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Breathe New Life Into Your Dead iPod
FreakyControl writes "Popular Science is running an article this month about how to change that dead iPod battery, along with links to sites that have other cool iPod hacks. It looks like Casey Neistat figured out how to do it for them, after ruining his own during a similar attempt: 'A few weeks later, PopSci gave him another third-party battery, this time from pdasmart.com ($60), and another iPod from a staffer with the same problem. That one survived and went back to its owner. And Casey ended up spending $400 on a new one.' Looks like all you iPod people may still have hope!"
"Apple does not return your iPod when it replaces the battery; it sends a refurbished model instead. For $68, pdasmart.com will install a third-party battery and give you your iPod back."
So what if yours was engraved? Does AppleCare at least send you a refurbished iPod with your own backplate.
The Awful Truth
All generations of iPods can be affected by this.
By the way, it seems like some batteries are more susceptible than others. My first iPod worked fine, but it was replaced on warranty for unrelated issues and the replacement's battery started to go in just a few months. You might get lucky and have a long-lasting battery, or you might get screwed.
P.S. You have a 3rd generation iPod. The second generation added a touch-sensitive scroll wheel, the third is entirely touch-sensitive.
You are NOT a geek
its as simple as that... it take no effort and less than 15 minute to replace the battery and if it isnt working right when your done it either wasnt the battery in the first place... or more likely YOU ARE A MORON WHO SHOULDNT TOUCH ANYTHING TECHNICAL.
Also I have a Gen 1 iPod and use it as both a portable work HD and a music player in my car and around the home and have yet to have battery problems like people experience... I just reset the battery by unpluging and pluging the connector inside the iPod and it worked fine and when back from 6 hours to 10 hours.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Had mine for 3 years now, no problems. It's all negative propaganda. Having it replaced for $50 is no biggie anyway and the benefits way outweigh this minor inconvenience.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
My battery works just fine. However, it seems that iPod firmware 1.3 has broken my contrast. I have to turn it all the way up to see anything under the best of lighting conditions. When I turn the backlight on, the contrast inverts or something, such that it's only usable with the contrast all the way down. I know that my screen isn't broken because after reflashing to 1.2.6 and rebooting about a dozen times, it booted with normal contrast. However, the next time I rebooted it, the contrast problem was back. Perhaps a loose connection, but when I opened my iPod, everything seemed fine. Got it for Christmas over a year ago, so no warranty for me (I was 3 days out of warranty when I first called it in), but this problem didn't start until after I put firmware 1.3 on it.
Anyone else have this problem? I heard from a bunch of 3G iPod owners that the latest firmware for them does something similar.
Anyway, although I don't have any problems with my iPod battery, I can't honestly recomend Apple's products to people anymore. If this issue isn't fixed, I'm going to have to tell people not to buy Apple hardware because they'll be left out in the cold when Apple breaks it with an update.
Any electric device with a rechargeable battery will be affected. The iPods are no more vulnerable than most, though.
An easily replaceable battery would sure make a hell of a lot more sense than making your customers give up their own hardware for someone elses, That's for sure.
Casey Neistat also screwed over some of the people who hosted his video by not posting information about the battery replacement services. The providers gave him the hosting on the condition that Casey would give a balanced viewpoint on the problem and would link to the replacement programs.
Sapere aude!
I own a original 5 gig litteraly 3 weeks after its release (I was working for Apple as a Campus Rep at the time and they let us buy them for the employee price, which was $300 if I am not mistaken)
Anyway It did go down from 10 hours to 6 hours of nonstop play (no button mashing backlight off, etc.) but if you just unplug and replug the battery terminal inside it has a tendacy to jump back up to its original 10 hour claim... strange when you think about it, but I tried it after being told by a friend and seeing it on a website and sure enough it DOES work.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
but if you just unplug and replug the battery terminal inside it has a tendacy to jump back up to its original 10 hour claim.
Now that is interesting. That would suggest a bad connection to the battery. So cleaning the terminals may be all that's needed on some of these. Just the act of unplugging and pluging it back in would clean them a little.
I've seen that problem on lots of devices. Portable phones, my Palm Pilot, car batteries, etc. Just cleaning the terminals made the batteries seem newer/better.
Interesting. I didn't make the connection until you mentioned that... Hmmm.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I've had laptop batteries. They do the same exact thing. Replacements for them? 150/200$ for a 3rd party battery. For two or three hours of power.
