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Apple to Replace Faulty Nano Screen
Sam Wil writes "Apple has acknowledged a flaw in the iPod nano screen that results in cracking, and attributes it to poor vendor quality. The defect affects less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all the nanos that have shipped so far. Apple will replace the screen of affected units for free." From the article: "However, the representative said that the screen-cracking issue is separate from reports that the slim new music player is more easily scratched than prior models. Complaints about both issues surfaced shortly after Apple introduced the flash memory-based Nano earlier this month. 'A few vocal customers are saying their Nano is more susceptible to scratching than prior iPods,' the Apple representative said. Apple said the Nano is made of the same polycarbonate plastic as the fourth-generation iPod and said it does not believe the scratching problem is widespread." You may recall we had a lively discussion about the screen-scratch flaw a short while back.
Interesting...Apple is willing to address the cracked Nano screens, but not the scratched ones.
Apple said the Nano is made of the same polycarbonate plastic as the fourth-generation iPod and said it does not believe the scratching problem is widespread.
Hmm...all Apple needs to do to verify the scope of this problem is open up a web browser. To say there's been a lot in the media about the iPod Nano and its butter-soft screen would be a masterpiece of understatement. Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
If you are unfortunate enough to own a Nano, here's some helpful links:
Hope this helps.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
...that after that whole fiasco with the G4 cube Apple would just get it right when it comes to cracking cases!
Apple said the Nano is made of the same polycarbonate plastic as the fourth-generation iPod...
...which also scratches fairly easily! Even with light use, some sort of case is a good idea. I got one of those rubber skins for my 4G and it works great.
The screen does scratch very easily. A friend got one and a few hours later, the screen had fine scratches all over it. His 3G iPod had no scratches on it, so he seems to be very careful. There's something different about the Nano than other iPods that must contribute to this.
I'll bet Apple will very quietly introduce some changes to contruction but won't admit to it. The scratches will not be heard from again.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The thing is, the nano is thin like a cell phone. I've already snapped two non-clamshell model cell phones in half by sitting on them - taking the screens out with them and losing all my data. Fortunately the cell phone was free and I cared more for the data than the phone itself. I don't think you can say the same thing for the nano.
Thin electronic items just snap. Period. That's why the clam-shell cell phone design became more popular IMHO. It was thicker and didn't snap in half unless you really made an effort.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I know this article is about the defective/cracked screens, but I've also read where ppl are upset that the screen is scratched easily. Hello, it's plastic, not glass, it's going to get scratched up, just like your car is going to get door dinged in the parking lot; that's life. My 20G iPod is always on, and yeah, it's 'trashed' according to some, but hey, I think it's worn nicely, it was never my goal to keep it in 'mint condition'; it's not a 1965 Mustang or anything. As for the cases, they're just silly IMO; you take a beautifully designed piece of technology, and then wrap it in some guady piece of rubber. Uggg...to each his own, but ppl that *need* to put cases on their iPods are the same ppl that put bras on the front of their cars. Listen to the music, that's what it's there for...
fak3r.com
OTOH, It will cost less to recall 0.1% of a product rather than 100% of it...
I actually ordered a nano a couple of days ago but decide to cancel to wait this out. See if apple makes any more changes to the nano to improve its durability. I hope they do, it's a nice piece of hardware! -- http://www.kunae.blogspot.com/
Not only to ackowledge that cracked screens, but then to turn around and say that scratching is not as bad as the other models - sounds like a load of PR hogwash - no matter how good or trendy their technology is.
:)
I was considering a Nano, but will now wait until the 2nd or 3rd release of it. Happy with my minimal-scratched Gen 3 iPod which I havent treated pretty badly - and it still comes back for more
My nano screen hasn't cracked (yet), but i have noticed that it scratches extremely easily. I've only carried it alone in soft pockets for just over a week, and already lots and lots of small scratches have appeared :(
/* it's never to late to give up */
Oh no! I scratched my iPod! Send me a new one... and if you don't, I'll complain loudly.
Give me a break.
My 4G iPod has scratches too... Suck it up and buy a freakin case.
It used to be that any thing you bought from Apple was almost bullet proof. (ca 1995) I still have computers from that time that are running just fine. Since then they have gone to less expensive and hence cheaper parts, and this is no longer true. My five newer computers from Apple have ALL had problems. Apple fixed those problems but i'd rather have the old bullet proof ones. Still 0.1% is not a lot of defects but it will be expensive to Apple to repair.
