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iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma
wellington map writes "TheRegister reports iPod nano users have discovered that it is unbelievably easy to scratch the screen, which quickly makes the colour screen all but useless for viewing album art and photos stored on the machine. Apple's discussion forums are already host to hundreds of threads on this topic."
Always wait until the second generation to buy from Apple. This has been true for years, and it is apparently continuing. iPod nano 2.0 will cost less, have more space, and probably a better screen.
:)
:)
It hardly ever pays to be an early adopter. Let other people work out the bugs, then enjoy the fruits of their labor
(Posted from a Rev. 2 15" Powerbook G4
My other car is first.
I remember seeing this recently and saying something along the lines that users should 'wake up' to the fact that they had this device in their pockets with their keys. He also laughed at the fact that the screen wasn't made from some high-grade polymer, which would be cheap enough to cover the square inch or so of the screen.
And let's not forget Apple is making these for a $100 profit, can they really not afford that extra 50c?
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
You'd think with all Apple's advertising resources, they'd have had "Tim from marketing" put it in his pocket for a day just to test it.
Obviously not. It does seem something of an oversight to launch the product way before the covers and cases are available too. I wonder how long it'll be before we see a 2G nano with modified screen coating...
I'm curious, as somebody who comes from a manufacturing background... how did this product get shipped with such a glaringly obvious flaw? Does Apple test their products, or do they simply have a team of yuppie designers who send their designs to China, which in turn drop ships them directly to customers? Apple is going to have to announce a full recall, and I'm assuming, start firing people pretty quickly.
You wonder how much real life testing these things get away from a lab if the screens scratch within seconds and no-one has noticed. I would at least of hoped they would have got testers out and using them in the real world.
My IPod 30gb Color, also scratches very easily screen. Screen, case, you name it. That's why the ipod case business is so large!
Best Quote:
How am I supposed to use something "pocketable" if even my CLOTHES SCRATCH IT?
Correction: Apple's discussion forums were host to hundreds of threads on this topic.
...the iPod Pico.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
iPod Nano found to be as scratchable as all previous generations! President Bush will be addressing the nation on this crisis within the hour!
Seriously, these things have scratched if you looked at them funny since the first generation regular iPod, it's what they do.
Move along people, nothing to see here.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
The fine folks at apple have been so busy trying to think of a way to re-use their 1984 ad, that they forgot to test their Nano screens for scratchability.
Ignore Alien Orders
Showm me photo before I believe the screen becomes useless. And it WILL scratch. It's a device that you use constantly in not-very-friendly enviroment. Last I checked, the purpose of exteriors is to protect the interiors, and that means some damage.
Oh, yes, iPod is for looking at, not for listening to, I forgot...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Oh no! I can't believe Apple would act like the common business and try to maximize profit by using the biggest piece of garbage they can pass onto the consumer and still have their product considered acceptable/good.
/sarcasmOff
What next, Macs will be discovered to be made with cheap parts as well?
>Apple is going to have to announce a full recall
More like they'll write a support entry of the form "Don't scratch your iPod Nano. HTH. HAND."
Remember, Apple can do no wrong. If this statement feels odd to you, please report to your local Apple Store for re-indoctrination ASAP!
They're just trying to make screen scratching so easy that anyone can do it. Way to go Steve, you've come through again!
It scratches... but not from just being put into my pocket. They're making a mountain out of a hill. (not an ant hill... it is a problem) Buy a case. Simple!
http://www.sandstorming.com
Nano users! Post big huge pics so we can all see.
At first this reminded me of the similar controversy about the PSP's screen when it first came out. Then I read the Apple discussion thread linked in the article, which included a post from someone who says he put it in an empty pocket and it still got all scratchy. So just clothes can scratch the thing, apparently.
Something shouldn't be considered "mobile" or "portable" if it has to be treated with the care of a Faberge egg.
Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
High on 'style' (whatever that's supposed to be), low on quality or value.
Seriously, Apple is profiting a lot from they're high marked up prices of the iPod Nanos. It costs them just $90.
There are tons of asian made alternatives to the iPod Nanos that are much much cheaper.
I guess its the price to pay to be the cool kid on the block... but between you and me, you're not unique.
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* Keep out of reach of children.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Read through those comments, some of them are just insane. Like one said they kept it in their pocket with a travel pak of tissues. The reply was "That would mark it no problem.... I think it is just something we will have to live with."
Another one says "I am not certain apple is responsible for that... freedom of choice"
My bet is that steve jobs could kill a baby with an ibook, and they'd defend him.
1. Sell scratch-prone iPod Nano (~50% profit margin) 2. Sell madly overpriced case - iPod Nano tubes (several hundred % profit margin) 3. Profit!
I saw the iPod nano at Sharper Image (no, I would never buy anything there - just browsing!) and the screen was clearly all scratched up - and the thing was behind a glass display case! Turned me off to the product then and there.
They should have used a more brittle (but harder) acrylic for covering an LCD screen. It's not like it has to be particularly strong.
I will continue to support Steve Jobs in all his endevours. At least it's not a Microsoft product. I'd rather push an Apple than drive a Microsoft.
Couldn't some sort of spray-on coating fix the problem? Might require a bit of masking tape around the screen while applying it, but still...
I seem to recall a few months ago that TDK (I think) developed a new ultra-hard coating to protect either Blu Ray or HD-DVD discs (can't remember which). Sounds like a suitable coating, since it obviously has to be optically clear. While it's probably best applied at the factory, I wonder if they could turn it into an after-market spray for iPods?
Ever since buying my first (2nd gen) ipod, I've noticed this problem. My latest theory is that Apple does it on purpose to take advantage of the obsessive / compulsive consumer with a large wallet.
Scratch on the screen? Buy a new one.
It's just a variante of how Gillette polymer-coats its Mach3 blades so they have a shorter useful life. (Except, in this case, it's the razor - not the blade - that's falling apart!)
I disagree. The iPod Nano has this fantastic feature where the screen customizes itself. All you have to do is put it in your pocket, and your Nano will developer a unique screen "wallpaper".
iPod Nano found to be as scratchable as all previous generations! President Bush will be addressing the nation on this crisis within the hour!
Nope, there will definitely be a delayed response, because as some have already pointed out here before, George Bush hates the Mac people.
that's just silly. if you want the fancy look of the ipod, you have to take the fancy scratchability as well. buy some brasso, shine it up, repeat next time it's needed.
people, this isn't that hard.
Then you must love waiting 1 hour to fill a disk with 70 songs, I sold mine after 2 months, no thank you, my time is more worht it.
A response to this comment of mine about how to get rid of the scratches suggested toothpaste. I tried it and it actually works reasonably well with a bit of effort. After having scratched the front on the first day and subsequently used toothpaste to fix that I've been more careful since and have not noticed anything really since then.
I've had mine in my pockets alongside keys, my cell phone, and my wallet at different times, and it's still as slick and shiny as the day I've bought it.
What's the secret? Until you get a case (you did order a case, right?) put the display side facing your leg. Hello, that's why one side is metal, for some protection.
If your hairy legs scratch the screen through your pants pocket, then you've got other problems.
This whole thing sounds like people who would carry a TabletPC inside a hard briefcase with their pens, calculators, and change jangling around inside, and then complain that the screen got scratched. Hello, it's an MP3 player, not a Rolex Submariner.
What's your damage, Heather?
all but useless
When you use the phrase "all but", think of "everything except" -- if something is "everything except useless", it means it isn't useless. Your sentence therefore means that:
scratching "...quickly makes the colour screen useful for viewing album art and photos..."
So, scratched screen = [everything (except useless)]
Replace "all but" with "nothing short of" and you've got it.
scratching "...quickly makes the colour screen nothing short of useless for viewing album art and photos..."
It's easily fixed. I killed the screen on my mobile by walking around with sand in my pocket (don't ask). I fixed it by polishing the screen with Brasso. Any metal polish will do the trick. If the scratches are really deep, you might need to rub the screen with very fine grit paper first - it will make it look worse at first, but the metal polish fixes it.
Palm and digi-cam users have dealt with this for over a decade. Go to Radio Shack or a camera shop or somewhere that sells PDAs and buy a package of clear tough mildly adherent cover material. Cut to fit screen. Apply. Renew every few months.
Problem resolved.
By next Friday there will vendors selling them packaged and elegantly cut for the Nano display.
John Faughnan
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
When you rant about how great the design of something is, Sod's law will come and bite you on the arse (yes i love good product design, and don't hate Apple).
Was a scratch resistant material rejected on cost grounds?
How easily is the screen replaced? (or not at all?)
Will owners get free replacements?
How many Nano's have already been sold? (Hence, what does this cost the company?)
We're assuming this is a design rather than manufacturing error, remember Apple don't make all the parts.. but it's most likely a design error.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I made the mistake of buying the Generation 4 (The one released just before the iPod photo) iPod shortly after it came out. The screen on that one scratched just as easily. Sad thing was, I would have been more than willing to purchase a protective case when I bought the unit but they were not out yet! I believe the nano owners are in the same boat.
I have had mine for over a week and carry it in my pocket along with a cell phone in the same pocket. No significant wear and tear so far, but the battery life is disappointingly inferior to what was advertised. I'd estimate it gets about 60% of the advertised battery life at best.
Amazing magic tricks
This thing is tiny, and is clearly designed to be put in a pocket (only geeks clip gadgets to their belt). If you put it in your pocket, the screen quickly becomes scratched to the point where it's unreadable. How is that acceptable? Should the letters on your keyboard wear off the first time you type with sweaty hands, too?
Hmm. I have noticed threads in the past discussing similar failure modes with other Apple products: PowerBook paint chips, PowerBook palm stains, PowerBook warping, iBooks getting dirty, iPod battery life, mouse ergonomics. Perhaps with the emphasis on industrial design, Apple has given real-lift usability testing a back seat.
In their software, too, there are similar issues. For the most part, OS X is an ingenious, very user-friendly operating system, arguably the best implementation out there of a desktop Unix. But there are some rough edges. For instance, keyboard navigation is incomplete and inconsistent across applications (e.g. Cocoa vs Carbon). Perhaps Apple would have noticed that issue in usability testing if they had included more keyboard navigation users, and specifically, people who spent much time doing keyboard navigation in Windows.
Really, I would like to see Apple succeed, but to do that, they may need to focus more on the usability and reliability of their products.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Maybe on a budget? Let's face it, many mobile phones have similar screens and live in people's pockets. I have a Samsung and it's been in my pocket, with keys and change for 2 years. I'm truly amazed it's hardly got a scratch on it and certainly none that effect the readability of the screen. It's hard to believe.
How rotter, considering the depth of the market out there, Apple should understand that people buy iPods for the looks more than just about any other reason, and they ought to have made the screen out of something damn-near bulletproof-- now a scratch-resistant screen would be a really nice selling feature.
...And has anyone tried getting out their CD repair kit and burnishing in the scratch removal stuff onto the screen by hand? You know, that scratch remover supposed to be good enough not to interfere with CD optics, it must be good enough for your Nano screens.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
The Ipod Nano....
Impossibly easy to scratch
I've looked around all over the place and can't seem to find a picture of an example of a badly scratched Nano screen. Come on, are us non-iPod owners meant to just imagine this phenomenon? I want pictures!!!!!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I got an iPod nano last week, and yes, it has been scratching up like mad. And I'm not doing anything remotely bad to it -- just the kinds of things that "respectful" users do.