Not the 10+ hours on a iPod for 50$ from a 3rd party.
Yes, I know why the time differences are there, but I'm just saying, we're already paying how much for new laptop batteries? How is this different? Because it requires more heavy-lifting, or is that it's the same price as a laptop battery if you send it to Apple and have them replace it, thus removing any liability for destroying your device that's causing unrest here?
It's not even that the iPod is a exclusive problem. How many Rio Karma battery replacements can you find at the local store?
Would it be possible to stick in higher capacity batteries in an iPod? Different back plates? Anyone tried this before?
Apple offers to replace the out-of-warranty battery for $105.95 including shipping. You can buy your own battery for less and replace it yourself, but you assume the risk of breaking it. Apple doesn't even say that it's easy to do it yourself.
I could have bought an entire working automobile for $800.
That's right, and if you try to perform repairs on that car yourself without really knowing how to, then you'll probably have to spend another $800 on another car.
Concept of the day: your choices carry consequences.
As for the "sane" devices you mention: Looking at my Palm Tungsten T - there's no way to (easily) replace the battery in there, nor can the same be said about the other PDAs (Palm and Pocket PC) I see around me in my office.
Your rationale leaves something to be desired.
For anyone interested in the truth on the iPod battery situation overall, see:
http://ipodbatteryfaq.com/
Some brief notes:
- There is nothing "wrong" with the battery in the iPod...it's just a lithium ion battery like any other lithium ion battery, and a wide variety of factors affect the battery life, both per charge, and overall.
- The reason the iPod/battery issue is getting so much attention isn't because there is anything to it, but because the iPod is the most popular portable music player by far. Note: I'm not saying that people haven't had issues with the batteries, but these aren't specific to iPod; they'll happen with ANY device with lithium ion batteries. The only difference is that iPod uses a battery sealed inside of the enclosure...which brings me to:
- People act as if Apple is alone using an integrated battery. Well, I've got news for you: they're not. In fact, anyone who makes a portable music player that is anywhere CLOSE to the iPod in terms of size also uses - you guessed it - an integrated, non-user-replaceable battery. This includes: Dell DJ, Gateway DMP Series, Samsung YP-910GS (Napster), iRiver iHP Series, and Rio Karma. And guess what else? NONE of them (at this time), with the exception of the iPod, have a manufacturer-provided way of replacing the battery outside of warranty.
- The Neistat Brothers' issue wasn't that the battery died per se, it's that Apple had no reasonable response to the issue (the response was basically either pay $250 flat rate repair fee, or buy a new iPod). However, Apple already had an official battery replacement program in the works...it just wasn't ready when Casey Neistat first contacted Apple. In the interim - BEFORE the iPod's Dirty Secret video was released - the battery replacement program became available. The release of the battery replacement program had NOTHING to do with the Neistat brothers' video. People will try to claim that it did, or that Apple somehow "got wind" of the fact that they were going to release the video, or that it was being forwarded around via email before it got released on the web and that Apple "found out" about it, and a bunch of other ridiculous stories, but the cold, hard truth is that Apple had the battery and AppleCare programs in the works for MONTHS before Casey ever initially contacted Apple with his issue, and before one second of film was ever shot, or one ounce of spraypaint sprayed. It may seem like I'm belaboring this point, and I am: the implication otherwise is that Apple only released the battery replacement service because it was "forced" to by bad publicity, when the truth is that Apple discovered that it would likely need to have an official way to replace batteries for people since ALL LiIon batteries have a finite lifetime, and began developing programs and procedures to take care of these customers.
- This, of course, also ignores the fact that there were at least two third party companies offering replacement batteries for iPod - and one whom would do the battery replacement for you - at the time
- I find it funny that people are now all concerned about the iPod issue, as if there is something wrong with it, and considering buying other music players because of it, when much of the time, the other music players they're considering have integrated batteries as well - and no way to replace them! (As opposed to the numerous different ways of handling iPod batteries.) Not to mention that the competitive products are generally viewed as second-rate, at best.
- Of course, the overriding truth to this entire issue is that the vast majority of people have not had any issues whatsoever with their iPods (sure, everyone's battery life will degrade; it's just a question of whether it will degrade to the point of making it unusable - and for most people, it never will).
- If you want to go out and buy a music player that uses AAs or other easily replaceable batteries and/or bat