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
good thing Microsoft is uhm, patching this unproven and untested product they released on consumers. er, I meant apple, thank god apple is..
Could it just be scale? A few small scratches on a small screen is the equivelent of larger scratches on a bigger screen.
Such gadgets are that are clearly intended for everyday use should be designed with at least reasonable quality expectations in mind. For a product that is undeniably going to be rolling around in people's pockets, you would expect that a company would make sure that their product would not be easily abused.
From what I have read, the Nano is quite sturdy as far as the amount of physical abuse it can take, but the scratching is still a problem. It is not unreasonable for people to expect such products to be at least reasonably scratch-resistant. PDA's, cell phones, and other similar devices don't really tend to have the scratching problems that Nano adopters have expressed frustration over. The fact that there *are* so many people that have voiced on the issue (even though Apple doesn't really admit it) should give an indication to non-owners that maybe there really is a problem. There does appear to be a lot of non-owners that have come down on those that have complained about the issue, but from my analysis over the past few days, other Nano owners tend to sympathize with those people even if they haven't been bothered by it.
I definitely expect Apple to address the scratching issue internally, even if they don't publically recall the Nanos that have been easily scratched (though it does sound like most retailers are giving refunds without much hassle).
A community-oriented lyrics site
Heaven knows that I love Apples, I wouldn't ever use anything else as my main system.
In the past couple of years, however, I've become more and more concerned about the quality of their "consumer" products - battery issues aside. The pre-G4 iBooks all have a heat related video problem that requires motherboard replacement, the eMacs are - there's no other way to say it - a reliability disaster (as well as a tremendous pain to work on). I'm sorry to see the iPod nano having so many scratching problems - its such a great idea. I was actually on the verge of buying one.
I do have to admit that I've rarely encountered problems with their "pro" lines - Power Macs and PowerBooks. Those are built like tanks, and reliability has been very high.
Long story short, I really hope Apple can improve this "funk" they've been in lately. It just seems like one problem right after another.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The cracks make the system much snappier!
Apple Product Life Cycle
Rarely occuring flaw causes uproar(scratches/cracks whatever): check
Link to previous slashdot post lead to comment section where first comment was "wait for next revision": check
-Reed
I avoided the whole iPod nano scratching issue with a simple casemod: I bought a full-sized iPod, threw away the guts, and mounted the iPod nano inside it. Now my nano is completely protected from scratches!
So that would be 0.1% of iPod Nanos then?
My 60GB iPod photo screen is terribly scratch-prone. I carried it home in the fleece-lined pocket of my coat, and it got a huge round scratch from the earbud - with the fuzzy cover over the earbud!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
...between the casing of the Nano/4th Gen iPod and the mini? Based on the god-knows-how-many iPods I've seen, most of the mini's I've come across still look failry new, while just about every full sized iPod is fairly scuffed/scratched up. IMHO, the casing of the mini is a lot nicer looking too.
Also, any chance that Apple would replace the faceplate of my iPod if/when I send it off for a new battery? I can't imagine it would be expensive or difficult to do so, I just don't know if they would.
..... regardless of how many iPods are affected. The mere mention of this issue caused it's stock value to nosedive 4.4% yesterday. (Surf to HERE for more on this)
Part of the problem is that Apple has become a MP3 player company, and not a computer company. According to most people in the know, they don't turn a profit from their music store and the so-called halo effect of the iPod is of limited value to them. And then there's the Merrill Lynch downgrade to neutral from buy that they got this morning (Click HERE for more) because "although Apple's recent performance has been extraordinary, there are question marks over the effect of the imminent transition to Intel-based hardware."
Not good if you're an Apple investor.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Scratching is bound to happen to such a product. It actually adds a kins of used look to my iPod that I appreciate. I never understood people that put covers on their floors, couches, cellphones, iPods etc: what use is a mint-condition iPod in an ugly case? Like a high school friend of mine who never wore his good shoes - when he tried them the first time he had grown to large for them.
Fleur de Sel
Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
Geez, have they sold that many of them already? That's amazing if they have.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Problem with the plastic cases is that I bought my ipod because of its small form factor, then I get to make it bulkier just to keep it looking nice, but you have to remove the cover anyway just to dock the damn thing.
I have a 1-year-old Creative MuVo TX FM which is still performing admirably, and has barely a mark on it despite three or four hours of daily use. Apple isn't the only game in town as far as MP3 players go.