I've taken pictures of the damage and written up a log of how I've been using my nano. Here's a picture, and here's the full write-up.
When's the recall?
Use Brasso, the light abrasive normally used for cleaning brass. A little Brasso will bring a scratched screen up nicely and will also do for the back of the iPod as well. Don't be conned into buying more expensive preparations and products that people are trying to sell.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
I didn't buy one. I *always* wait for the flaws to be worked out, and Apple has a long history of releasing products with really obvious problems. I won't buy a portable music player for another year or so, once prices drop, and more problems are worked out.
All this bitching is useless. Protect your investment.
Feh.
I was very excited to get an iPod Nano. I've put in a couple times in my pants pockets and now the screen is so badly scratched you can barely see anything anymore. My friend carries his iRiver always(!) in his pockets and it doesn't have one single scratch. After playing around with his iRiver I found that I like it MUCH more than the Nano and ordered one right away the other day.
I remember once having a Toshiba e310 PDA a long while ago. Thin, light, When I carried it, I put it in the thin case it came in, because I didn't want to make it any bigger. You wanna know what happened? The screen eventually cracked. I didn't recall putting a lot of force on it, but it still happened. I Learned a very valuble lesson that day. It doesn't matter how tiny your new device is, it should only be considered as small as the fairly-protective case you should be putting it in. Otherwise, your just going to run into problems like I did, and these people did. And yes, I know, my crack and their scratches are different types of damage, but they could have both been prevented by a good (or any in the case of the Nano) case most likely.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
BS, this is a device that is made to life in a jeans pocket. Hell, even God Steve himself showed us that! So I guess Apple will work very to make sure this problem gets solved. They cannot afford to sell inferior iPod's, because the iPod is what makes them rich nowadays.
-- Cheers!
Sorry, it is made to live in a jeans pocket, not life.
-- Cheers!
Does Apple test their products...
Absolutely, they have a team of hardcore fans who are willing to pay for the privilege of QAing their products for them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As a chemist when I read in the register article:
"When the point was put to the head of Apple's iPod division, Jon Rubenstein - who in the past oversaw the development of the Titanium PowerBook - the one that killed off Wi-Fi reception, because metal cages do that - he replied: 'Nah, you don't really think that? It's made of the hardest polycarbonate... You keep it in a pocket with your keys?'"
I thought it had to be a joke. Apparently this is made of polycarbonate which scratches easily and this has been known for a long time. Apple probably just asked the supplier for their hardest material without taking scratching into account (basically they asked the wrong questions of their supplier). Admittedly an excellent supplier would have pointed out that a polycarb cover would scratch easily, but it's Apple's responsibility to do the research. I find it difficult to believe that no one noticed this in their tests of the device.
They'll have to do something to fix this I'd imagine. What a blunder.
... a carbon nanotube.
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
x
/ \
I've been an owner of a 3rd-Gen 10GB iPod for over 2 years and my iPods screen doesn't have any scratches. Why? because my iPod spends almost every second if its existence in a leather case with a clear vinyl/plastic covering for the screen.
I only remove the iPod from this protection when it is in the dock for syncing/charging. And I remove it slowly.
The back of my iPod's leather case has a sturdy, metal belt clip woven inside, allowing me to hook it into a a pocket (the device outside the pocket) while I walk/do work.
I don't know about others, but when I spend more than $100 on something, I do everything in my power to protect it. I don't ever operate my iPod "naked" and would never consider just dropping the bare device in a pocket knowing that the simple motion of walking can grind your pocket lining against your screen with the pressure of your pant's fit and body heat to exacerbate scratching.
Blame Apple for the "1,000 Songs in your Pocket" slogan. Blame Steve Jobs for pulling an iPod nano out of his pocket. Blame Apple for not having nano tubes ready on launch day. But blame yourself if you don't make every effort of prevention.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
If you want durability, get a mini.
I couldn't find iPod mini at the Apple Store. It appears to have been phased out in favor of the nano.
The big problem is also screens cracking unprovoked, not just scratching - which has been an issue with all iPods that I'm aware of.
See more here: http://flawedmusicplayer.com/
----
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people and assume they deserve it" - Dogbert
i think one key element of iPods is that they work with Macs. remember at first there was just 3rd party software to get PC users the ability to load songs on an iPod. Apple never intended the iPod to be such a cross platform hit. i realize a ton of PC users now buy iPods, but before the iPod (and even today) there is nothing for the Mac that comes close to the iPod in terms of software to load songs from your desktop/portable. yes, most people just load songs once and don't care, but with podcasting, to do lists and whatever else, people are more prone to sync their digital music players than they may have been in the beginning. really, if somebody made a good MP3 player that had Mac support, it's quite possible Apple would have never bothered making the iPod in the first place. kind of funny when you look at it that way.
yeah, there are ways to jam songs on some other MP3 players, but it's a pain. why should a Mac user support a company that does not support them? Linux users are used to having to hack a lot of things and make them work, but when there is a Mac friendly solution ready out of the box it makes sense.
all companies make profits. that $90 cost to manufacture was a guess, the real numbers will be in the next quarterly earnings report.
My glasses don't scratch, as they are made out of a non-scratch material. If the iPod really was the best of the best, wouldn't it use the same material used in non-scratch eye glasses?
"Apparently this is made of polycarbonate"
Should read:
Apparently this is made of uncoated polycarbonate.
There are coatings which can make polycarbonate scratch resistant.
You have obviously no experience with Apple. Just ain't gonna happen.
(I know it's a shame.)
Do what I did for my Gameboy... buy a bottle of liquid lens and fix the problem. Note you can use it to fix moderately scrached CD's too...
A.
You know the small key pocket Steve Jobs pulled the Nano out of?
Well cordory is extremely abrasive, that's why it lasts.
Little grains of dirt get embeded in clothes and scratch things, nice watches, stainless, titatium all get scratched. New cars always seem to get scratched.
The fact is, unless your iPod is coated with a diamond film, it's going to get scratched. And Apple makes only $50 a unit on the Nano's not $100.
It's all these people who never owned a highly polished item before that are getting upset because they can't treat their Nano's like their car keys.
If Apple makes the iPod less prone to scratches, the material used would get further into the brittle area for the thin form design.
If scratchability is difficult to reduce, it should be a mayor problem in mobile phones, which are devices that lead an even harder life than iPods in many owners' hands. My phone lives in my pocket together with all my keys, and although the screen is badly scratched I can still read it easily. But I have an old Nokia 3310 with a B&W LCD screen. Is there anyone here who regularly makes pictures with his/her mobile, which also lives inside a trouser pocket with no extra protection? Any problems with scratches?
-- Cheers!
We can't post huge pics! The nano is impossibly small!
I bought a Mini for my girlfriend about a year ago. She beats the hell out of it (Once she crashed while rollerblading and the Mini took the brunt of the impact/skidding. Still worked even though the top right corner was all smashed in) and while it looks pretty beat up it's display is still quite readable, not to mention it still works fine.
If I could, I'd destroy you all.
What is the point of hiding your *oh-so-trendy* ipod in a case or in your pocket ?
aren't these objects meant to be seend and shown?
i mean, the little white earphones aren't enough, now you have to show the world that you have the NANO not just the poor people mini ipod ?
[chinese democracy starts now
Step 1: Buy plastic screen guard (12 for $4)
Step 2: Cut to size
Step 3: Quit bitching about this solved problem
that's the important part, right? as much as some cosmetic scratches might suck, is it a case of people needing to be more careful? the few i have seen, and played with, in person (that people bought right away) seem scratch-free. no protective cases or anything. they are mostly black ones, so the scratches are more visible. is it possible they are not all the same plastic, or do some people just put it in their pocket with their keys or something? i honestly can not believe that an empty cloth pocket will scratch it like people are describing. if that's true how do the demo ones in the stores last more than 3 hours? are some Apple people just more neurotic about how their device looks?
if it is a real issue, i would think Apple will just swap out the plastic any time now, not waiting till they revise the device in some other way. they still have not revised the shuffle... all they did was drop the price a little.
Buy a NANO Tube, and be done with it. iPods since their inception have been prone to scratching, the NANO is no different. Buy a cover and just stop... please.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Obviously, that's how they tested it. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Well looks like Apple/Jobs just went too far this time - and even the usual Apple apologists are attacking Apple -this time. It's one thing to produce slow computers and a software (G5 and XServers) - apparently the "Cool"exteriors of the g5s and XServers didn't scratch !^) American consumers were lemmings for 30 years when it came to autos. Then Honda and Toyota started producing cars that were NOT instant "Lemons". Didn't take consumers long to switch. Since "All You Can Be" - "handhelds" are supposedly the future that consumers want - this is definitely 10 steps backwards for Apple. Be interesting to see how Apple/Jobs will step forward or will it be 6 more steps backward?
Alright, so the screen is easily scratchable. Enough with the bitching and finger pointing... what can you do about it?
Try Brasso. It's available in your supermarket and costs $3-$4 for what will amount to a lifetime supply if you're just cleaning your iPod.
I managed to drop my iPod Nano on asphault the day after I got it. The player skidded and bounced on the asphault and had some rather nasty scratches on both sides. Naturally, the player still worked perfectly since it doesn't have any moving parts but it looked like hell. Brasso worked like a charm. Here's what you do...
1. Put a drop or two of Brasso on a soft cloth
2. Use a lot of elbow grease to buff out the scratches. Brasso isn't a magic potion; it's actually a very gentle abrasive. You are effectively resurfacing the iPod so it's going to take a few minutes of work.
3. Ta-da!
Now, since you're effectively resurfacing the iPod, I imagine that there is a finite amount of times you'd want to subject your iPod to this. It will leave your iPod looking great though.
I've tried this on my iPod Nano (front and back) as well as my 3g 20GB iPod. Worked great. I imagine it would work on other models as well with the possible exception of the aluminum iPod Minis since their surface differs from the polycarbonate used on other models. Should work, but I don't know.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
In my opinion, here is the benchmark as to what is resistant to scratching in normal everyday use. They -never- scratch. I like their advertisement where they expand on Timex... after a truck drives over the watch, not only does it "keep on ticking," but it shows no scratching or damage.
Uh, MOST of the 'cheaper' mp3 players just let you drag music files into it as if it where a disk. Mac, Linux, whatever, anything will work fine for that. If you are talking about the players compatible with the other online music stores out there then it's more an issue of those stores not selling to Mac users. If there was a store willing to do it, it would work. But iTMS is such a monolith, especially among Mac users that they figure 'why bother?'.
wrap the headphones cord around the top of the nano, one layer thick, so that nothing else can come in contact with the screen.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Oh, and if you're using Brasso, do it outside. The fumes are pretty noxious. I got a little lightheaded and my room smelled like Brasso for a day. Learn from my mistake.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
You must be the guy who's renting them before I do.
Have you seen the texture of those lowriding, skater-dude, fat pant jeans? They're like 100 grit sandpaper! Put a diamond-tipped saw blade in the pocket of those jeans and it too would be scratched.
Some would do no product testing, I was at the supermarket yesterday and wanted to buy some coffee beans. So I put the standard sized bag (supplied by the vendor) over the dispensing chute and pulled the handle to get what I thought would be one measure of beans. Obviously no one had actually used the device in the same way I just had becasue (I hadn't broken it) the beans that poured out filled the bag and then kept coming pouring all over the floor.
