the video, who agreed to mirror if they put replacement info on the website, over at http://das.doit.wisc.edu/neistatsdirtysecret.txt
Honestly, I've been a pc fan for years. Installed slackware in '94, owned a pc jr, a 286, 386, 486, and pentium. Love x86. Just got os x and an ipod. HOLY SHIT! This is the coolest geek set of toys I've ever seen.
That said, I think the iPOD design isn't perfect, a little too stylish, but overall, mac has become the geek choice of cool (overnight, with os x, IMO) I remember in 92 asking a mac relative to show me the mac shell. Heh. Now with os x, bash! tcsh! very cool.
Deep down, I somewhere in me the 100 for a new battery doesn't concern me. Why do we put up with MS?
-Sean
I took a moderator beating the last time I brought up the iPod battery ruckus. Flamebait for pointing out valid flaws, gotta love Mac moderators. Finally Big Media has caught on to this Big Problem and the flock can't ignore the problem any longer.
So they complain that Windows XP costs $99 one time, but a frequent battery replacement and frequent OS upgrades from Apple are somehow okay at the same and higher prices?
I just researched this whole subject in preparation for buying hard drive mp3 devices for my family. The best device is not, BY FAR, the iPod.
1) The iPod's battery is prone to failure (like all Apple hardware, can you say laptop recharger failures?)
2) When it doesn't fail the battery lasts HALF as long as the competition (6 real world hours versus 13-14)
3) The iPod doesn't support FLAC, it doesn't support OGG, and its generally more standards limited
4) The iPod works with ONE machine, while competitors products will work with MULTIPLE PCs without a hitch
The best product on the market for teh general public is the Rio Karma, hands down. Not only do ALL the above apply but, check this, THE BASE STATION HAS AN ETHERNET ADAPTER. You can network it IMMEDIATELY and access it from any client on said LAN.
Oh, and did I mention that the Karma is $100 less expensive than a comparable iPod, that its SMALLER than the iPod, that it's LIGHTER than the iPod, and that it's owned by D&M (read Denon, read ACTUAL audio company).
I don't know about you, but I look for value, good design, and usability in what I buy. The ONLY reason to buy an iPod today is because you care more about image and public perception than you do having a product that works. Face it, Apple has marketed the hell out of ther iPod and Mac fanatics have just furthered it along in the "trendy" way they have of pushing Apple's crappy gear.
Enjoy your dead iPod, my Karma is running great!
-rt
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.
While it does sound like a nice analogy to compare a car battery to an ipod battery, it's not really fair. Let's face it, an iPod has only a couple parts - battery, lcd, hard drive, casing, plus the accessories (charging cradle, case, earbuds). A car has thousands of parts, many of them quite expensive (engine, transmission, rims, computer, ect). So it's not shocking that the iPod battery cost represents a significant chunk of the iPod's cost, while the battery in a car represents only a small chunk.
I have blog like everyone else
It is a bad design for the device to not have a user-replaceable battery. But Apple has a long history of embracing proprietary technology so that their customers have as few recourses as possible to avoid dealing with them for peripherals and maintenance. It's sad to take such a great product and cripple it so that the whole device becomes useless without sending it back to the factory. But unfortunately, this isn't surprising when one considers it came from Apple.
I wouldn't call it gouging. It's been the trend for many years in the electronics business. In the old days, technicians would troubleshoot the problem down to the component level and fix/replace the bad components. That took time, experienced technicians, lots of test equipment and a large parts inventory, all of which cost serious money. It became much cheaper to only troubleshoot down to the level of a field replaceable unit or module. Fewer parts needed to be stocked, less time was needed, experienced technicians could be replaced with trained monkeys, little or no test equipment was needed, and much less training was needed for the monkeys. The only problem is, as you discovered, that in some cases, it is cheaper to do things the old way. From the repair department's point of view, the "cheap" repair is not possible without them spending a lot of money on tools, parts, training and higher wages. The Mom and Pop shop may be able to do it in some cases because the repair is simple and their employees are overqualified for their jobs. They also don't have to deal with the standardized processes and procedures of a large corporation.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'm damn sure not taking a screwdriver to a $400 piece of equipment when I don't know how it's set up inside. There are a lot of very small solid state pieces within an iPod, the kind that will break if accidentally bumped by an errant screwdriver, tongs, or fingernail. And even if the iPod was still under warranty, it wouldn't be after you pried it open.Not at all. I'll just give a slight tug to the back of my G4's case to pop it open - no unscrewing, even - let the door hinge down, and replace the battery. No disassembly required, getting at the motherboard is easier on a G4 than on any other case I've ever seen. It ain't that easy with an iPod.
Oh, and you seem to be forgetting, iPods aren't just for Mac users.
YHBTB. YHL. HAND.
Yeah still years away, but if you can plug a terabyte HD and a feul cell into your first iPod, how much are you willing to pay for that? (just doing my research now for a startup in 2010)
Buy an IPod and you deserve it. Creative for one sell two very good MP3 players with replaceable LIon batteries.
IPod owners are fashion victims. Get over it.
It's a Li+ battery, good for around 500 charges. That's about 1.5yrs battery lifetime on your iPod if you use it every day, like I do.
Recently, I did a battery replacement on my iPod. I wrote about it here 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.
____ _______
Duty now for the future!
Apple "shill" or not, the contents of my post were still the truth...