BTW, when will all manufacturers adopt other open audio formats than MP3? I guess not until they can figure out how to cripple them with DRM. Oh well...
and attribute it to poor and/or cheap vendor choice by Apple.
*DrugCheese rants*
I agree,
... if you SIT ON THEM! So stop carrying it in your back pocket!
Thin electronic items just snap
I don't have a nano, but every other iPod I've had (first and third generation and shuffle) is very scratch-prone. I doubt Nanos are any different. People are just noticing it because this one fits in your pocket, IMO. If they say it's the same plastic, it either is, or it isn't. Are you saying it isn't?
I love my Nano. I have a black 4GB Nano, customized. The screen is fine. I have abused it just as much as any other reasonable person. I can assure you that the Nano is no more scratchable than any other 4G iPod. The Mini, which I also own, was impervious to costmetic destruction, though.
... get a life.
It boils down to this: minor scratches and imperfections are likely with any daily-use product. That's why there's an industry for iPod protectors. HOWEVER, I'd rather have a slighly scuffed Nano with it's nice sheen and sleek profile than to have a Nano with a huge clunky protector that makes it look like crap.
So if you want a Nano, perhaps you should consider that your expectations have been set too high if you think a scuff or scratch is unacceptible. You'r probably the kind of person who gets minor dents and dings on your car fixed the day they happen. Or better yet, are you the lamer that has a car bra? Let it go. Damage happens. The Nano is not at fault-- look in the mirror.
I'm not discrediting the people who had actual CRACKED screens-- that's B.S. It should be fixed. Scratches
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
So you're saying that the lesson is "Consumer electronics made of nice-textured semi-soft plastics can scratch easily"?
I mean, I hate cosmetic scratches as much as the next guy, but every farking portable electronic device I own has scratches on it. My GBA has scratches, and it carry it around in a case. My iPod mini has scratches, and I keep it in a pocket, alone. My old CD player is covered in pits and scratches from living in my backpack with BOOKS (no metal, no binders, books).
Jeez, someone call the wah-mbulance. I can understand being angry about faulty batteries, but wear and tear? *rolls eyes*
All iPods are equally scratchable.
How badly they get scratched depends on how well you take care of it.
If they're ending up terribly, horribly scratched, then you aren't taking care of it. My 3G is roughed up, but isn't horribly scratched cause I keep it in the case it came with whenever I use it.
... Apple is finally "cracking" down on the competition.
The defect affects less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all the nanos that have shipped so far
I would like to see those numbers. Are they sure thats not reported issues. So if they shipped 5 million, and only 100,000 were bought, and of those 100,000 only 100 people REPORTED a problem well yea. If the defect is in the material, and it is the same material (and processing) for all of the products - then all of the products should have the defect; none of this 1/10 of 1% crap.
Really they just want you to buy expensive skins.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
These are not only good for PDAs, but they make them for digital camera screens, too. Its clear, its plastic, it'll take the dings, and its cheap.
Isn't it obvious?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Apple stated that there was no problem with the Nano screen scratching. There answer to critasisms was that "iPod Naon Socks & Cases are being relised in the next few weeks and owners should buy one of these to protect their screens. WTF? Apple screw up and their solution is for people to give them MORE money? Also whats the point of buying a supersmall mp3 player then doubling its size by putting it in a padded case. I was so close to buying one of these as soon as they came out but decided to wait a while, I am now very very glad and I'll pick one up if/when they address these problems.
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
Clamshells are so much more breakable than candybar phones. They have a hinge. Hinges break. I'm not saying that the Nano issue isn't user error, but your logic about phones seems offbase.
The colour iPod distortion problem? I'm going to guess "never".
"My fellow Americans, these are not the droids the nation is looking for."
Nice to see that /. lags a day behind digg or even fark. It's probably the massive /.ers egos that don't let the news get through the pipe.
I doubt that the same materials are used. I have a 4G sitting right here and it barely has any scratches on it at all. It's had very similar use to those who have a nano. Goes in a seperate pocket and if it shares room, it's only with a pencil. Something is fishy about the same materials being used statement.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
iPod 3G - Scratched to hell
Nokia Phone - Scratched to hell, but ugly so scratches don't notice
Key Fob - Scratched to hell
Gameboy - Scratched to hell
My leather wallet is scratched. My keys have scratches.