I just thought that it was a bad design flaw that someone could make a mess like that.
The place smell a nice coffee aroma after that though.
...or maybe I just haven't used it enough, but I haven't had any scratch problems YET. I bought this the day it was available, and have had it in my pocket (either front pocket of my shirt or in my pants pocket) a couple of times a day, between work, class, and whatnot.
... not sure. In any event, I'm glad that so far, I'm not one of the many suffering from this problem.
I'm yet to see any noticable scratch on my screen or on the iPod. I'd say that it's just because I've owned 3 iPods before this one, so I know how much you have to take care of them, but I've seen that other long time users are experiencing the same issues.
I guess I've just lucked out
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
The concept that you don't want to piss your customers off with such an obvious flaw is a very rudimentary one in the business world. Flaws such as that are found with the most basic of testing. Given Apple's problems with class action lawsuits in the past, one would believe that they would be taking care of obvious blunders such as this and put more effort into engineering their iPods thoroughly.
There are other music players out there, ya know.
Right you are, and when it becomes very well known that the iPod Nano scratches this badly, many other people are going to be aware of this as well.
Personally, I don't care if my iPod gets scratched. It's a music player, not a mirror in the Hubble space telescope or something.
The market will very likely not share your apologizing view, which is why so many people find it amazing that Apple could screw something like this up. You should take a look at some of the pictures going around. This isn't a matter the screen not being imune to scratches, it's about displays that are barely readable after a month of carrying around in a pocket.
I'll add that I've been a big Apple fan for a while. However, it's discouraging to see these obvious flaws pop up in Apple's work when I think about how badly I'd like to buy a Yonah Powerbook next year. Something like this isn't excusable from an engineering perspective even if its first generation.
It's the Ars Technica stress test.
When they sell them, I don't think they put a warning on the box saying 'gets horribly scratched just by using it normally'.
Something like that is clearly a faulty product. An mp3 player which can't even sit in your pocket without being damaged isn't much use. Like car tyres which burst on contact with tarmac.
Personally, I don't care if my iPod gets scratched. It's a music player, not a mirror in the Hubble space telescope or something. As long as it plays music, it works for me.
I thought the whole POINT of an ipod over cheaper and more functional devices was its appearance? If its scratched to fuck or you have to put it in an ugly case, surely that defeats the object?
Hello fat spoilt piglets !
Your latest overpriced gadget from Apple can have scratches on it's screen !!!
Oh no !! Life is so hard for all you people with more money than sense...
Actually, the worst part of my (short) MiniDisc experience was the software that came with it. Brought my computer to it's knees. You could use Realplayer as well, but it lacked some of the features, and still sucked. ATRAC didn't bother me horribly (though yeah, when converting MP3-ATRAC the quality got sketchy), and I'm a huge fan of the Minidisc media format in general because, ironically, it resists scratching.
In fact, if Sony had made a MD player at the time that played MP3 natively as data files, I'd probably still own a MD player. The size wasn't too bad, didn't skip, and I liked the discs as storage. As it is, I took it back after about two weeks.
Oh, and as far as pack-in earbuds go, the white iPod headphones are actually some of the better ones out there.
Why must I, for whom English only the third language, correct this kind of shit ?
I didn't know /. was sponsoring bitch sessions on incredibly common events.
I would like to lodge my complaint on my cell phone screen then..as well as my key ring, and hell, as I continue to fish things out of my pocket, I find even my coins are scratches up! WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING IN MY POCKET? It is as if non-uniform metal objects and the close confines of pants pockets don't mix well.
This is an outrage! I'd buy a Rio (they they went out of business - oops!)
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
...that's smudging the keys on the keyboard
I got a Shuffle for my birthday several months ago, and just love it. It's so small, and so simple. There's almost nothing to break on it, there's just the one 4-position button, and I guess you might be able to break the jack mooring or something if you really tried. It's so light and solid that I'm not worried about dropping it. And if it slips out of my shirt pocket while listening, I have headphones for it that hook over my ears, it's so light that the jack doesn't pull out, it just hangs from my head if that happens. When I eventually have to replace it, I'm positive that the reason will be the battery no longer holding charge. I'm cool with that. I don't need to look at pictures while I'm listening to music, I like my player to be tucked away somewhere. It's so light, and my headphones are so comfortable (the hooks over the ears mean the buds don't have to be jammed deep into the canal to keep them in) that it's like I don't even have a music player at all, there's just this music magically appearing in my head.
Simplify, it frees your mind.
My friend Nick just bought an iPod. He went ahead and got the mini instead of the nano and I'm glad he did after reading this article. I really like the iPod interface, and if it played oggs I'd probably have one myself.
t ectors.html
I think what makes this design flaw so bad is that it really should have been picked up during the testing phase. If you get a group of test subjects to use it for a month, how could they not get feedback when the screens start to scratch and break.
I've read some post talking about nice cases you can get for your iPod such as this one:
http://www.theinvisibleshield.com/ipod_screen_pro
It's a nice case, transparent and looked like a good solution, however its something that should have come with the unit itself.
I have a feeling this device was rushed into the market on its coolness factor and not enough time was spent testing and developing it for real world use. It reminds me of those Apple cubes that came out years ago with a touch sensetitive power button that had the tendency to turn of if you waved something warm across them.
I love Apples. I wish I could affoard an iBook, however they do seem to place a lot in style and looks over actual preformance and cost in many cases, which I think has been one of the short falls of many of their designs.
Sumdog
I have never figured out why owners of Apple products refuse to hold Apple to a high standard across the board.
If Apple does some things right (and they certainly have in the past), good. They should be credited for this. What I don't understand is why people get unbelivably defensive whenever someone points out a flaw in Apple's products. I've skimmed the Apple forums involved, and all I can say is that the end user doesn't really care about the physics involved. All he cares about is that if he buys one of the earlier iPods, his product continues to look nice. If he buys a Nano, however, it looks like shit in short order. I think that it's *perfectly* reasonable for someone that buys such a product to be able to air criticism on those grounds.
You can argue that the scratches aren't so bad, that you don't need the screen, that people should "take better care of their product" (why they didn't need to with earlier products, though, is an interesting question), but it comes down to the fact that some folks are not happy with their experience. End of a story. Customer happiness is all that matters at the end of the day.
So now Apple can take a look at seeing what it can do to fix the problem. I doubt that it's so difficult to fix, given that they managed to do earlier iPods successfully, so I don't think that the iPod Nano can't be successfully fixed by Apple. So sit back and wait for them to churn out a fix.
The Register also referenced the Cube, which was a good point. The Cube had a case that often looked damaged, even straight from the factory. Apple's response was apparently to claim that the cracks were actually some sort of non-serious molding defect, IIRC, and a lot of Apple fans poured out and started accusing anyone that expressed unhappiness with their product. You don't win customers by acting like that. You tend to piss people off. All that the customer cares about is that his new, shiny product, which he bought to look new and shiny, does not, in fact, look new and shiny. Start dancing around the issue, and you start losing repeat customers. You can't keep a company running in the long term by simply attacking anyone that is unhappy with their experience.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
It's a scratch guard to protect your nano at least until the nano tubes arrive.
Life is offtopic.
From my experience, I wouldn't trust exposing bear screens to anything. No matter how tough they are they will always end up getting scratched, be this digital camera, cell phone or whatever else is small enough for the pocket. The only real solution is get a skin, with screen protector or get one of the stick screen films designed for digital cameras.
I already got my self an iskin for my iPod, just to prolong the life of the base product. And for the iPod nano there is already a good selection from Decal Girl/
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Just have an article about how apple spent X-millions of dollars on research and "cuting" this bitch up? Yeah, great lot of good that did.
Anyhoo, I go the ghetto way with my U2, i slap a small cut out square of packaging tape over the screen portion only, no scratches, no 20$ case.
I am not an iPod or Apple computer owner, I've only paid attention to them because I have a friend who is in the video publishing business who is an Apple fan, he is the first to buy anything new from them. He is stuck solidly on the brand!
I wish he could hear himself talk. He is constantly complaining about this or that and spends a great deal of time fighting with things that one would think are easy. I'd dismiss him as being a sort of inexperienced user and a perfectionist except that it seems like when I talk to other Apple users, they all to one degree or another echo his complaints and experiences.
I know the "Apple community" is very active and involved - much more so than PC users; they seem happy to jump in and help solve problems (and I believe this is a real plus for the Apple company) but, when it comes down to it, the community is much smaller than the PC community and, they tend to pool in niche markets. All together, this means that support is somewhat less than stellar when there is some sort of unique problem.
I like the concept of the iPod and think that it is a nifty little product but it is something that I do not see myself having for some time yet. First, several of the devices have had usability issues (bad batterys, scratched screens...) and second, the cost of filling the iPod with music sounds a bit extreme.
I'm not an audiophile, I only buy a few CDs a year but even so, I've amassed quite a collection of the music that is important to me. I don't walk down the street listening to it, I listen to it at home and in the car and I doubt that will change. I do love music though and can understand people who have a different lifestyle than me needing an iPod like device for walking, riding the bus, and so on. I see the value of this kind of device. This makes me wonder how long Apple will have so much of the market. My guess is that this is not something that will last long. Other companies will make close approximations of the device at a lower cost but similar (or better) quality. When another big name company gains the right kind of foothold, Apple's iPod business will become like their computer business, a niche market.
I do give them kudos to their exceptional design as far as user interface goes. But the device itself is more than just that and it sounds like they need to pay closer attention to the rest of the machine.
Has anyone tried those screen overlays that were designed for use on Palm devices? I'm not a nano owner, but I do have a Palm and found that these overlays have prolonged it's life.
Shut up. Noone cares. And please just say "bullshit" like normal people.
Something harder than the plastic is needed to scratch it. Geology 101.
There's plenty of shit in dirt found everywhere that can scratch plastic. Devices such as these need to be made of plastic that doesn't scratch so easily. I find it extremely hard to believe that there'd be so much discussion of the topic going on if they didn't scratch particularly easy.
I keep my cellphone in the same pocket as my work keys. Sure, it's got some minor scratching. Nothing particularly bad. I kept my previous phone in the same pocket with the same keys, and it had an exposed screen. After almost 4 years, the paint had all been chipped / scratched off(silly painted cellphone...), and the screen, while scratched up a bit, was still perfectly readable.
From the pictures I see of the Nano, it looks like a piece of shit to me. It must be made of some pretty soft plastic to scratch so easily.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The kicker is that there are no cases available and none will ship for several more weeks. I returned my nano and was hit with a restocking fee even after I told the Sales Dood the thing was defective.
Boomerny replied with a good suggestion to use Fellowes Write-Right universal PDA screen protectors.
Good day,
BillyBob
bamph
The cool solution, which Apple probably now has to use to get their reputation back, is sapphire. That's what scratch-resistant high-end watches use. Put an 0.15mm sapphire layer on top of the polycarbonate, and you can dump the thing in with your keys without worrying. It's not that expensive for a phone or music player sized screen. Some of Nokia's high-end phones have a sapphire screen.
Of course, doing it right might cut into those 40% profit margins at Apple.
the problem by selling those screen protector transparent stickers. Why can't that be used on the nano instead?
When the 1st gen minis first came out, there were issues with the headphone jack internals snapping off inside the unit. Apple offered to replace the device for anyone who had purchased it up to 6 months after the launch (I believe). The problem wasn't even found until about 3 months after the launch, too!