A new Portable Power Adapter - 65W (for iBook & PowerBook) are about $80 bucks.. The Apple ones are somewhat stylish with the green/orange light, but pretty poorly constructed and fall apart quickly. I know one guy who's gone through three of them in a year, and mine is starting to fray (dangerous!) and will need to be replaced very soon. Why? The cord is thin and flimsy.
Today I purchased an Airport card as a gift for a friend's iBook. I'm presuming it's the exact same wireless technology as a $40 PC wireless card. But my cost was $79. An "extreme" 802.11g card would cost another twenty bucks.
So yeah, after you lay down for a mac, the accessory price gouging does piss me off.
Speaking of which, can anyone recommend a cheap alternative to Apple's 65W power adapter for the iBooks and Powerbooks?
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
any market where there is reasonable competition? I had the same treatment many years ago when I first bought an Apple II. I wound up taking it back to the place I bought and getting my money back (which then went to building one of the Heathkit computers).
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........
I own 5 Macs, one of which is a 7 year old 8500 upgraded to a G3/400. It still works beautifully, and I've even had Mac OS X on it occasionally, though the 50MHz bus makes it a bit slow for that. It has also had Linux installed on it a few times. Can you tell I use it for tinkering? Currently I keep it around to run Painter on Mac OS 9 so that I can use my old graphics tablet that Wacom doesn't support on the new machines (it's a serial model).
Anyhow, it's a matter of choice to throw away a perfectly useful machine only to buy another one. I'm not one of those people you're describing.
I also happen to be quite a computer afficionado, not one of those that hates computers so gets a Mac. I've been programming computers for 25 years, and have never taken to PCs mainly for aesthetic reasons. The Intel chip architecture was kludgy and hackish back in the days when it was either Intel or 680x0, so I stuck with 680x0 assembler. Of course nowadays the chip architectures have matured somewhat, but then you're still stuck with Microsoft's horrendous APIs and development tools. Thank goodness for CodeWarrior. (Admittedly the APIs for Mac OS 7/8/9 were pretty godawful too, but CodeWarrior always rocked there.)
I own a PC that runs Windows 2000 and Linux, and I don't mind rolling my chair over to it to test my builds (currently working on a cross-platform game with SDL). I have found Windows 2000 a pleasant surprise compared to Windows 98, though I still consider Windows an organizational and aesthetic disaster.
Your posts are pretty strident, so I hardly expect to make a dent in your attitude. But you should be aware that there are some serious and experienced developers working on the Mac by choice.
You're right that the Cube had QA issues. They were resolved, and the Cube got its just desserts in the end. I had the Airport Base Station capacitor problem recently with one of the original ABS models that I got from a computer recycling center here in Portland, OR. I got replacement capacitors and soldered them in myself. It works as good as new - probably better since it has the appropriately rated capacitors now!
I can't say definitively that Apple uses superior components in their motherboards, but they have made that claim, and they do tend to last. And they *did* change battery suppliers for the iPod when it turned out the batteries weren't up to their standards. It would seem that this is the case. Many PC manufacturers use decent components too. Those PCs tend to cost a little more.
I can't say definitively that Apple would tell you to fuck off. I can see why someone who might meet you in person would do so, but my experience with Apple Support has always been very positive. But I've always had an expectation of a good resolution, which tends to sway the outcome towards a positive one. Perhaps if I had a negative expectation I'd get screwed. Who knows? Karma is a mysterious thing.
Having said that, I must admit that none of my computers have ever had problems requiring service from Apple. Nor my iPod neither. Since all my Apple products are currently out of warrantee I'd tend to try fixing things myself before going to a service center anyhow.
One last thing. I think the term "asshat" must have gone out of style recently. Haven't you noticed that it seems kind of silly nowadays, or is it just me who finds it worn?
Well, take it easy.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I wonder if Noah Wyle carrying an ipod around Africa on ER had anything to with his playing Jobs in "Pirates"?
Sorry, I have the flu...
Your cell phone and cordless phone batteries were so cheap because they're made in Chinese plants with non-existent quality assurance. I've heard of stories of such batteries leaking and/or even exploding!
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.
Lithium batteries have a higher energy density that NiCD or NiMH batteries. More power in less space/weight.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"Original mac (128K, 512K, Plus, SE and SE/30) had no space for a hard drive inside."
Well I don't know what you mean by that. My SE 30 has a factory installed hard drive in it.
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.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I have a 15GB second generation ipod. I bought it online in May of 2003. I got it engraved and it took about a month to arrive. I saved about 10% by going through the education store and then spent that on the engraving and shipping.
At first getting it to work was a bit difficult on Windows XP. But a few minutes of fiddling fixed that.
Then Music Match pissed me off in about 1 day. I switched to Ephpod. Ephpod works much better but still tends to be a bit flakey.
Basically PC+Ipod=Flaky. I love my ipod, but only when it does that thing I like (ie. when it works)
In august the very flimsy cable attached to the remote started flaking out and I had to get the remote replaced at the Apple store. They were nice enough to just replace it there because they had extras otherwise they would have expected me to wait for one to arrive in the mail. 2nd Gen Ipods and 3rd Gen Ipods are very difficult to use in the car without a remote.
Occasionally the battery seems to die for no reason, which is probably just cause it kept being turned back on by something touching it or the auto matic off did not do its thing.
Mostly my problems relate to syncing where it does not excel.
I can move about 3GB which is the extent of the playlists I have on it in about 10-15 minutes over firewire. However it does not always go. Long songs like dj sets and comedy routines cut off after a few minutes and some songs that play fine on the computer do not play correctly, all the way, or at all on the ipod.
