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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.
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
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.
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Apple doesn't sell Apple-branded mini-to-RCA cords.
Not sure where you saw that but it wasn't an Apple cable. Yes they are totally guilty of absurd mark-ups (they took a page from Sony's book), but not to that extent.
They do sell a Monster cable on the AppleStore that is mini-to-RCA. $46 CDN.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Was it Apple branded or was it 3rd party? Because to my knowledge Apple doesn't make it's own dock connector --> RCA patch. For what it's worth, the Apple store online has a kit from Monster Cable which includes the mini-stereo to RCA connector, a dock connectior to firewire cable, a dock, & the power adpater. That's USD80 and actually worth it. The dock and the power adapter will cost you $80 by themselves if purchased separately. I think you just got hit by a greedy retailer --- no reason to blame Apple for that.
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
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!
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
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.
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
GBA: 13.5 x 8.0 x 2.5 cm = 270cm cubed volume
It's easy to add everything. Problem is, you end up with a "fat" product. Just ask MS. Apple know what to cut - and that's why people are comfortable carrying around an iPod in their pocket.
Oh, and the reason that those batteries are so cheap (relatively) is because they're AAs. Failed to mention that bit. Interestingly enough, it's Nintendo that are making the $$$ on the batteries - that's way too much for a set of rechargables.
I call bullshit. The battery service has only been offered in the last couple of months. How long has the iPod been around for? If it was designed to be a revenue stream, the battery service would have been around for almost as long as the iPod itself. It hasn't been.
-- james