Why wouldn't they do this with the nano if it REALLY is an issue (which is seems to be)?
P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
Other thing I find works well for this kind of thing is the clear plastic stick-on covers they sell for protecting palm-pilot screens. Change it every few months, and it works great. Much thinner than a case ...
One of those Clickie white latex erasers will remove the scratches.
Apple used to make VERY STURDY merchandise. Laptops (i.e. clamshell ibooks and most previous models) were made from hard plastic with a matte finish and could be dropped or scratched at with keys without any sign of damage.
Since their fetish for metal/polycarbonate/transparent materials began their portable items have been crap. The first white ibooks (polycarbonate) scratched incredibly easy (which is why they changed the case material). Aluminium powerbooks will scratch and dent even more easily if they are put on a flat surface that has any small particulate matter.
The laptops also pay a price for being so thin in that they are structurally flimsy (lots of give if you put a little pressure on opposing corners). Every other model of laptop I have seen is more sturdy than recent apples.
As for the nano... one look at the photos online of this product and I had no idea why anyone would buy a player so thin. What other manufacturer makes any kind of portable device with this shape?
Their products look great under glass. Just don't use them and expect them to stay looking good... or for that matter even function.
I picked up a 20GB 4th-gen iPod last December. I love it, I use it every day, but despite how beautiful the thing was out of the box, I'm convinced it's one of the most poorly-designed (physically; the software is great) gadgets I've ever owned. The front is covered in that crappy transluscent plastic that seems to get scratched just by being near other objects, whether that would be a piece of paper, a key, or even the damned thing's own headphones. The back; the metallic surface (chrome?) is good for absolutely nothing but collecting fingerprints. Even if you do manage to get it clean, the second you pick it up, it's messy again.
Maybe these problems are more debilitating for the Nano; I don't know, I haven't held one in my own hands, yet. But based on my experience with the iPod, I can't say it comes as any suprise at all that Apple's used the same shitty, scratch-prone plastic on the nano. What good is having such a cool-looking device if it's covered with scratches even when well taken-care of. Hell, my iPod scratches just moving it in and out of that (hideously overpriced) nylon armband I bought to use while I'm running!
It's a shame the guys designing the iPod's case aren't as considerate as the guys working on the software. I mean, bloody hell, what's wrong with the relatively scratch-resistant, metallic body of the Mini? Why is it that getting a scratch-resistant coating on my sunglasses costs an extra $10 and allows them to take tons and tons of abuse (like keying them) without a scratch, while Apple can't seem to figure out how to keep the iPod from looking like shit after a couple days of normal use?
My 4G iPod screen scratched the second day I had it just from putting it in my pocket. Rather than wait for the problem to get worse, I went to CompUSA and bought a pack of Fellowes Write-Right universal PDA screen protectors(I used to use these on my Visor Prism). I cut it a bit larger than the screen and applied carefully so as not to have any air pockets. Photos are not quite as sharp as on an unprotected screen, but it was worth it because a week later on a trip to NYC the iPod took a bit of abuse in my luggage mixed with keys, cell charger, cables, etc. The screen protector ended up with a big scratch but the screen below was fine. Simple solution.
Hi, I can resist to comment on this subject since I've ordered the nano on the day of its introduction.
Some people here have replied to complaints about the easy scratching of the nano with stuff like "take care of your gadgets, blah, blah" and the like. Well let me tell you about my experiences and therefore expectations.
I bought an iPod 3G 30GB and I didn't care about what it shared my pocket or rucksack with. And after two years it looked rough. Same goes for some mobile phones from Nokia. But one year ago I bought a Nokia 7610 and its display hasn't been scratched since. Obviously it's very scratch resistant. So, my expectations in the direction of a day-to-day-in-use gadget changed.
Now looking at my nano after a week seeing more and foremost deeper scratches on it, I'm sure lot's of you will understand my disappointment. From my experience The nano scratches a lot easier than my G3 iPod or Shuffle, if not easier then at least deeper scratches. But my N7610s display doesn't seem to get scratched at all and it certainly is the most abused out of the four. So that's what I've come to expect.
With Steve Jobs talking about people getting greedy, I wonder why the nano has such an inferior surface than it's predecessors.
Thanks for reading.
AndY
i don't see what the big deal is, within a couple weeks someone will probablly be selling a screen protector for the ipod nano. or, if you really want to, adapt one from a PDA to the screen. they are cheap, and can end up saving a digitizer, so i would hope they work on a ipod too :P
-TubaMan / ThE_DoOmSmItH
My PSP can get scratched too. Damn it.
Version 1: You gotta be kidding.... GOES is better than this.
Version 2: What changed?
Version 3: Hmnn, guess it's better than the command line.
Version 3.1: Still better than the command line... and faster too.
Version 95: Thinks are looking up.... only... back to DOS mode for my games
Version 98: Cool, my OS actually knows about the internet now! And no reboots for my games! Woohoo
Version ME: Ooops, I think I'll just pretend I didn't see this one.
Version XP: Hey, this actually seems as stable as my Linux box? Could this be the one?
Blender And Linux Fan
What flaw? By now, nearly everyone should know that things in pockets are very prone to getting scratched, just by observing their cell phones.
With an iPod, they should notice how rapidly the shiny metal back acquires scratches, then say to themselves "OH MY GOD! I NEED TO PROTECT MY SCREEN BEFORE IT GETS SCRATCHED!" and go get a protector or case.
"This thing is tiny, and is clearly designed to be put in a pocket"
Actually, if you look at photos on the Apple website, and their text about how it's designed to be worn, then I think you're expected to duct-tape it to your thigh or something...
Seriously, Apple's front page specifically mentions strapping it to your arm.
I have never figured out why owners of Apple products refuse to hold Apple to a high standard across the board.
I think it's the other way around. Apple owners complain about the smallest things. I have an 3D iPod, and it has the odd scratch on it, but nothing really noticeable. I put it down to being a white product, so it doesn't show scratches up as badly.
My 2GB black nano however, shows scratches more visibly. But it doesn't worry me because I also have a black shiny clock, a black shiny desk calculator, a black shiny PDA and another brand black shiny mp3 player (name withheld to keep the flaming down).
THEY ALL SCRATCH WORSE THAN WHITE PRODUCTS DO. The nano scratches just as badly as any of them, or no worse than any of them depending how you want to look at it. Black shows scratches far worse. Period. Apple-only users have never had to deal with a glossy all black product, so they're all in a mouth frothing tizz over it acting like all the other shiny black products on the market. It would be nice if it weren't this way, hell it would be nice if Apple were able to do what other manufacturers couldn't do, but they didn't. It's not perfect, but it's not a glaringly deficient design fault like many are making it out to be.
I like Apple's products, but their fanbase can be utter retards sometimes.
So 188+ people have complained about scratched screens? To be fair, lets say its happened to 500 people. Would that constitute the majority of nano owners? I'd be willing to bet, by this point, that several thousand, if not tens of thousands of people own them. Even if one thousand of them complained, you could still only be talking about 10% of users (A significant, however relatively small number).
I can also speak from experience- I have a white nano. I've had it for about 2 weeks. I use it almost every day, in my pocket, with no protection. I see nothing more than the normal "iPod-esq" scratches...Of which I've seen on all the iPods I've owned. I'd take pictures and such, but its really nothing to look at.
Overblown.
The way those machines work is to allow you to take the amount of beans you want, not the stores definition of how much coffee you need.
Hey,
I looked at a Nano at Best Buy. I understand the point of producing a quality product from the start, but what what buying a screen protector for it? Get one for a Palm Pilot, cut it to fit, and put it on the screen. I put one on my BlackBerry, even though it's not a touch screen device, just to make sure the screen stays nice.
Just a thought.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
You could always try using some very fine sandpaper to even out the surface.
Of course, if you fuck up and damage your iPod Nano even more by doing so, it is neither my fault nor Apple's. Sometimes one must take responsibility for damage caused by their own negligence. And get a cover for it, so it doesn't get scraped by your keys in the future.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I certainly wouldn't take any advice from someone so cavalier as to galavant around town with their expensive leather iPod case completely unprotected from wear and tear!
I keep my leather iPod case safely stowed in a shroud of duct tape. It spends nearly every second of its life in there. I only take it out when I need to take the iPod out for charging, and I take it out slowly.
The tests done at ArsTechnica were pretty extreme and the scratching they did wasn't nearly as bad as some people here are describing their own experiences to be.
How much do some people abuse their things?
While black shows scratches and dirt way more than white, the issue here is about the screen material beeing way more prone to scratching. This has nothing to do with the black or white body.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
OK, I agree that it is a frustrating thing that every item, from pet rocks to drag-line shovels have flaws when new and, once purchased, get more flaws as they are handled, but somehow through the process of growing up (which I did way too long ago), I quit stressing over it.
Most of the folks who've chimed in with the ancient history of the Cube hairlines are the same folks who gripe about a hairline scratch nobody else notices on their car. They just have a slightly stronger obsession with perfection, no matter how many times science proves the inability of humans to produce perfection (yes, even Steve).
These folks are the TRUE AppleFanBoys. They think that Apple is so perfect that Apple can create perfect products. Me, I've gotten enough eMacs and iMacs that were DOA that I know better. Thing is, I realize that every computer manufacturer has DOAs to a point and, unless it goes beyond a empirically-measured statistical point, it is not unusual. Many of the folks griping about the screens on the Nano are the same folks who believe that there should be no DOAs.
Problem is, most of these folks are just the type to gripe about their iPod getting scratched and funky-smelling on a spelunking trip whereupon they dropped it down a slope of 15 yards of solid rock and then into a 3 foot accumulation of guano. Then they claim they carried it in a lamb's wool pocket equipped with some sort of alien-developed deflector system and air-ride suspension (and their friends are pretty sure of where the funky smell comes from).
Has anybody stopped to think why 3M and others make money on consumer screen-protection films for PDAs, cell phones, and other everyday-duty plastic screens? Scratched everyday-use screens are not a new occurrence.
And exactly what are these folks with only a gum wrapper in their pocket REALLY doing to scratch the screens? Although some of them are telling what they believe to be the truth (and may have forgotten that stray piece of agate they popped in their pocket), I'd bet most of them are making up their situations. The Nanos at the Apple Store I visit don't seem to get scratched badly and they are handled rather roughly (esp. by children), slid around face-down, and even intentionally gouged, but they don't look as bad as some of these folks iPods. And no, the units aren't being swapped out with new ones often enough to make a difference.
I give up, maybe I just need to quit trying to act my age. Never mind the important things to focus on, like my country's lousy economy as of the past couple of years or even those folks who've just been bulldozed by two hurricanes, I think I'll gripe about my chewing gum losing its flavor on the bedpost overnight.
any adult who buys something as stupid and overpriced as an ipod not only deserves what they get, but should,just on prinicple, be made to suffer as much as possible
i made the mistake of promising my daughter an ipod, without understanding what an unbeliveable piece of shit, rip opp, frashion statemtn piece of garbage ipod is.
Any adult who buys this shit FULLY deserves what they get.
It si like any high priced thing that is fashionable: you are paying a huge premium because yoou dont have enough fortitude and backbone to resist what other, stupid people are doing just because a lot of other stupid people are doing it.
I could go on, but the very moderate, temperate comments above, shoud do
I hear what you're saying. U2 iPod here, black, scratched to all heck. it's still a beautiful thing!