I love my ipod but if and when it breaks I am probably going to be more price conscious when buying my next mp3 player since it will likely not be a birthday present. That means I probably won't buy another ipod unless they come down in price in a year or so.
Realistically the cost of batteries is high and has been high. Some people here are comparing the price of batteries from other products to the price of an iPod battery. This is about useless. The product doesn't matter. The output matters as does what the battery is made out of. If you don't want to pay the high price Apple is asking for such a thing, go look into making your own battery or paying someone else to do so for you. Apple does have a markup on add-on stuff (this is normal for pretty much any market- sell the base stuff then make money on extras), but you'll likely find that the real cost is simply getting the actual batteries.
I think the world must be ending. I just read a self described Apple fans post and it actually had wisdom, insight, and large healthy doses of reality.
I'll know the world is ending now if I read a BSD fan post that Linux isn't really all that bad, a Linux fan post that Linux is still not ready for the typical home users desktop, and a Windows fan admit that Windows still has a ways to go in the stability department.
I salute them for calling out Apple on this one. Sure, Apple has subsequently done better, as the Neistats' web page acknowledges. But they should never have had to make this movie in the first place.
The Post's wooly theorizing about disposability didn't do much for me -- the writer is simply observing, lamely, that consumers will keep forking out for the same product (an idea as old as the midcentury, when it was known as planned obsolescence). Pfft. When you have a genius such as Ives working for you, there's no excuse for failing to make changing iPod batteries easy and affordable.
See my previous comment.
My parents went on tour of the Apple factory, and all they brought me back was this lousy iPod battery.
Commentary on iPod pricing
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
1 word: eBay
I bought an extended life battery for my cell phone for about $10 and couldn't be happier. The same battery retails at Ratshack for around $50. There seems to be an oversupply of cell phone batteries on eBay, because the prices are really low.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Your Minidisc doesn't get 40 hours on a single rechargeable AA. It will do so on an alkaline though.
Note that an alkaline battery cannot effectively power a high-drain device like a hard drive. As a similar thing, ask anyone who put alkalines in their digital camera or Creative Jukebox. Both do worse on alkalines than rechargeables. That is, they waste more than half the capacity of the alkalines due to high drains and the high internal impedance of alkalines.
Minidisc battery life is impressive, that's for sure.
You are also paying for an battery installation. The rechargeable li-ion battery live inside the ipod. There is no little door you can open to swap the battery. You have to open it up with an screwdriver to get to it, which most people are *not* willing to do. Not to mention voids the warranty.
Li-ion batteries are also inherently *significantly* more expensive. They have about twice the power density of NiMH and have no "memory" issues at all. Unlike NiCD/NiMH batteries.
How the fuck is this insightful?
They're about as tiny as a portable game system can be, yet Nintendo (the Apple of consoles) still managed to make easy to replace the li-ion battery.
Perhaps the iPod player needs a bigger battery than the GBA SP. Remember that while the GBA SP has few moving parts apart from the power switch, the volume slider, the light switch, and the game controls, the iPod has a rotating storage medium, and it costs current to spin that thing.
a form over function design.
Bingo. Form sells.
I'm guessing that a new hard drive failed, and its warranty replacement failed, counting as two failures for one purchase.
Where did this guy find a cell phone battery for $10? I had to go out and buy a new cell phone because the only replacements available for my old one was $50. As for the iPod, I picked one up recently at Best Buy, and spent $40 to get FOUR YEARS of coverage on it. As long as I don't drop kick it, or dunk it in acid, I'll just switch it up if and when the battery dies for the 80G when it happens :). So if you want an iPod, worried about the battery, just hook up with one of these. Sweet deal.
Anyhow the rest of this Neistat stuff is old. It's just a publicity machine now. The only people that care are shills, trolls, and reporters a month and a half behind the times. This coming from an iBook and iPod owner. Sheesh.
I thought people bought Apple for the interface, not so they would have to fiddle with hardware for themselves!
; )
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Granted, most if not all the parts come from the East, but when I worked for the fruit co. back in '99 all the desktop units were assembled at their facility in Elk Grove (a suburb of Sacramento CA). Having heard nothing to the contrary, I'd suspect they still exist.
ehintz
...that a portable MP3 player starting at $299 was not engineered to have user-replacable batteries, yet a $10 single-use digital camera was?
I'd really like an iPod... $300 is an awful lot to spend on something that will end up costing $99 more when the battery finally croaks. Yea, I know about the site that sells iPod batteries, but the last thing I pried apart to work on (an old 486 laptop) still has pry marks from when I opened it to replace the CCFT. While the laptop needed the CCFT replaced due to improper handling (I accidentially dropped it), the iPod will eventually need a new battery no matter what. This means a $300 device that I'll either have to spend $99 on at some point, or live with pry marks on the case.
Apple really needs to come out with an updated version of the iPod to address this battery issue. As much as I want an iPod, the battery issue and the format war between WMA and AAC is enough to make me sit on the sidelines and watch instead of buy. If Apple fixed the battery issue and added WMA support (and why not? they claim iTunes is run at a break-even point just to sell iPods.) they'd have hands down the best portable MP3 player on the market.
Oh well, I guess I'll be getting more blank CDs for my portable MP3 CD player this Xmas.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
...that you bothered to write a long, heart-felt letter defending a piece of consumer electronics. Some people write letters defending passionately held beliefs or noble ideals, but what gets you riled up enough to speak out is a yuppie toy. And I love the narcissism behind, "if you only read one of the responses you get about this story, read this one." Bravo, sir. Bravo.