If you put something in you pocket it will scratch. Now break? Thats a different story. If the screen on my phone, iPod or Gameboy had broken through what I would concider fair use - putting it in my pocket, I'd be kicking up a fuss.
Apple are doing the right thing by replacing the parts that have broken. If you don't want something to scratch, don't put it in your pocket, or let it touch anything else.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Any plastic item needs care. I bought a 35 thousand dollar Honda S2000 back in the days when the rear window was plastic. That thing got scratched every single time you lowered or raised the convertible top. If you think Nano owners are bent out of shape, you should have seen the Honda message boards. After a while, people figured out that if you cared for the plastic window with Plexus or a similar product, and treated it with appropriate caution, it was fine. It really seems to me that every iPod release is accompanied by a chorus of complainers--first the battery life (a problem I never had with any of my four iPods), then clicking noises between tracks (a software issue addressed by Apple), then HD noise on the output (easily fixed--get a non-HD device!), and now the screen is scratching up. Excuse me if I don't have much sympathy. My half-decade of iPod ownership tells me that this is a bunch of sour grapes and buyer's remorse.
yeah but it's ugly, and... well, it's ugly.
...doesn't care about black iPod Nanos.
They were referring to the scratching issue, not the cracking issue. The article was pretty clear about that. You know...the article? The one that you rea...oh, right.
More evidence for the "never buy the first revision of an Apple product" maxim? Didn't early versions of iBooks, powerbooks G4, iMac G5 and iPod Mini all have some reliability problems?
This guy has a pictoral on how he fixed up his nano screen with Brasso. Pretty amazing stuff, if it's legit.
- - - - - - - - -
Want a nano? Find 5 others that want a nano too, and you're all set.
My iPod Nano was really bad. Not only did it have this sickly-sweet smell, but the surface was very mallable and subject to denting and bending. Can't get any sound out of it at all, but the ability to jam the earbuds plug into any part of it is kind of cool.
Oh wait. It's just a stick of Juicy-Fruit gum I picked up by mistake. My bad.
Wait, 1-TENTH of 1-PERCENT of all the Nano's sold, has this problem.
*looks around*
Are people just freaking bored out of their minds, or have totally minor inconsistencies in manufacturing become front-page news?
Next up, a Slashdot-wide crisis concerning the flaw in one out of fifty billion CCD's. Stay tuned, we might need to panic!
> Interesting...Apple is willing to address the cracked Nano screens, but not the ...in the US only. In the UK we're probably as screwed as we are with the dodgy batteries on previous models (which are being replaced for free in the US).
> scratched ones.
Still, who needs an overpriced Apple when a Creative Zen player offers better sound quality and higher storage capacity for a lower price?
OOPS - Link included below:
This guy has a pictoral on how he fixed up his nano screen with Brasso. Pretty amazing stuff, if it's legit.
- - - - - - - - -
Want a nano? Find 5 others that want a nano too, and you're all set.
But... that would entail apple admitting they did something wrong. Hell may have frozen over (intel&apple), but that's still not enough for apple to ever admit being wrong.
I'm not picking on you, yours was just the first post that I saw talking about the goodness of fleece-lined pockets.
Fleece, cotton, or almost any other natural fiber is just great at picking up all sorts of tiny, rough, abrasive objects. It feels nice and soft to your hands because those tiny objects are too small for your hands to feel, but at some point, enough of them accumulate and that soft, fleece-lined pocket starts acting like a sandpaper-lined pocket.
Fuzzy covered earbud? It just ground the abrasive gunk into your iPod.
-h-
I totally disagree.
Since this bitch session about the Nano is just a typical part of the Apple product life cycle (i.e., happens every time a new model is released), the smart investor increased his position at the end of the day yesterday and watches the profits roll in over the next few weeks as this blows over. I threw an extra 5K on before the bell, and I'm already up 2% on the morning trading.
On this topic, watch what happens during the buildup to Intel Macs next year. The stock will build as news outlets figure out the implications of OS X on Intel. Then some flaw will be found in the first gen Intel Macs. Then it will blow over. You have to know when to buy Apple to make money as an Apple investor. Personally, I'm up over 30% average across all my shares, and more than 150% on certain individual purchases. Those are real estate numbers, my friend. Bring on the complainers!
a bit of dirty trick with the nano - After building up a mass audience and marketshare with the iPod (and although I'm not a fan, I admit it does look a quality product), they've cut corners and be a bit cheap skate for the nano with the hope that people will buy it on the strength of the iPod brand. Basically they got greedy, and I hope their brand suffers because of this. There does seem to a bit of a blind faith by many about Apple being this amazing brand, but by abusing customers like this, I hope people begin to realize it is a lot of hype, and that they are products of similar quality out there from the likes of Creative and Sony.