I believe RADO uses Saphire
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If my hands were made of brass, steel, and lint, yes.
I was carrying my iPod Nano in my pockets(as you would usually do) since the time I got it(less than a week ago) and it is already badly scratched. You can barely read the display anymore and it makes me feel like I bought a piece of trash. Furtunately there are better and more robust music players out there e.g. some of the iRivers.
How come this was a non-issue with previous ipods? My cell phone screen is perfectly legible after a year, and I take it with me scaffolding.
My ipod mini also had no screen scratching issues. Sure you could scratch it, but not like this. Have you seen the pictures out there? After a month its to the point where you can barely read the text anymore. This is very obviously a flaw, not a normal occurence.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
If you do use Brasso, note the following:
1. Polish in one direction (not a circular motion).
2. After allowing the product to dry completely, buff in one direction using a lint free product safe for optical devices (such as Kimwipes).
3. Apply a very thin layer of car wax and gently wax your Nano. I use Zymol - its the best and it smells like coconuts. After dry, buff in a single direction.
Any super lite scratches have now been handled by the wax. Now your Nano is as good as new, and it is somewhat protected by the car wax.
BTW - www.theinvisibleshield.com has what appears to be a "very strong" condom like cover for the nano for $20USD. It may be worth looking into.
I found this on the forum linked, it looks like it might work for digital camera displays too, although I'd like to test it before recommending it to my family and friends. If it doesn't remove cleanly after many weeks or months, then it's not a great idea.
"Jase Roberts
Joined: Sep, 2005
Posts: 1 I keep my cell phone in my jeans pocket, and used to have major problems with scratching (to the point where it was very hard to read). I found that a piece of clear packing tape cut carefully to the size of the screen worked great and didn't leave any residue when I removed it. If you trim it to the size carefully, it'll stay on well. Maybe try sticking an oversize piece on, trace the screen with a Sharpie marker, then remove it and trim it exactly. Costs nothing and provides good protection that you can replace easily when you need to. "
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
They sell this stuff to repair scratched glasses. /. I'm outa here!!!!
You just paint it on with a q-tip.
Buy some and quit bitchin.
This new web design, cookies enables, no privacy crap sucks!
Fuck
So I was quite ecstatic when the mini came out. It had a very nice case - the anodized aluminum case which scratches less easily and even when scratched, they are less noticeable.
I think nano is very cool - from the form factor sense. But I wish Apple had stayed away from the chrome back cover. If they can get the nano form factor with mini-like aluminum casing, I'd be all over it. For now, I think I'll stick with my mini.
I realize this post isn't about the screen scratching, but I think it's to be "expected" given the screen is completely level with the rest of the device. Yes, it should be "expected" but I don't think it should be "tolerated" either...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH APPLE FAN BOYYYSSSS
if it wasnt ment to go in my pocket with my keys, it should be big; and perhaps cost much less because it has no engineering regarding its ergonomics at all.
i must also note, im a proud owner of a Motorola v60i, since launch, which is brushed alluminum, and it looks perfect, at 3 years old. where as my gen2 ipod, is scratched and nasty (however atleast the screen is readable)
I keep mine in a zipper baggie -- I tore a corner off so the headphone can plug in. No scratches thus far, and cost me less than one cent. If the baggie gets wrinkled, heck, I just swap it for another one -- no need to raid the kid's college fund.
Chip H.
Correction: Actually, I may have been thinking of NuShield screen protectors, not 3M. Not sure if 3M makes any or not. There were at one point several brands. I seem to remember seeing some 3m-branded ones.... but I digress... (I always hated people who used that phrase when I was in high school... ugh).
The batteries in the first iPod often died after less than month's use. Then it cost $189 to replace them by an Apple Dealer. Apple lost a class action suit on this one. Customers got a coupon for a future iPod.
I have a friend who works at Apple (I know, it's impossible to ever believe it when people claim things like this) and has beta-tested the iPod mini, shuffle and nano. Apple has an internal beta program in which employees take the products home, use them for at least several weeks, and collect bug/annoyance reports.
It's not entirely normal usage since these people have to hide the products as best they can, but it should have been enough to identify a problem with screen-scratching.
So while this problem and others may have slipped through, Apple does make an effort to do real-world testing on things.
That's cool. We're all very impressed.
Novus plastic polish
I use this stuff to shop pinball machines. You can take plastic that's been rubbed on cement and get all of the scratches out with it. Just start with #1 and work your way up to #3. Works great on plastic headlight lens too. Amazing stuff.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Actually, iTunes works with third party MP3 players and did so well before Apple announced the iPod.
Its about turning yourself into a consumer electronics company, and underestimating the costs involved in selling to huge numbers of new customers. Look at P&G, and you might think the margins over raw materials should be huge. Until you see the exposure that dealing with millions of consumers brings, and what you have to do to safeguard yourself (and them). Well, find out the hard way. Consumer product introduction is really really expensive. Components are the least of it.
All the cheap mp3 players are basicly usb jump drives that can play music, any Mac can use them. Only the Creative's and Apple's use software, 'cause it don't make no sense unless its a really big mp3 player.
One solution to scratched displays (I had this problem with my Palm PDA) is to get some Turtle Wax or other solid car wax and buff the display with it. It also helps protect against further damage.
This gives a new meaning to the phrase "Scratch & Sniff" :_(
Wasn't Apple supposed to catch this during product testing for material durability? Jobs approved time spent for laser engraving when he should have spent time checking to see how the Nano holds up under actual daily use.
These guys are probably jumping up and down right now enthusiastically screaming "YES! YES! YES!"
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
http://homepage.mac.com/matthewdotcom/nano/cracked .html
I wonder how common that is.
Be careful of staining the click wheel though.
I found that one out by experience also. otherwise, works well.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
PLUS they've shown how good their great intentions are etc., very big PR thing. Customers happy etc etc. Yeah I worked for them for a few years, they ARE good!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
With the track record of the chrome back panel on the other iPods, a 'cover' is almost mandatory from date of purchase.
I waited a week, and regret it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You might think, at first, that it's because Apple users are brainwashed. However, the real problem is that they're incredibly picky. Take, for example, the Powerbook Ti, which had certain areas where the paint chipped off. When this became a known problem, owners went out and found replacement paint, being very careful to match the color exactly. A small market opened up, and people were selling paint specifically as "Powerbook Ti touch-up paint."
Now, has this happened on such a large scale with Sony, Dell, or HP laptops? No. Is it because Sony, Dell, and HP laptops don't ever have discolorations or chipped, faded, or worn away paint on their casings? No. It's because if you've owned a Sony laptop for 3 years, and a little paint gets worn away, you probably don't even notice. You just expect that something being carried around all the time like that will eventually have some wear and tear. Mac users, on the other hand, get incredibly upset that their little pride and joy has a tiny little flake come loose.
I'm sure it's the same issue here, though I haven't seen any pictures, I've just read reports that the nano scratches. Ho hum. My 4G ipod has scratches. Everyone I know who's owned an mp3 player for more than a few days, there's probably a little wear and tear somewhere. It's lost it's "new car smell". I bet the things still work and that you can still navigate the menu system. It's still a hell of a little device.
Which brings us back to why Apple owners are going to be forgiving: it's still a hell of a device. Like I said, Apple users are picky. They're annoyed by the fact that the products they buy have occasional flaws, but that's nothing compared to what they view as the mountain of flaws afflicting the products made by other manufacturers.
It doesn't take a genius to go buy a Palm or PocketPC screen protecter, cut to size, and put over your iPod's screen.
This is supposed to be "News for Nerds"... you'd think more "nerds" would have figured this out by now.
I don't even own an iPod, and even I thought of this. (I *do* have a PDA, though.)
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
And stab the idiot who modded him up. That's a picture of the Nano after being repeatedly dropped out of a car, and I doubt he wrote that article.
Slashdot Whining Reaches New Lows. News at 11.
I'm sure it's the same issue here, though I haven't seen any pictures, I've just read reports that the nano scratches. Ho hum. My 4G ipod has scratches. Everyone I know who's owned an mp3 player for more than a few days, there's probably a little wear and tear somewhere. It's lost it's "new car smell". I bet the things still work and that you can still navigate the menu system. It's still a hell of a little device.
The question is not whether any scratches exist at all. The point is that the Nano scratches very easily; much more easily than earlier devices. You'll notice that a bunch of the folks discussing the Nano are owners of earlier Apple iPods and are comparing the Nano to them. A couple quotes:
"I am in the same boat as everyone else. I bought my black nano 3 weeks ago and it has a smear like scratch on the lcd. I had a mini for 1.5 years and not one scratch."
"I own a 3rd gen iPod, a PDA and a nintendo DS.
All have LCD screens and consist mainly out of plastic.
None of them are as sensitive to scratches like the nano.
I treat my nano with the utmost care, even being alone in my pocket or cleaning the surface with my shirt scratches like you won't believe."
"I join you in complaining. My wife gave me a Nano as a gift. Now I'm embarrassed to let her see how scratched-up it's become. One day I carried it in a pocket with change in it, and now it's covered with scratches. I have an iPod Shuffle, Mini, and original iPod, and never had these problems.
When I first got the Nano, people'd want to see it, and I'd be proud to show it to them. Now, I prefer to keep it hidden.
It works great (so far), and I'm happy with it's performance, but it's the first iPod I ever owned that I wish I'd gotten a "skin" right away. None of my other iPods need it."
The people on those forums are often are avid Apple product buyers, have purchased previous iPods, and are not expecting the Nano to be "unscratchable", but rather that it not be significantly more scratchable than earlier products released by Apple, or their cell phone screens.
I don't see many people saying "I should buy a Sony device", or something along those lines. There are even a bunch of people saying "I'm going to wait until Rev 2 comes out."
I've seen two types of solutions that seem to work listed. One is curative; to take an abrasive and basically grind down the top surface. Another is preventative; to slap various more-durable (and more importantly, disposable) substances over the top of the thing.
AFAI can tell, people who have already made the purchase have had good success in getting Apple to send out replacements. Consensus seems to be that using a screen protector/packing tape/etc to cover the thing helps a good deal. I would assume that it's possible to use abrasive on the iPod and then place a protective sheet over it if it's already been damaged.
Given past Apple history, I assume that there will be a number of vendors selling prepackaged (through probably not rock-bottom-priced) solutions specifically for first-gen Nano owners.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Yeah, that's like advertising a keyboard on Slashdot that stops working when a pube or Cheeto powder hits the surface. Just poor marketing, friends.
You are a stupid fuck for buying the U2 iPod.
Wow, you really are brainwashed if you believe this. If it's true, why can't apple owners present a coherent argument as to why their choice of product is objectively better? Being picky, and knowing everything else has near-fatal flaws, should make this an easy task, but it can't be done. Why not? Can you explain this one away?
Ever heard of a screen protector?
http://homepage.mac.com/matthewdotcom/nano/index_f iles/image002.jpgf iles/image003.pngf iles/image005.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/matthewdotcom/nano/index_
http://homepage.mac.com/matthewdotcom/nano/index_
I disagree. I have a black SMT 5600 smartphone with a large display. I use it heavily, dropped on asphalt, carry in pocket and many other bags/etc, and at a year old, the screen doesn't have a single scratch.
I definitely think Apple could choose different (better) materials.