I just thought I'd write in with my personal experience with another MP3 device, the Archos Jukebox Studio 20. Now, don't think I'm trolling on an "Apple Sucks, Archos Rocks" trip, because I'm not. If I had the money, I'd definitely get myself an iPod, as the on-device interface thoroughly kicks the ass of my 2-line text display (although much love goes out to the hackers at Rockbox for making the Jukebox orders of magnitude more elegant and usable), and a firewire connection is certainly prefferable to USB 1.1 (and it is my understanding that both devices are now supported in Linux, so there you go).
With all of that said, I have to say that Archos' support has been first class. I'll be honest, I used to charge my Jukebox in a rather precarious position. It was prone to getting its cord yanked, and thus falling several feet to the floor. Amazingly, the unit survived this punishment many times. After about 18 months, however (interesting timeframe, eh?), the hard drive began failing. Bad sectors and the like. I called up Archos, who were content with nothing more than my confirmation page from Thinkgeek as a reciept, and gladly replaced my harddrive (for all I know they sent me a new unit, actually) for FREE. Since that time (which was the summer before last), I've continued using the Jukebox with no ill effects (although I learned my lesson to be more gentle with it).
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Until Apple has multiple variations, there's nothing to research in the minds of Applefans(tm). If Apple puts it out, it MUST be "better than everything else" and why bother researching when the Apple one is 'better' because it's an Apple item?
You said it yourself: you have a choice. Getting upset over it is pointless and counterproductive. Get over it.
of course, this post will be modded down because I'm not a consumer whore.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
You know, I am in complete agreement that the original policy of Apple in this matter was ridiculous. I view it as not supporting a product you sold, and that's just bad business at best.
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.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
I admit there are quite a few sycophants on this forum (Apple, Linux, AMD, nVidia...you name it, there's a fanboy...weird...I used to be an Atari fanboy when I was in Jr. high...but sheesh....), but in this case the article leaves out GOBS of details about the supposed attempt at self-replacement (and an issue about the timing of the domain registration and the iPod battery replacement offer by Apple stated earlier in the thread).
If you bother to go to the ipodbattery.com site, the replacement pictures are simple and detailed, not requiring specialized parts or a degree in brain surgery. I have not tried myself, but I can see it is simple enough for non-techies who have patience.
It is not just a "pretty" device. It's functional. I've used other HD mp3 players, (see elsewhere in the thread) and by far the iPod is seamless, has excellent battery life (for me and many others, despite the trolling by some), and is durable. Mine's almost two years old and works fine. I assume I'll replace the battery soon, and I won't bother listening to people who claim I bought a "disposable" player that looks "good."
Apple screws up, and often. This is not one of those times....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
'nuff said.
I have an 2001 S Class and it has been a electronic nightmare but I paid a lot for the brand. I could get the same function for less surely, and Apple like a premium car brand is the Porsche of computers. You will pay through the nose for the same thing that is cheaper just because it is Apple. Anyone who wants something different should go for a $699 Dell or white box Linux machine. Apple users are more educated and far richer than the average computer user by Apple's own data mining about its users as well as a number of studies. So people if you want the brand pay up!! You are paying a significant premium just for that little Apple logo on the unit.
Battery program was in the works since mid year. It takes *months* to roll out programs like these; they don't happen overnight. It was in no way, shape, or form related to the Neistat brothers' actions. Sorry.
and it's NOT ameteur neurosurgery. These dolts must've had fingers like bratwursts.
I bought a late 2001 iPod on eBay. It only got 4 hours of battery life. However, unlike these imbeciles, I actually researched the problem and found that by unplugging the battery from the main board and letting everything run dry (a hard reset), then the battery would take a bigger charge. Lo and behold, now I get about 6 1/2 hours out of it. Not bad for a 2 year old battery. It was NOT that difficult. The battery is on top when you pry the back off. There are two strips of sticky foam rubber holding it to the hard drive. I carefully pulled it off. The battery folded out of the way. Same with the hard drive. I then unplugged the battery from the board. It's about the same as unplugging a fan from a motherboard; pull the little cable off of two little pins. Wow. I left it like that for 10 minutes, then put it back together with no trouble. The thing is, the article never mentioned whether they even tried updating the firmware (which solves many battery issues) or even checked Apple's site for tips and pointers. Seems these guys want to whine about the darkness rather than light a candle. And if you fry your iPod while working on something as simple as replacing the battery, you are dimmer than a five watt Christmas tree bulb.
Silly artsy types... Three words my friends...Class Action Lawsuit! You don't have to be right but the movie + bad PR should bring that $99 battery replacement cost even lower.
...how big the iPod would be if it used 4 AA batteries...
Mac zealots go on and on about how superior apples engineering is, but this really illustrates that it's not. If it was well designed, it would be user serviceable, certainly for something as simple as replacing the battery. Simply planning to have people trash their $300+ investment every 18 months is certainly not an example of good planning or good engineering.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Why can't a manufacturer as smart as apple make the battery easily replacable by the user? In another market Sonicare makes a toothbrush that has AA batteries inside it that cannot be replaced without resulting to using your dremel.
I wouldn't want to have to buy a new car every time my battery died. Who would? There is no difference.
The only reason I can think of doing this is to make more money selling new devices or expensive battery replacement services. This is great if your customer is willing to do this. Great for you. Not so great for the world but who cares about that anyhow. We care about getting now.