Plastic cases get scratched, it's unavoidable but easily fixable. Go to the auto parts store and get sandpaper of various grits starting at 600 and finishing at 1500 and get a bottle of rubbing compound like 3M Perfect-It 3000. Wet sand the screen with the lowest grit until the largest scratches come out, then work up to the highest grit paper and finish off with the rubbing compound to make it shine like new again. There's plenty of thickness to work with so the procedure can be done many times.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
See here for more info.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Come on, Steve. Be a fucking man and own up to Apple's lack of quality control. Didn't you adequately test these things? Apparently not. And passing the buck to "lack of vendor quality". What a spineless pussy. And Slashdot, being comprised of so many Apple suck ups, rush to defend, like Zonk whose posting could not be more apologist. Blech!
Time and time again, I'm glad I don't own an iPod. My Philips HDD120's screen hasn't been scratched at all, and I've had it for over a year now. The syncing software for this thing isn't the greatest, but it was a good deal at the time, $250 for 20GB.
Apple has the amazing ability to shoot itself in the foot, and they will keep paying for it. No one there seems to have realized that consumer products have to made differently than Apple desktop that people care for like children ( but that is because at the price Apple desktops run, I can understand it). They should have spent more time testing, and then this would not have been an issue. Ignoring the consistant flaws in their hardware would be like ignoring the consistant flaws in Microsoft's software.
What is truly sad is that I would plunk down USD$150 tomorrow for a copy of an Apple produced and supported OSX that would run on my PC, but they do not want to make one?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Being shiny isn't the most important thing for a lot of people. There are other criteria that decide what people buy. For me it was ogg and a reasonable price for the product. That's why iriver now have my money and apple don't.
If you have a cracked screen, Apple will replace it.
Ergo, If you have a scratched screen, crack the screen and exchange it.
I suspect part of the problem with so many scratched screens is the way Jobs introduced the Nano. He pulled it out of his Levis. Denim is pretty harsh material but there was Jobs saying that the watch pocket on a pair of Levis was a perfectly appropriate place to store the ultra-thin Nano.
"A few vocal customers [whiners] are saying the Nano is more susceptible to scratching," Apple's Dowling says. "But we've received very few reports from consumers [la la la la we can't hear you], and we do not believe it's a widespread issue [we can make it go away by jawboning]."
The Nano is made with "the same high-quality polycarbonate plastic [fine Corinthian leather]" used for other iPods. "If customers are concerned about scratching," he says, "they should use one of the many cases that are now becoming available [cover up the damage]."
You didn't just jump, you leaped to that conclusion with a springboard and while strapped to helium balloons!
In case you're still confused (maybe you ingested too much of that helium), let me tell you that the number of google search results is not at all equal to the sales of a product.
For example, such a search will bring up every blog that has a "here's a pic of my cat scratching my screen door" with a iPod Nano ad in the blogger service's ad bar.
Although googling a topic may give some idea of how prevalent it is, it isn't a measure of the problem. Also, the number of google results for "ipod photo screen scratch" is 769,000 and "ipod mini screen scratch" is 561,000, which would seem to support the statement that it is the same material as previous ipods.
Apple should copy the material used in other mp3 screens. My iRiver is 6 months old, and has 0 scratches not only on the screen, but on the case too. The screen looks like glass, but if I tap it, it sounds like plastic.
I am very suspicious that the broken screens and the scratched screens are due to the same problem. And as such are merely polar ends of the real issue.
Could it be, that the manufacturer's "hardener" levels were off. Certain polycarbonate batches receiving too much "hardeners" (resulting in cracked screens) and other batches receiving too little "hardener" resulting is extremely easy scratched screens.
I find it interesting from a chemical engineering stand point that both problems could be directly related to a fluctuation of hardener levels but not a single article or post I've read has mentioned the possibility of such?
- The Saj
I'm only hazarding a guess here but I'll bet most of the problems stem from the fact that more people are putting the nano in more confined spaces, i.e. pockets, purses, tighter/smaller pockets. The simple reason is that it's smaller and more portable, so they say "hey, my 40gig ipod was uncomfortable in my jeans pocket, but this nano fits perfectly!" And wala, now the nano is introduced to more scratching than its predecessor.