I was about to ask that: so the U2 iPod does scratch just as much as the black iPod nano?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What sort of psychological issues do you have to be suffering from to become sychophantic to a company to the point of tying your ego to them and their products? You seriously need to find something more meaningful in your life if you've become irrationally defensive on behalf of a company that doesn't even know you or care about you.
It's just a company trying to make money. It's not a "lifestyle". Sometimes they screw up. You're still an ok person if you admit that.
Polycarbonate is not hard, and in fact it's quite soft. It has excellent tensile and compressional strength, making it quite impact resistant. A quarter inch thick sheet can stop some firearm rounds. For safety reasons, I have polycarbonate glasses lenses. They have a fairly expensive scratch-resistant coating on them. The first time I got polycarbonate lenses, this was optional. The second time, I was not given the choice. The shop wouldn't sell me lenses with no coating, because they'd never survive the warranty period.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
This sounds a lot like their battery issue. Ipod nano owners should have been more discerning consumers.
It still played.
3
They also threw it out a car going 50 miles an hour which led to scratches which were awful but the screen still looked readable. Look at the pictures here:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/
I have yet to see a single picture from a compainer that matches the devastation they are communicating in words. All iPods have always scratched. iPods are pretty. Getting them dirty or scratched is doubly frustrating because they are so pretty. But this story is a lot of kerfluffle about nothing.
Initially I read that the screen scratches easily which leads to it not being usable whatsoever, like a shuffle. That does not seem to be the case.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
Shut up and look at the nice white colour!! Design isn't about functionality - it's about producing something which will look laughably dated in 6 years time.
cheaply made products which are priced higher then the better alternitives.
guess you forgot to do your research, there are other and better players on the market. best of all they are not made with a substance that won't scratch if you look at it in the worng way.
Maybe some expert can confirm this for me, but putting a silicon oxide layer, eg a thin layer of glass, which, as we all know, is pretty hard, on a plastic surface is not that hard. I don't know the real cost, but in the volume apple is talking about, cant be more then a few cents per screen
But if you are buying an ipod, I think you are setting yourself up for a problem. The ipod is a fashion statement, that is, you are paying money to buy somehting only because other people have bought it. If you buy fashion, as every women who , usually in her 30s, wakes up to the ripoff called womens fashion knows, you get what you deserve.
My iPod Photo also gets scratched up very easily from just being in a pocket. I noticed this after a day or so, and got a 25 cent PDA screen protector to cover it, and the screen is still fine. It pissed me off a bit that it isn't made of sturdier stuff, but the only people who wind up with horribly scratched screens have either abused their iPods, or were too stupid to notice the issue and deal with it. I think Apple should make future iPods much tougher, but all the whiners don't deserve to have their iPods replaced every week ehen they scratch it up. If you use something, it stops being new, and it stops looking new. Deal.
Competition freebie dude. You're a stupid fuck for presuming :)
Polycarbonate is a tough material. It's bullet-resistant when it's 2mm thick. (22 gauge from 100m, but I don't know if a 22 is considered a bullet by Americans.)
It scratches very, very easily unless you put a scratch-resistant coating on it. That costs a few more cents, and uncoated is available for internal applications or when the end user wants to finish it.
I'll bet the guy who picked the material doesn't wear glasses.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Yeah, all of those items you mentioned come immediately to mind for me as well. I think part of the problem is, Apple really goes in for style as an integral part of their products. If "everybody else" is building a product a certain way or with a certain material, Apple tries really hard NOT to do the same thing (even though often, the "other guys" have very sound, sensible reasons for doing it the way they do).
I have an Aluminum 17" Powerbook and though it's still in pretty nice condition, I also don't use it real often (certainly not on a daily basis), because I have other desktop PCs at home. It simply sits in my closet until I'm taking some sort of trip that requires it, and stays in a good protective carrying case most of the time.
Nonetheless, I had it fall off of a table once while using it, and now it has a nasty little dent in one corner and scratch along the back. I suppose if it were plastic, I might have a crack or piece of missing plastic instead which would be worse... but the downside is, replacement of part of the aluminum shell is a several hundred dollar expense. Probably under $100 or so for most other laptops.
I think Apple product "reliability" is generally above average. They've had a few "clunkers" that got a lot of attention - but overall, they're fine in that area. The real question is, can they make things that continue to look nice throughout their usable product life? In the case of iPods, I don't think they ever succeeded except maybe with the Shuffle. The chrome back to all the regular iPods constantly gets scratched up - and in some cases, even developed rust where it was engraved. Now they've got these screen problems on Nanos....
"Let's say, just to stick with averages, that your gf is 110kg."
240 pounds? Where did you get the idea that this is an average weight for women? For a woman of normal height that's positively corpulent. Even for a very tall woman that's seriously obese.
I got a 1GB iPod Shuffle when I was in the market for a 1GB USB drive and realized I could essentially get an Apple-quality music player for free for approx. the same cost.
I happen to also have gotten these in-ear headphones (Sony MDR-EX71SL) recently. They have amazing sound, are very comfortable, and have an unusual cord design (junction about 18 inches from the ear), which at first annoyed me, but has since become a godsend: I can now stick the Shuffle in a business-casual shirt pocket using only the short portion of the cord (leaving the extension at home, in my briefcase or wherever). This setup is awesome as it's almost no weight, no cords in your way, just sound coming into your ears completely without hassle. I also got a strap for my arm for when I run and the short portion of the fontopid is the perfect length for that too.
So I strongly recommend this combo if you're interested in a Nano. You won't really miss the screen that much as long as you are intelligent about the playlist you set up to sync with the Shuffle...
My guess is, that a scratchable iPod is part of their marketing plan, considering the cost ($30+) of their cases/skins.
I got the black one to match my Motorola Razr v3.
I didn't expect it to look like THIS after a week or two!
It's a joke
I'm a 2000 man.
How very true. Let's just say that certain other people within the company noticed that the black version shows scratches much easier than on a white iPod. It's just how it is.
iPod mini uses anodized aluminum, I think a lot of competing players do too, though others don't colorize the anodization. It's a lot more scratch and nick resistant than plastic, though certainly not perfect. What's nice about anodization is that the coloring and protection should penetrate, so you can't just scratch the color off.
I don't have a mini so I can't say how good the anodization was.
Google Word of the day...
Word of the Day
gimcrack: a showy but useless or worthless object
Audion was released for free (it was for sale and apparently very well received in japan) after apple began development of iPod+iTunes, the software claims to be able to sync with an ipod even! (this may be out of date.) There are a ton of really creative skins and playlist support that is more like winamp. It burns, it rips, it has pluggins everything (including visualizers) . I was really excited to see this!
:) .j.
Visit:
http://www.panic.com/audion/
and use the liscense key they show you on the download page.
As a side note, this saved me a few times when iTunes was braindead about loading in multiple directories as playlists. Loading one album at a time when my collection has 100's?! And finally, making a playlist is not automatic, and neither is deleting one. It's really easy to have files in your library that aren't shown in any playlist, and there is no tell what playlists a song in the libaray belongs to! if you don't recall exactly what's in hundreds of different playlists then you can't really delete anything with impunity . God help you if you default and let it manage your files..! (beware of this feature!!) Large playlists don't survive their one-level heirarchy either, which is periously one-way.
Actually, since i just got a shot to learn the xml.minidom module from Python, i guess i could perform translations with this xml document (which the iTunes library is) and help with importing and exporting the music. The software is really not designed to handle intensive sequening of songs alot of folks now like to do with the iPod.
Why ya still reading, go get audion
When you buy an expensive item with exhorbitant packaging, like an iPod, expectations are automatically raised. Hence the strong reactions to a scratch, any scratch.
Jobs brought it on himself.
This post is useless without pictures.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
> Now, has this happened on such a large scale with Sony, Dell, or HP laptops?
I've never seen a Sony, Dell or HP laptop that was painted at all. Much less painted in a way where two inch long strips peel off the thing. This was a problem very particular to that model of computer.
Yes Apple users tend to view Macs as luxury goods, and therefore are picky, but painted titanium just turned out to be a lousy idea for a laptop shell.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Remember, Apple can do no wrong.
Oh, wait. That's because nobody has bought one.
I've never seen a Sony, Dell or HP laptop that was painted at all. Much less painted in a way where two inch long strips peel off the thing
Got one right here. Dell latitude D600, painted all over with some sort of damn ugly semi-metallic silver paint. Within a couple months after I got it, giant strips of the paint started coming off of the back of the LCD, caused (as far as I can tell) by nothing more than my putting it into my laptop bag and taking it out again.
"Fortunately", I had to get the LCD replaced because the entire hinge assembly snapped into two for no reason, and the new one has had no such problem. But no, it's not an Apple thing particularly.
I cary a Nokia 9300 around which, granted, is most of the time loosely in my bag and sometimes in my pocket.
I carried a Nokia 6230 around for a year mostly in my front pocket (keys and all). Both of them displays look, while not pristine, quite acceptable. Thank you very much.
I suggest that you find yourself a different cell phone manufacturer if the displays of your phones (which are a rather crucial component) are scarred so badly after day to day use.
HTH HAND, etc
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Another example is the "battery life" issue. People complain that some powerbooks experience unexplained battery problems. Is this at-all unique to powerbooks? Are you seriously telling me that no one has experienced battery problems with Dell, Sony, HP, or IBM laptops? Cell phones? PDAs? Or that no other computer manufacturers have sold systems with defective motherboards or video cards? Other OS vendors haven't shipped operating systems with security holes or usability bugs?
Really, this happens all the time. I'm not saying, "shut up and take it". I'm not saying Apple products are perfect, and no one should ever complain. However, when someone asks, "Why do Apple customers stand for defective products?" the answer is, "For the same reason Dell, IBM, HP, Toshiba, and Creative customers do." No one is making perfect devices which never break or scratch or suffer from defects. You just hear more about the chipped paint on Powerbooks because Apple customers are more likely to freak out if they have a little chipped paint on their laptop.
The clear furniture polishes are great scratch removers. My eyeglasses are in their second lifetime as a result. I don't see why little plastic screen covers can't benefit.
When the display window gets scrathed up, polish it with a commercial plastic polish like this http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/megu airs10.php Plastic aircraft windshields get scratched all the time, this is what I use on mine. If I can do the whole airplane windshield in 30 minutes, how long should it take to do a tiny little display window?
My £ 38 (uk) "no name" portable 512 Mb MP3 player has no screen (other than a crappy little LCD character display). Neither does it have a propietary file system nor do you need to have special software to access it.
You simply plug it in to a USB slot and wait for your OS to detect that a removable FAT32 file system has been attached before you copy & paste the tracks you want onto it using whatever file manager you happen to like this week.
If you've copied MP3 files over they show up in the playlist and you can play 'em. If you cop data files they;re available to any other machine you plug the bugger in to.
Sorry, all these Apple style devices are over engineered, finicky, propietary crap. Give me my "cheap & cheerful" generic player any day.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I disagree. I have a black SMT 5600 smartphone with a large display. I use it heavily, dropped on asphalt, carry in pocket and many other bags/etc, and at a year old, the screen doesn't have a single scratch.
I definitely think Apple could choose different (better) materials.
well, then they probably couldn't keep their 50% profit margin on the Ipods could they..
This is a neo attempt to stop iPod sales through FUD. Ars did an extensive test on the Nano durability that does not square with this...