The problem is we are a throw away society. We use stuff until it stops working, then throw it away and buy it's replacing. We don't think about it. A coffee maker that if designed well could last generations. It could be passed on to your children's children's children. But nobody thinks this way. We can only concentrate long enough to watch a McDonald's commercial.
In a nutshell, don't blame the manufacturer, blame yourself you short thinkin monkey.
You checkin me?
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
The iPod charges off the firewire connection to the computer. Most people wouldn't think to make sure their iPod is disconnected from their machine once the thing has been charged up enough, they'll probably leave it connected so that they can synch up their songs whenever they change their playlist.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That price is still high.
My first pair of toric lenses was $50 per lens. By the time I purchased my last pair of non-disposable replacements, the price had risen to $96/lens. Disposables were finally available, but non-disposables were cheaper per year. (Especially since I always got 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 years of daily use out of non-disposable lenses, not the 1 year they assumed.) When my contacts died earlier this Fall, I was able to buy a year's worth of disposable toric lenses for somewhere around $60. I'm not sure of the exact price, as my insurance reduced it to $9.99.
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
Who ever came up with the interface rules for the Vi editor needs to be dragged out on the street and shot. AArrrgggghhhhhhaaaaaa!!!!!!!!
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
Does that mean people are still going to be driving their Escalades with 20" "Bling bling" rims in 20 years?
Fuck.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Michael is full of crap and his reporting is irresponsible. $10 batteries? Its $59.95 for a replacement battery for my cell phone and $19.99 for a generic replacement battery for my cordless at radio shack.
Yeah $99 is a lot, but it doesn't make the ipod disposible. Its part of the cost of ownership. A replacement battery for my laptop is at least $150, doesn't mean I'm going to throw my laptop out if I have to replace it. Why would someone toss out their ipod?
When are they going to vote michael off the island?
Why not use gumstick batteries?? Sony has been using them for years in their minidisk players, which are mostly smaller then iPods. When my memory-stick media player battery died, I just poped in a new gumstick from best buy for $10. The thing is about a 1/10th the size of an iPod.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A lack of user-serviceability in likely fail points is a severe engineering flaw in and of itself. Most people wouldn't even consider a dead battery a "failure".
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Um, Firefly was a TV show. It was produced by Fox, not the MPAA.
When's the last time a battery change took longer than ten minutes to complete? That the average Jane can't do the surgery herself is a great disservice to those who take pride in Apple engineers.
Especially those who make Macintosh desktop computers so easy to maintain.
Actually the $99 you pay gets you a refurbished iPod, not the iPod you sent in in the first place. Read the Apple site:
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
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
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Glad to have seen this before I bought my fiance an iPod for an engagement / christmas present. Looking at the instructions online for replacing the battery, it's no where near as bad as replacing a hard drive in an old toilet seat iBook. Apple hardware has always been notoriously difficult to tinker with. Anyone who has ever popped open an old CRT iMac or Mac SE will agree.
at this point, I might just buy a dead iPod for cheap and take the challenge of fixing it..
I've aquired so much apple hardware in this manner.
With the incredible popularity of the iPods surely the time is ripe for someone to come up with a cheap, reliable way to replace these batteries.
The same way some people now routinely get their printer ink cartridges refilled rather than pay through the nose for a new unit, there has gotta be someone with an ounce of knowledge and daring prepared to start up a service rehabilitating old iPods - doesn't there?
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
My music player weighs 64 grams, is a two thirds as think as the iPod, and it has a replaceable $10 battery. Not much storage, but there's no reason you couldn't use a Cell phone/PDA style battery to run a hard drive.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It was "just plain wrong" for them to get pissed off that they were told to simply throw away a $300 gadget? WTF? Think about your average user, you think they're not going to believe apples support people when they tell them to "just buy a new one" and that they should simply buy an off-brand battery and hack open their system to try to replace a battery that wasn't designed to be replaced? That's ridiculous.
Sure, some people figured out how to hack in a replacement battery, but that doesn't mean that you're average joe could do it. I mean apple is supposed to be all "user friendly."
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
yeah, we all love how Apple makes it easier for us geeks to ...oh, wait.
/. crapoola.
Same old
Putting in a new battery should not be tech paying job but since its Apple, then we should let it slide.
Not to nitpic, but iPods are charged by Firewire, so you charge it by using it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
In a couple years, I'm sure you'll be able to buy something super-awesome, but why would you if your iPod still worked. Ultimately, how much storage space do you need for MP3s? Once you have 30 gigs, who needs more?
Unless you're a gadget head, the only feature that would really warrant another purchase ever would be a smaller form factor. Of course, the hard drive will eventually crap out, and since that's 90% of the hardware, you might as well get new one.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm sorry. But for small, and high drain devices AAs won't work. You'd only get an hour or so with AAs in a cellphone, and my entire phone is about as thick as a single AA battery.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Close, but it's neither a matter of "overcharging" nor "memory effect."
The real problem is that of REVERSE CHARGING of individual cells when the first cell in the pack drops to zero and you continue to drain from the pack, the remaining cells will charge the dead cell in reverse.
It is this phenomenon which causes the "whiskers" in NiCd and other batteries, and it is these "whiskers" which result in premature loss of capacity and failure.
Although NiCd batteries can develop a memory effect, by comparison the memory effect is quite minor, is experienced by very few users, and is easily corrected by discharging a few times to a DIFFERENT level. The memory effect was an issue with satellites and with the older pocket pagers which were used for exactly 8 hours every single day, and a memory would build up over time. But it is actually very uncommon today for battery users to discharge identically in succession, and the true "memory effect" is virtually unknown today.
