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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.
Best Quote:
How am I supposed to use something "pocketable" if even my CLOTHES SCRATCH IT?
>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!
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!
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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All this bitching is useless. Protect your investment.
Feh.
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.
"Apparently this is made of polycarbonate"
Should read:
Apparently this is made of uncoated polycarbonate.
There are coatings which can make polycarbonate scratch resistant.
That's what you'd think. But when I saw the development schedule for the Nano, I understood how something like this could have happened. I think it was months, not years they've been working on this. Less than a year is not enough time to do a lot of development, not to mention field testing. Its an amazing accomplishment to get a high volume product to market that fast, and things like this screen problem are the price you pay for taking that risk.
You have got to stop saying "hello". You sound like an airheaded teenage girl.
We can't post huge pics! The nano is impossibly small!
I only remove the iPod from this protection when it is in the dock for syncing/charging. And I remove it slowly.
...my prescioussssss...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
One of those Clickie white latex erasers will remove the scratches.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
I'm looking forward to the Rolex(tm) Edition iPod nano, with 10k gold-plated clickwheel, obsidian faceplate, and quartz lens (the back will probably be polished titanium). It'll weigh about 2-3 times what the nano does now, and cost ten times as much, but it won't scratch.
Seriously, guys. It's a cheap gadget. It's a REALLY cheap gadget. Last time I checked, you couldn't BUY removable flash memory for the same $/GB as the 4GB nano. Unless you're in the Vertu (fancy-schmancy cellphones) crowd, just expect that an uber-cool gadget that you can afford might have a few flaws. It's still a good value on the grounds of functionality. If you want a super-flashy fashion statement, either wait for another vendor to copy what Apple has done, or protect what you have a little better.
--Jasin Natael
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
i don't think sandpaper is what you want. probably diamond dust. my grandmother, who deals in antique glass, uses this thing that looks like an eraser that has diamond dust embedded in it. You just rub it on a scratched area and it smooths it right out.