Another thing to try is actually an automotive scratch remover. It's made by Meguiar's and is called Plastic Polish. It is designed to removing hazing and microscratches from clear plastics like headlamp lenses. It seems to work okay...just okay. And to clean up the metal on the back, try Mother's Mag Aluminum Polish. It's intended for things like polishing engine bay metal, unfinished wheels, exhaust tips, etc. It should smooth out some scratches and leave it nice and shiny.
Some screen protectors (ex. the Hori protectors for the PSP) should work fine sport anti-reflective layers and are generally touted to be scratch resistant that should protect the screen from serious damage.
It would be better yet to just get a case though, that will protect the whole front of the ipod.
You're lucky that you got the 3D iPod. I have one of the older 2D iPods, and it's nothing but trouble. One time I put it down on its side and it took me a week to find it.
Plastic will scratch, such is inevitable. The only thing that will resist scratching is glass, and even it has its limits. Why can't you guys all use those sticky screen protectors like people put on PDAs ? When it gets too ugly, rip it off and put a fresh one on.
Or perhaps they should be using thin glass screens.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Apple probably just asked the supplier for their hardest material without taking scratching into account (basically they asked the wrong questions of their supplier). Admittedly an excellent supplier would have pointed out that a polycarb cover would scratch easily, but it's Apple's responsibility to do the research.
Given's Apple's propensity for secrecy with new products, I think it's highly likely that they told the supplier absolutely nothing, and the supplier did what they were told.
You put a deep gouge on your Gen 4 iPOD with your fingernail?
If it is a true statement then I suggest you clip your nails.
I have dropped my Gen 3 iPOD to the point it has a dent in the metal.
I let it slide around my car when I am taking corners.
It rides along in my jeans pocket/laptop case with no protection.
While the metal is showing signs of damage, the screen is intact with no visible damage when I look at it to change songs.
All true, but it makes no attempt to explain why. I suppose a big factor is that Apple products are often sold on sex-appeal value rather than pure functionality. When the TiBook came out, I'm sure that many owners headed right for the nearest coffee shop just to show it off.
But the biggest factor is that the Apple ecosystem is very much Love It Or Leave It. I've had crappy Dells and wished I had an IBM. No big deal. But with Apple, the decision point is much greater -- it means leaving the platform. And therefore when there's a doggy model like the TiBook, it puts the userbase in a much higher state of consternation.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I had the same hinge problem on the previous Dell Inspiron I had. The service guy who came to replace the screen wouldn't believe me when I said it just broke on its own, "That's very unlikely", but when I showed the plastic parts around the hinge were still intact he didn't have any explanation for it.
The Inspiron I'm using right now hasn't had that problem -- yet.
As for paint peeling off laptops, I've yet to have a laptop myself that didn't have this problem.
See Amiga Persecution Complex. It's not really their fault, you see.
Yea, and without edges they are really hard to pick up!
It's made of the hardest polycarbonate
From this comment, Jon Rubenstein (head of Apple's iPod division), is clearly confusing hardness with durability or toughness. The reason that safety glasses (and most common eyeglasses) are made from polycarbonate is that it is very flexible and resistant to cracking. However, polycarbonate, even in the name-brand form Lexan which is used to make bullet-proof windows, is very soft. Know what happens when you shoot a pellet gun at a pair of safety glasses? The glasses don't break, but they get a very nice pit in them. The softness of polycarbonate is the reason (and the only reason other than greed) that your friendly optometrist wants to sell you anti-scratch coating on your new set of eye-glasses. Apple's materials engineers should have known better when they specified uncoated polycarbonate.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Every gaming system I've ever owned has suffered from screen scratches, except for one.
I have a Tamigotchi that I've used as a keychain for YEARS that hasn't the slightest hint of scratching on the screen. The paint has been gone for years and the plastic is starting to smooth but the screen is still in perfect shape. Granted, it is small and recessed but it has also been rattling around the bottom of a pocket full of change for years.
It has always disgusted me how this cheap little toy can stay in such great shape while my new PSP is already showing signs of wear. *sigh*
Find out what that sucker is made of and use that material. I'd gladly pay five extra dollars for a screen that doesn't scratch.
Diamond Dust is good advice, but notice the parent of the helpful advice was babbling about keys. Didn't he notice the OP in this thread had nothing in his pocket besides a candy wrapper? what's with the moderators?
Sonic Stage is a frightening example of how cheap computing power makes crap possible.
Sheesh, no need to get personal.
Use a screen protection for PDA. It's a thin transparent plastic layer that, If applied correctly, will protect a nano. You cut it to fit the nano and voila.
The touch wheel will still be working (these protections are made for touch screens).
Of course I didn't write the article. I linked to the professional review by Ars Technica. The whole thing is a joke. That the moderator took it seriously and called it informative -- making other people read it as if it were serious -- is very unfortunate...
I have never figured out why owners of Apple products refuse to hold Apple to a high standard across the board.
On the contrary, you can usually find a link to some kind of replacement program or another from Apple as a result of another class action lawsuit at the bottom of the page at http://www.apple.com/
The Chinese wrap everything electronic in saran wrap, and it works!
If it's anything like my C500 (and just about every other phone I've had - apart from my old Startac), you'll notice the paint wearing off the answer and disconnect buttons after about 6 months though.
Linux: What character do you want the 'Backspace' key to generate today?
What else other then ^W?
No way, dude. The U2 iPod looks like goatse. Goatsepods are cool.
I got a black nano, yes, my screen was scratched, but it was from change & keys in my pocket. The screen is still legible and I can see pictures on it. Am I disappointed it scratched so quickly? Yes. Am I upset that I want a refund / lawsuit? No, I'm still quite happy with my gadget. I think people get way too worked up about wear and tear; I even thought the battery issue was blown way out of proportion (my first gen iPod still run on its original battery).
Anyway, now I keep it in a seperate pocket or my shirt pocket. Contrary to the hysterics, "clothing" doesn't scratch it from what I can tell. Also, this seems to scratch about as much as my first generation iPod did, but the white shows it less. The iPod Mini was the most scratchless iPod that I've noticed, mainly because of the (I believe) annodized alumnium exterior and different kind of screen.
-Stu
Yes. I would buy a keyboard like that. What, you don't touch type?
After all, I am strangely colored.
There are lots of people, like yourself, who hold Apple to an impossibly high standard. Sometimes saying untrue things along the way. Like the, uh, iPod battery people. The Cube WAS a non-serious molding defect. It failed and was withdrawn because the sales were low because it was expensive and it couldn't be easily upgraded. It still remains a cult hit, and people love finding hacks to extend its life and usefulness. Along with the people who are always claiming the new player with FM or some damn thing is an "iPod killer." Well, they're not there yet, and who gives a s__ about FM radio? Well, it's cool. I don't care. The iPod sales are doing fine, and of course, there are plenty who resent its success, so they say bad things about Apple because they're bored playing with their Dells.
The real reason is that after decades of Mac users being told Apple is dying, Apple is now a darling among consumers and in the press. Whenever an article is written about some Apple flaw, it's written in a way that implies Apple is facing impending disaster, just like this article which claims there will be vast lines of returns of the nano and that "so much is riding" on its success.
Just like how every single freakin' MP3 player is touted with a headline, "Is this the iPod killer?" It's like the press is obsessed with everying "killing" off something of Apple's. I guess that happens when the industry relies on Microsoft everything.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"When the point was put to the head of Apple's iPod division, Jon Rubenstein - who in the past oversaw the development of the Titanium PowerBook - the one that killed off Wi-Fi reception, because metal cages do that - he replied: 'Nah, you don't really think that? It's made of the hardest polycarbonate... You keep it in a pocket with your keys?'"
Funny, have you seen a Titanium powerbook after a few years of wear and tear? I guarantee the paint will be gone and it will be covered in little dents and dings, and the hinge is often hanging by a thread. There's a reason they switched to Aluminum.
Oh this is slashdot. Cancel that. PLEASE.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Imagine that. The buttons you use most displaying wear and tear after prolonged use! News at eleven.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Every electronic device I've ever had with a plastic screen has come with a sheet of clear plastic over the screen that has to be peeled off. Assuming the Nano has one, couldn't this sheet just be left on it?
as pack-ins. yes. they're "upper-middle" class. but a pair of 14 dollar earbuds from newegg (sennheisers) kicks their ass across town.
In 4 months they will have all of the apple fanboys marching in a straight line back to the apple store with money in hand for Nano 2.0
These guys collect models like baseball cards...You are not a true fanboy unless you have one of each.
I still think it is wrong to pay over 100$ for anything that does not have an easily user replacable battery.
My archos jukebox has logged thousands of hours of play time, and everytime my trusty double AA's where out -- I put down 6 bucks for some new ones, and I am as good as new.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
invest $0.50 yourself and buy some 3M clearbra made to cover the front surfaces of cars. peel, stick, trim.
Include one pre-cut sticky screen in the packaging along with advertising for Apple's own branded replacements.
Sell packs of 6 replacements (with a recommended replacement of 1/month) for $10.
Because it's the official Apple solution, sold in Apple stores and on pegs next to iPods worldwide, people will pay that crazily over the top price. And now you've trained your users to expect the basic rule of LCD screens everywhere: Expect them to scratch, of course they will, but a $0.50 (or now $1.66 from Apple) little replacable sticker will make it all better - so it's no longer your fault.
The problem of scratched bus windows is far from solved. I rarely see a bus/train window that doesn't have some initials scratched into it.
Apple should probably should have hard-coated the iPod nano, like Sony hard-coated the PSP. But since Apple has been making iPods without hard coat for 3 years now, it seems a little strange people are acting now like it's a surprise an iPod is scratchable.
Apple can't use a sapphire screen insert because the iPod (except the mini) has no screen insert. Cell phones do, as a rule. This would require the iPod have a visible seam around the display, and apparently they aren't willing to do that.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Do you have one? I think most of the comments posted here are from people that don't have one.
I do. Let me say that yes, it scratches. I've put it in the same pocket as my keys and came away with a scratch on the face of it. Kind of a bummer, but I can't imagine what could go in a pocket with keys and not come out scratched. My fault. Stupid on my part.
But I think the ease with which they become scratched is being exaggerated. I haven't been treating mine daintily, and I just have one scratch on it. I'm sure I'll have more, and I'm not overly concerned about it. Bottom line -- if someone's is so scratched up they can't read it, then they have been mistreating it. Period. They don't become scratched by putting them in a pocket -- cotton isn't going to scrach them. They become scratched by sliding them across the concrete. Or scraping them repeatedly with sharp things (keys!). Not by putting them in a pocket.
Seriously. Someone was a dumbass and mishandled it, and now they are pissed. No story here.
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier, but I've no iPod or care to discuss!
My Rio Karma's screen is also very susceptible to scratching. The solution we (the Karma fans) found was to use a PDA static-film cut in the shape of the screen. I went even cheaper, and just covered the easily-scratched part with clear packing tape. You only need to smooth the air bubbles out when applying, and removal is easy. Just make sure you cut it to shape BEFORE applying. Either way is inexpensive, easy, and non-obtrusive. Protect your ASAP.
Aside: From pics of the iPod Nano, does anyone even care about album-art? It looked like they were smaller than an index-fingernail, 32x32 or so? looked nearly useless.