Properly cared for, a NiCd pack should last for 2000 or more charge-discharge cycles. But what happens is people try to run them all the way down, and the whiskers formed during the reverse-charging of the weakest cell effectively ruins the pack.
The more expensive NiMH battteries should last for 1000 charge-discharge cycles when properly cared for. Yes, that's a smaller number! So, why do people have better results with NiMH than NiCd? Because they don't properly care for their battery packs, and NiMH cells are more tolerant of the inevitable reverse charging. (Although it does harm them.)
Li-ION batteries are not any big exception here either.
Bottom line? You should never completely discharge a rechargeable battery pack! NEVER!
When it begins to get low (but before it is extremely low) you must recharge, even though your powered device will still be operational.
Yes, this is a surprising and difficult lesson to learn, but nonetheless it is the truth, and represents the correct way to care for batteries.
Apple's engineering Wizards could have designed an easy-to-service battery if they had wanted to. Rather, it seems the decision was made to turn an EASY replacement into a revenue stream. Why are so many posters (not the parent in particular) trying to rationalize corporate greed? Just be honest, and call an elephant an elephant when you see one.
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
It said he had one of the first iPods, so he had it for quite a long time. Call me a troll if you must, but all I have to say is that things break down. And I'm sure his iPod performed exactly as it was designed to. Get over it and just buy a new one, you'll thank yourself when you get one with a larger hard drive.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
Actually, 99% of all PDA and Cell Phone car chargers and "travel chargers" DO NOT have a current-sensing circuit, and will continue to pour voltage into your poor batteries until either the device automatically stops the charging (rare, even if the device reports it is finished), or the user disconnects the cord.
Most car chargers also charge at a full 12 volts.
When the parent poster's cell phone battery dies from being left constantly in the car charger for every daily commute to work, and he goes to a local electronics store, and finds out it will cost $69.99 for a replacement (not including install fees, though it will likely be easy enough to do himself), he will then understand that batteries are a finite thing.
Cell phone batteries do not need cost $50. Even very nice ones don't cost that much. In the mass quantities they purchase, I suspect the Ipod battery costs Apple less than $15, perhaps much less.
If you're accustomed to paying that much for a battery, I can only suppose you tend to purchase batteries and cell phone accessories at your local cell phone store.
Those stores typically have quite reasonable deals on the actual cell phones, but they charge ridiculous amounts for phone accessories. It's the "movie theater" business model. Sell the tickets at cost in order to profit on the popcorn sales. Many local cell phone stores charge up to a 500% mark-ups on cell phone accessories.
If you shop the net, OEM lithium cell phone batteries can often be had in the 15 to 20 dollar range. Even cheaper for non-OEM, aftermarket models.
And to correct one of your other mistakes, lithium ion batteries do not have a memory effect. They simply have a finite number of charge/discharge cycles. Battery Faq
You also suggest it's the user's problem if they keep their Ipod away from a charging source for too long? I see... That must be why all cell phones have built in, non-replaceable batteries requiring users to bring the phone home all the time in order to recharge it... Apple has done most of the Ipod design very well, but as regards batteries, they have failed the ease of use test.
And since clearly a good part of this $99 fee is pure profit to Apple, every time another unit is sent in for service, it furthers Apple's incentive to continue building devices featuring non-replaceable batteries. Nasty cycle that.
You would write up a letter because of one article on an MP3 player?
How about writing something up about the economy, the War on Terror, or the blight of the snowy Alasken owl?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Also, the article and write-up fail to consider the reason that the batter on the iPod is not user replaceable. It was not designed this way to frustrate people, or to lock people in to buying a whole new iPod. No, it was designed this way so the iPod could be a tiny, light music player with 40 gigs of storage. Removable batteries take up more room. If you want to try to cram a hard drive, some ram, a CPU, an LCD, a backlight, a dock or firewire connector, and a audio jack into a case as small as the iPod and have a replaceable battery, then go ahead. I don't think it's possible with today's technology.
Apple engineers and management probably underestimated how much use the iPods would get, and so figured that they would last at least three years under normal use, and that by that time, newer iPods would be available for less money than it would cost to replace the battery in the old ones (Apple is now selling the old style 10 GB iPods for $169, which is not that much more than the replacement cost for the batteries). So, a little over two years after the original iPod came out, you can get one with twice the capacity for only a little more than the cost of replacing the battery in the original iPod. I know that personally, I've had an iPod for 6 months and maybe charged it 20 times. If it's correct that the batteries have a lifetime of about 500 charge cycles, I'll get 12 years of use out of my iPod. By that time, it will be an antique relic.
So, Apple made a mistake in assuming that people wouldn't need to replace the battery, and has now corrected it by offering a battery replacement program and a three-year warranty. What's the big brouhaha all about?
$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 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.
Whatever, dude. I just figured the typical Apple product user is like the typical cell phone user; they'll go to the dealer and buy a new battery. Of course I am perfectly aware of sources to get things cheaply, and have the tools and experience to replace an iPod battery should I need to. And I thought my post was pretty clear about lithium-ion batteries not having a memory effect like ni-cads, and mentioned the number of full and partial charge cycles. I'm suggesting that the iPod's battery is specified within the technological capabilities of today's battery science, and that if users insist on using the iPod in the way that is most efficient at using up full-discharge cycles, then they should expect the battery to wear out. In a continual full-discharge/full-recharge usage pattern, they will get about 4000 hours of listening time on that battery. A $99 replacement fee works out to less than 2.5 cents per hour for not having to tether the iPod to an external power source. A company's sole purpose is to make a profit, anyway...Apple's mission is not to cover the world in fruit-named colors and cheese graters, it's to make money hand over fist. If people are aware that continual use of an iPod will kill the battery in 18 months, and there is a $99 replacement fee unless you buy the extended warranty, then it is up to them to purchase from Apple or not. I happen to know that a lithium-ion battery will not last forever, and others should do their research before buying a $400 toy. Again, Apple's reason for existing is to make money, and if people still buy their products, they have no reason to change the way they do things.