A lot of this is unconscious, people may not even notice that they are treating the device differently. Also, I think a lot more people (at least the ipod owners I know) tend to use belt clips for their ipods, whereas with the nano it just fits in a pocket so much easier, why not toss it in there?
Look, if the materials are identical as Apple claims then the only way you can get more scratching on a nano vs older ipods is by handling it differently. Technology has always been fragile people, just because we've recently gotten much better at hardening it doesn't mean it's indestrutable. Use some caution, common sense, and a condom. ;)
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Keep in mind that the Nano has a smaller screen and text size than the older iPods, so the same small scratches make the Nano display harder to read than the bigger iPods.
The Nano is too easy to damage. I found that a 3 year old with a $0.49 Exacto knife can make the screen nearly unreadable. How is the average user supposed to use a device that can be so easily damaged. I think that if they used 2" bulletproff glass for the screen that it would be more scratch resistant and buff out more easily.
BTW: Back in my day, scratching was done with two turntables and a microphone!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Admitting than an Apple product has a flaw of some kind does not automatically lead to shrinkage of your penis.
I hope you don't think I'm trying to troll, I really just wanted to offer you all some reassurance on this point. Judging from some of the more defensive posts here, I am guessing that many of you are living in fear unnecessarily.
I'm wondering whether this problem with scratching is partly down to the Nano's size. I always carried my old iPod 3G and my current 4G around in the Apple belt case and have had no problems, apart from minimal scratching of the chrome side.
Now, the iPod Nano is being sold as something you can stick in your pocket. From a size point of view that makes sense, but anything unprotected in a pocket will be scratched by anything, no matter how small - it's how abrasives work. Stick it in a case and the case will take the damage, but any form of iPod loose in a pocket is going to scratch a lot - even if it's a fleece pocket with crud in the bottom. The Nano is lighter which also won't help much - it'll move about more.
There's also the issue with polycarbonate. Yes it's strong and yes it's tough, but it'll scratch just the same. It's not a scratchproof substance and is tailored more for resisting impacts without deforming - bullets in its ultimate form - rather than linear scratches.
The end result is a product that seems to have been engineered and marketed in very different ways, one where materials and function don't fit well, but equally I'd never put a £180 device in my pocket unprotected, it would be asking for trouble. Would you stick a PSP in your pocket unprotected?
Almost every day I throw my iRiver in a canvas bag with my laptop, cables, and power supply. It has one minor scratch on the screen from when I stopped my car suddenly and the whole bag fell on the floor. Other than that the screen looks glossy and new. MP3 players are portable devices that you carry around a lot. They should be durable IMO.
But Apple are marketing the nano as the ultimate in fits-in-your-pocket convenience.
You sure about that? It seems to be said a lot however, from what I have seen it only relates to the original marking for the large ipods that don't suffer this problem. Perhaps I missed something but, I have never heard anything about being suitable for being naked in your pocket from apple. As a matter of fact they seem to suggest wearing it around your neck or using an arm band accessory.
I for one welcome our newly scratched I-Pod Nano Overlords.
Seriously, why cant Apple offer a satin finish IPod -- that'll cut down seriously on the scratches.
Or rather than leave it in a case, you can just put it into an iSkin. I have one and so does everyone I know who has an iPod. I've had my 3G iPod in the iSkin for about two years now with no special handling. I'd taken it out yesterday and there were some minor scuffs here and there, and a bit more around the screen (not on the screen) due to the screen protector loosing two of it's soft cushy legs. It's still in a resellable condition. If you own an iPod buy yourself an iSkin, they are amazing products. Of course they are coming out with a model for the nano very shortly as well. http://www.iskin.com/store/I2BeNotified.tpl Either put it in a case or a skin. Don't whine when it gets scratched if you've done nothing to protect it.
I am on the second instance of my MP3 player (not an ipod of any kind) because I treated it without the proper regard and "cracked" the LCD, you know that lovely inky blacness of a broken backlit display. I now have a special piece of "cassette tape/CD jewel" case sticky taped over the screen and have it in the special protective pouch. Looks shit, doesn't scratch and would probably survive a decent sharp point impact (definitely from my keys).
It's all good. It kinda defeats the purpose of a sexy new ipod though, wrapping it is hard plastic and a cover. Probably why I wont buy one.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Free Nanos too!
http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=22151347
Not that I ever got one, and I signed up dammit.