Mod me down if redundant, but the above two solutions are cheap and easy for people not wanting to deal with a case for their DAP!
is there anyone want to pay that amount of money for a possibly better iPod?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I bought this.
l e-iPod-nano-Deluxe_W0QQitemZ8221180344QQcategoryZ5 0607QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/EXiM-Screen-Protector-for-App
And yes, I have only used it for 2 days and the screen is ALREADY scratched. However, putting the clear screen protector on the screen as well as on the whole body of the nano make it a bit harder to see the scratches...
I like the Shuffle better than the Nano. I've had my Shuffle for about six months and haven't noticed a single scratch on the screen.
The formula to transparent aluminum!
Leonard Nemoy will engage us in a post-mortem reading on Nova.
News at 11.
i've had my tibook for three years, and have only a couple scratches. the hinge works just as well as when i got it. i also bought a 5gb ipod with it. which still worked for a 5 hour drive across the state.
for a minute there, i lost myself...
And here I thought I had seen it all, I had no idea about these Vertu phones, very slick... but hell at $8,300 it'd be cheaper to lug a brand new apple laptop around with vonage and the t-mobil hot spot unimited package for a few years.
t ml?cmCat=search&itemId=prod15140127
Of course everyone should be so lucky to have a ruby bearing or two supporting their cell phone buttons. Sure makes my Motorola RAZR look cheap.
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jh
AF-Design, web development.
I was at the apple store today, and yes... the nanos look pretty bad. These ones have never made it into someone's pockets, and hopefully have never made an encounter with keys.
BUT: How is this different from LCD panels? What kind of moron touches the screen? Also, anybody that has ever owned an iPod knows that you need a protective case! (I do think it is silly that Apple didn't have any protective cases on the market on launch, but... they focused on the surprise element.
I hope the scratch-removal products work as well as people suggest.
I wonder if the other iPods are coated lexan, or a different grade of lexan etc. If they thought they were using the exact same material, then I can see how they overlooked it.
Sigh...people never figure this out.
Bush is NOT a Mac user. The only evidence of such is a photo of him on the phone with a Powerbook on the desk next to him. Or rather, not quite next to him - at the next desk over.
Bush *has* stated, in an interview in 2000, that he's friends with Michael Dell (down in Texas) and thus uses a Dell computer. The interview is online; I don't remember who published it, but that's what Google is for.
Shiny reflective surfaces may mark/scratch when you put them in your pocket with your housekeys and loose change.
Diamond coated iPod nanos are reportedly offered as a BTO option but in typical apple fashion they are deemed too expensive and not competitive with todays hot alternatives such as the Dell DJ Ditty(TM).
Under pressure from the Consumer Stupidity Promotion and Protection Agency new nanos will now come enclosed with warning labels "Does not enable wearer to cogitate" and filed down corners to reduce risk of eye injury.
PowerBook paint chips, PowerBook palm stains, PowerBook warping, iBooks getting dirty, iPod battery life, mouse ergonomics.
I acknowledge the online bitching, but the only one of these that has had any legal legs is the iPod battery problem.
I think there's a strong meme/peer influence factor at work online. A few loud people bitch about a problem, and suddenly it seems like everyone has the problem, the company fucked up and the product is in trouble. It's like the hundreds of calls the CDC gets everytime a local news broadcast covers some terrible disease. Remember the furor over Google redirect hijacking? Huge numbers were thrown around describing the scope, but could never be proven. And many of the people who thought they'd been hijacked ended up having much more mundane problems.
Personally I'll refer judgment on this latest crisis until some time passes.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Palm Pilots and other PDAs have pretty much had this problem, too - soft screens that scratch easily. The solution is to press on a transparent plastic anti-scratch layer.
I suppose Apple fanboys will put up with any abuse. It's like the beaten wife who tells herself she deserves it.
You ever consider that they might be right?
There was a piece on Watchdog last week on how Apple are refusing to replace faulty batteries if the screen is cracked. Any damage voids the warranty. The battery replacement class-action settlement doesn't apply in the UK either. I wouldn't buy an iPod, as their market share reduces their incentive to support their customers.
Ok, so you make it sound like you can buy small pieces of the stuff anywhere. Can you? 3M's site makes it look like they only sell to professional automotive installers.
So how does that prove 10k gold doesn't exist?
Some nit-nitpicking:
10k is actually the lowest karat designation that can still be marketed as 'gold' (at least in the US-- it may differ in other countries). You're correct in that it's around 42% gold. In theory, you could have 1k gold, which would just be a lot of another metal. You just couldn't sell something as "1k gold".
iAudio makes flash based players that work great and require *no* software. Just plug it into a USB port and drag and drop whatever songs you like. It works just like a USB Flash drive. Works on Mac, Windows and Linux.
Funny you should mention that. The N key on my iBook is worn down to the point of looking like an extra I key, the period is MIA, and the M is showing signs that it might be the next to go. I sent it in a few weeks back for a hard drive replacement (Applecare warranty), and they replaced not only the hard drive, but the entire logic board, reed switch assembly, and "spiral tubing". But they didn't change my key caps. And now I'm missing a rubber foot, which vanished sometime after I got it back. Hmm...
Apple has just blown it, that's all. They need to recognize it and address the problem before they piss anyone else off. I had my nano for 2 hours before the screen got scratched. I had it in my shirt pocket, which was roomy and there was nothing rubbing it. The headphones were in the pocket, but not rubbing on the screen at all. Nothing except the fabric of my shirt. At first I thought it was a scratch - then after looking more closely it looked more like a few smudges across the screen. That evening, I tried cleaning it with a micro-fiber cloth and it did nothing. I tried another microfiber cloth (thinner weave) and it seemed to streak the smudges or scratch the screen - I'm not sure which. The next day, I bought a small camera LCD cover which sticks by pressure or static. It looks much better with this as the smudges are not so visible. I'm going to take this unit back to Apple in the coming week and demand a replacement. There is no way in hell a $260 player (here in Japan) should get its screen mucked up so easily. Perhaps the polymer they use is too sticky or didn't set during manufacturing. But they can and will have to solve this problem for all of us.
Quite a few people feel the lack of a screen on an iPod shuffle is a 'minus'. After hearing about the nano's screen problems, it's looking like more of a 'plus' to me. I've had the shuffle for a few months, it's had some very hard useage, and there's not a scratch on it. I believe it's the most robust iPod yet.
You buy something when you need it (want is a form of need as well).
With one year standard warranty you are hardly risking anything if a product is *really* badly manufactured.
That life philosophy applies to 2 kinds of people: the unadventurous and the poor, of which luckily I am neither at the moment, neither are my cutting edge fellow ipod Nano adopters (no scratches on mine, thank you very much).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What a neat logic.
Any manufacturing company has to put up with a less than perfect product, and no matter how much testing you do, a product launched in the market will have problems that for one reason or another you did not foresaw.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It works out of the box with the iPod Nano to add and remove mp3 files (once you understand the ideosyncracies of the application), if your mps files is properly tagged you can discriminate files by album, artist, composer, etc.
No idea about how to put pictures from Linux, hopefully somebody will figure that one out.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The corporate email actually stated: "Lets build a MP3 player from scratch"
The entire front plate of the nano is one solid piece of hard plastic (or acrylic). Meaning the same material that covers the screen covers the front.
After reading through the thread I've noticed lots of people having this misconception. The whole front of the nano is one solid piece of polycarbonate. There is not a separate section covering the screen. Basically figure a square slab with a round hole on it for the click wheel to poke through.
In that interview recently with Ive he basically talked about the difference in the roughness of the screen versus the wheel, so it was a deliberate decision to make it this way. I guess the best way apple can fix it is by coating it with something more scratch resistant.
This is the first time I've heard that the point of the screen on an iPod is primarily for looking at albums and cover art. Nobody ever told me that albums and cover art were what I was going to miss when I got my Shuffle. no, they were all going on about how I woudln't be able to create and select playlists and songs, rate music, see what the heck I'm playing, and all the basic stuff like that.
If the screen scratches people have observed are bad enough to make that impossible, I'd be much surprised. Still, it's worth a few pennies to keep the display pristine... and that's all it should take: you can get thin vinyl at just about any craft store, and if my experience with it on my Palm is any guide it'll stick fine just through contact, thanks to van-der-waals forces, hydrogen bonding, and cartoon physics. Well, maybe not the last, but it works...
Diamond vapor deposition to protect the surface. I bet Apple could pull it off somehow.
iPod customers, I'd say 75% of the time if not more, purchase a cover for their iPod when they buy their iPod.
There have not been any covers available. And yet (suprise suprise) they come in droves to buy the nano anyway, and throw it in their pocket without thinking about it.
There have always been new iPod buyers that complain the very next week that "i JUST bought this last week, and it's already scratched."
Those are the ones that didn't buy covers. But since there are no covers, you ALL are those people.
I have no sympathy. There is a reason there are a bazillion iPod covers on the market.
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/23712/
Apple Computer said Tuesday that problems with iPod nano screens breaking, as documented at FlawedMusicPlayer.com are not a design issue, but rather an issue of vendor quality that affected a small number of units. Furthermore, the company is now replacing those units that do have problems through AppleCare.
"This is a real but minor issue involving a vendor quality problem in a small number of units," Apple vice president Phil Schiller said in a statement to Macworld. "In fact, this issue has affected less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the total iPod nano units that we've shipped. It is not a design issue."
Banana!
:P
Woodlawn if very wallace disciplinarian down checkout be.
Digit curia let shake across with bracket. Deregulatory have down ta conserve over aeschylus no.
There, I think that made more sense than the above post!
> I've yet to have a laptop myself that didn't have this problem
:)
IBM Thinkpad R30, Dell Latitude C600, Dell Latitude (C or D)850, none had the paint peel... Probably because they were all moulded plastic
Try it on your cell phone but not on your un-shielded LCD display (digital camera)! That stuff is *sticky* and if you put it on a surface that's scratch-prone or has any sort of permeability, say goodbye.
A better idea is to use those static-cling clear sheets they (used to?) sell for PDA's. Think about it, the market already has solutions to screens being scratched - Stylus on PDA screen, hello?
I imagine they'd work great on an iPod, and no sticky mess.
Sony ha
It's simple: looks is a major factor in the value of Apple products, and people are paying extra for that. And there is nothing frivolous about that either. People buy nice looking furniture and clothes as well. In some professions, you won't be taken seriously if you don't. A scratched or chipped laptop case simply won't do sometimes.
A glaringly obvious flaw? Every piece of software, hardware, and electronic device has flaws. Some of which are exposed only after the item has made it to market, and has been thoroughly scrutinized by users.
Maybe there is a report somewhere that states "a propensity to develop small scratches", and maybe another group of people thought this would be covered under "normal wear and tear."
I would image that when you produce a new complex piece of technology you might be aware of its problems, but you never really know which of them the user will complain about the most.
As for a recall, I doubt it. Did Sony recall the Playstation units that had bad drives? I know I had a hell of a time getting warranty service for mine (both times), and this was a mechanical failure that prevented the game system from functioning... not just a few teeny scratches.
The iPod Nano is a nice looking, but pretty standard flash-based MP3 player. There are no signficant new technologies in it, nor does it have to use any materials differnt from previous iPods. So, it's not "early adoption". If Apple chose a bad screen this time, they simply screwed up.
My 2GB black nano however, shows scratches more visibly. But it doesn't worry me because I also have a black shiny clock
Am I the only one who misread that last part at first?
DOG SI NATAS