...
Yes, my mp3 player does not have lots of storage. But there is no reason that something that does have a lot of storage must use internal batteries. Some PDAs do use replaceable batteries, and they work just as well as those that use internal ones. Minidisk players use replaceable batteries, but require a lot more energy then hard drives do.
You could use four or five gumstick batteries behind the hard drive, which only take up about a quarter of an inch in depth.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My cellphone has a replaceable Lithium Ion battery, and it's worked fine for over 3.5 years. I let it de charge fully, give it partial charges, etc. It definetly stops charging when its full
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That is one of the best posts I have ever read bar none....fucking beautiful!!!!!!
I had (well, I still have I gues) A PDA with a replaceable battery. There was one tiny quarter-inch switch to unlock the door, and tiny seam around it. The Ipod would not need to look much different in order to allow battery replacement, if it had been well designed.
The iPod is well designed. Look how small it is! Isn't that cool?
A couple months ago, apple was just telling people to throw their ipods away if the battery died. I mean come on, they didn't even plan for this. How is that not poor design? What good is a "cool and good looking" device if you have to throw it away in a year and a half? $99/year isn't a bad deal at this point though, but it's an obvious hack solution.
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.
Yeah, maybe. But it might also have the ability to record audio, either from a mic or an optical input, maybe it'll have the ability to edit play lists on the fly, maybe it'll have built in Ethernet, maybe it'll play OOG and FLAC, etc etc etc. The features of the iPod are not the end-all be all of mp3 players. There is a huge selection with differing feature sets. The iPods niche is rabid fanboy's who can't even conceive of buying a competing product, and don't look at what else is available.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
ARGH.....
So the countdown begins.
wonder if I can find a site with a How-To on taking the 3rd gen iPod apart (seen ones for the 1st gen).
Most prices are not based on cost but rather how much is the consumer willing to pay. In short, we are getting f****d for as long as we are willing to take it (some people enjoy that, so I guess it's not bad for everyone).
The iPod does have a micro-contolled charging system - all devices that use Lithium Ion batteries do. The iPod will stop charging the battery when it is full ans switch to maintenence charge.
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.
I think $10 for a cellular phone battery is a little cheap. Try $40-80 for most. Laptop battery? Yeah, try $50 or so atleast for that too. Battery for a UPS, yeah $50 or more again.. so not sure what world you live in, but $99 while it seems unreasonable, it's definately reasonable when compared to the other absurd prices for the same typing of thing!
I was at Best Buy looking at iPods. The guy told me to buy their 4 year warrantee plan, it covers the battery. Once the battery goes (and it probably will within 4 years)... they will replace it with a new iPod (and with the newer model if they do not have your model in stock). The plan itself is about $50, a whole heck of a lot cheaper than apples 1 year plan for $150. And it sounds like it has better benefits.
Therere some nice devices that just become as old as a turntable. My Philips CD player is 11years old (even plays CDRW!!!!), my Kenwood portable CD player 9 years. Apple must be kidding. Thats almost Samsung niveau! Samsung wont even last 15months.....
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).
I'm no mathematician, but the idea of a "constant failure probability" seems entirely impossible to me. Anything with a probability of occuring would naturally seem to have a higher chance of occuring given the passing of time. IE, if I have a bag with 1 blue and 4 red marbles in it, the first time I pull one out I've got a 1 in 5 chance. Even if draw a red marble and replace it before drawing a second time, the odds of drawing a blue marble somehow increase because of some mechanism I don't really understand. It has to do with random stuff. That's random. For the odds to remain constant, you'd have to add marbles or parts of marbles or something wackily impossible like that. Just like you wouldn't expect to see the same side of a coin turn up 3 or 4 times in a row. I'm pretty sure there's no way that I turn on my computer each and every day with the same odds of hard drive failure. Every day it works brings me closer to the day when it won't. Which is soon, since it's a Deskstar.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This battery conditioning you speak of, where it has a lower capacity than it should -- that's called battery memory if I'm not mistaken. I was under the impression that Li Ion batteries had little to no "memory," even less than NiMH.
My friend and I both have the same model cell phone, but I have a more recent revision. I've noticed that my battery only seems to last ~24h with little or no use, whereas hers will last much longer. I haven't figured out if the culprit is the battery, or the different revision of my phone. They're both LiIon batteries, identical looking in fact. I'd like to figure out if I need a new battery without throwing down 66% of the price of the phone for a new battery, but she won't let me swap with hers so I can test it. The point is, I need someone to create a distraction so I can swap batteries. E-mail me if you're willing to participate.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I bought my ipod at Best Buy. Spent 30 bucks extra for their 3 year replacement plan. My first ipod died, I took it in and not only did they replace it no questions asked, but gave me the next model up (15gig at the time). I'm only 6 months into my new replacement plan, so I'm not worried. IMO, more people should take advantage of retail giants like Best Buy selling Apple stuff.
The fanatics will flood here, redirected by those stupid Apple evangelists web-sites. Result? Complete bias. These little Apple fans sure know how to make people hate Apple. I hope Apple dies soon.
...the Dell DJ's lithium ion battery isn't user-replaceable, either, and Dell has no program to replace the batteries outside of warranty...
Look at it this way. If the chance of failure is a constant 1% each month, the chance that it will fail the first month is 1%. The chance it will fail the second month is 1%. The chance it will fail the first or second month is 1.9%. But the odds are constant each and every month.
That said, hard drive failure doesn't seem constant; it seems to follow a bathtub curve. But that's just my personal experience.
[x] No Karma Bonus because this is off-topic
Good to know. Thanks!
sig mind freed
If this distraction you speak of involves laying some pipe, I'm game.
Just call 867-5309.
Heh, you really don't understand. If you replace the marble and sufficiently randomize them inbetween draws the probability will always be 1 in 5. There's no way the marbles would know what happened before. If you're flipping a coin, the chance of getting heads is 1/2, the chance of getting heads 4 times is 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 or 1 in 16. Try it yourself, but keep in mind many trials would be necessary for the random fluctuations to cancel each other out and approach the theoretical probability.
Now a constant probability of failure in this case does seem unlikely, since wear and tear will increase over time. However there are things that behave this way. The probability of any given atop going through radioactive decay at any given moment is constant. This is why radioactive decay is exponential. Since the number of atoms which decay in a second will be n*P where P is the probability of decay and n is the number of atoms, you can see that the rate of decay will be faster when there are more atoms
and will approach 0 as n approaches 0. So in theory we could test whether hard drives have a constant probability of failure by seeing if they undergo exponential decay.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Good idea!!!
"You sure is smart." I looked around and found rechargeable batteries that can run the ipod for maybe 2 days without stopping and still be able to be recharged about 1000 times. This is a good deal considering getting all of the stuff you mentioned above costs less than replacing the ipod battery once and can last for like ever.
The hard drive alone in the iPod (ALL models) costs more than $100.
You're welcome to wait. As the hard drives get larger, the iPod's capacity will get larger for a while. When Apple decides it's gotten big enough, then the hard drive prices will probably come down, and then the iPod price will come down.
Saying that Apple could sell iPods for $75 -- ASSUMING that Apple could sell iPods for $75 -- is just the usual absolute assumption that Apple is always ripping off all of its customers, brought to such a level that you don't even bother to think before you employ the assumption. I guess that's fine; it's certainly the MO of a lot of Apple-bashers.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I've never understood the "blind loyalty" issue with people and inanimate objects or companies.
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.
I had a motherboard problem with a three year old Thinkpad which is under an IBM service plan. I was traveling and concerned that I wouldn't be able to get the laptop fixed quickly due to the logistics of getting it picked up at one address (which was relatively remote) and delivered to another. The problem occurred on a Monday morning. I called the 800 number and that day someone came to the place I was staying with a padded box to ship it in and picked it up. The fixed laptop was waiting for me when I got home on Wednesday, 2,000 miles away.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Why not try to exchange batteries for a week or two, then you should have the answer?
After a year and a half *all* of my cool and good-looking gadgets are either stuffed in the back of a drawer, sold on ebay to fund some other electronic tat I don't really need, or otherwise not in use. That's the point of them.
The iPod also charges off of the connection a standard wall outlet. In fact, I rarely leave mine plugged into my computer for longer than it takes to sync it because it'll heat up the hard drive spinning it while it's plugged in.
Do you even have any idea what you're talking about ever?
Who you callin' with that cell phone, the 80's?
Maybe I'm a bad shopper, but my cell phone batteries have always cost a bit more than 10 bones.
(Granted, a link to Nokia is about the worst prices you can find, but all the lower price places I tried to Google tried to sell me some porn or a mortgage with my $15 battery.)
You know what?
The AC adapter itself failed within 6 months. Similiar to the apple translucent one that failed before it. (the DC adapter still kicks ass, tho)
I have since gone thru 5 apple power adapters for my Pismo in 3 years, all covered by applecare. (not including the MadsonLine one.)
A few months ago, the power adapter failed yet again, one week before my applecare was to run out. I called applecare and asked for a new one and a spare. I got them both free the next day in the mail.
I still have all the bad ones, in hopes I can refurbish them once these two burn out on me...
INFORMATIVE!!!
Now for a totally different tangent..
Gee, I'd like to know where to get one of THOSE! Most batteries for phones in Canada are more expensive than the phones themselves! (I just replaced my whole phone earlier this year because of it...)
And I've had it for over two weeks now. See the proof?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The mark of good journalism? After a lot of facts, this article says nothing.
Your phones are disposable, the iPod isn't. If a cell phone cost $100, $10 sounds about right. If a iPod cost $300, $99 sounds about right. A door hinge for a Porsche cost more than one for a Vega too. Get over it. Or buy the disposable $99 MP3 player in the hard plastic wrap at Target.
>>-Ruri said it right: "Baka baka!"
:)
The funny thing is, you got it wrong. If I understand it correctly, Ruri says Baka baaka -- "Everyone's idiotic" or "We're all idiots".
BTW, I *love* Ruri. Easily one of my favorite Anime girls, ever.
I wonder where Smalldog, ipod lounge, Apple, and others are getting these batteries? I know a Danish firm made some of them for Sony. The # is UP325385 AH4 and the battery is a 3.7V 1230mAh lithium ion polymer. Does anyone know of a wholesaler of these other than Apple resellers? Maybe you have to be an Apple reseller to get your hands on them at wholesale prices. A search on Google yielded no positive results.