I think the problem is that the shiny plastic aesthetic of the nano is the very thing which appeals to people who are really bothered about scratches. I'm far more likely to buy a device with an aluminium case, or which looks more functional than funky.
I've had my nano for 36 hours now. I don't mind if the body of it gets scratched up a bit, it's a tool for me, not a fetish object. But I've inadvertently dropped my cig lighter in the same pocket with my nano a couple times, and each time the nano comes away with significant scratches and scuffs on the screen. I'm not running around, I'm hardly moving and the screen is being very quickly damaged. I'm afraid that even if I am hyper-cautious of it, the screen will be unreadable within a few weeks.
I treat my cell phone like shit, it looks fine under worse conditions, same for my pager, same for my other mp3 player. The MP3 player even has dents in it by now. But, while I treat these electronics like shit, there are no noticable scratches on the screens. But even with extreme caution, the screen on my Nano will soon be illegible. THIS IS UNNACCEPTABLE.
I'll agree with the parent. I've had my iRiver for a year now, and constantly carry it around in my pocket with my keys. I've dropped it and put it through all sorts of abuse and it still doesnt have a single scratch on the screen.
Yeah, exactly. And likewise with the correlation of google's results for searching for "iPod Nano scratch" and the number of actual problems.
I didn't leap to a conclusion, I reducto ad absurdem'ed the parent.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hmm...all Apple needs to do to verify the scope of this problem is open up a web browser. To say there's been a lot in the media about the iPod Nano and its butter-soft screen would be a masterpiece of understatement. Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
Personally, i'm greatly offended with the amount of attention this is getting in light of so much more serious problems.
Almost nobody in this country seems to care about the rampant and unchecked violence of werewolves against the U.S. population.
The problem should be clear and obvious to the government and the population. One has merely to do a Google search on "werewolf attack 2004 u.s." to find that there were almost half a million werewolf attacks last year in this country.
That's just ridiculous.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Or mobile phones.
My phone is a year old, has been in my pocket inc. keys, various abrasive objects over that time. Zero scratches.
Creative's new jingle: ;)
I want my MP3... music for nothing, get your worms for free.
Oh, wait...
Well, if I owned one (which I don't) and had a scratch in my screen, I know what I would be hitting with a stone now...
My other post is a First.
Well, of course you can afford to buy a decent virus checker with the money you'll save by not buying a stylish white (ish..until it gets grubby) rectangle!
screw media coverage, that does not mean anything. the media told us that there were stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.
.... so didn't anyone photograph the damage yet? like i said, i am not saying it is a myth, but i don't know anyone who had their nano break, and nobody i know seems to know anybody, and i know some klutzy people.
as of an hour ago i saw a few sites (gizmodo included) calling for anyone that actually has, or has access to, a nano with a cracked screen to send in a picture. nobody seems to be able to find a single picture. i am not saying it is not happening, but if it is so widespread, where are the photos? we all know tons of Apple nerds did a photo documentary of them opening the packaging
as for the scratching, did you notice the pics you see of the scratches are all on the black ones? maybe that's why the big iPods mostly only ship in white. it does a pretty good job at hiding scratches. close inspection makes it look like my ibook slid down a mountain, but from two feet away it looks fine. it sucks to wrap something so thin, but i guess you have to protect the things if you are that concerned with cosmetics.
Why spend $40 on a iPod rubber cover, when a polyethylene zipper baggie works just as well, and costs less than three cents? You can still adjust the volume through the plastic, and I tear a small hole in the corner for my headphone to plug in.
Best thing is, if the baggie gets too wrinkled to see your album art, you can replace it for only another three pennies. Cheap!
Chip H.
not having owned a previous ipod i cant answer if its a scale issue, but just having it in my jeans pocket has resulted in scratches that have made it nearly impossible to read the screen.
you pay the extra money for apple stuff because its such high quality in all aspects, so to have a device like this that is scratched almost beyond recgonition from daily use is simply unacceptable.
I see this comment a lot. Here's the thing: Your iRiver screen is recessed into a face made of two different materials.
It's *amazing* how much difference this makes. Being recessed means that any object which touches the edge of the screen puts much less pressure on the screen than a fully-flat ipod receives. In addition, the plastic outside the screen is much harder than the screen is and usually textured, which has a tendency to stop things from sliding across the whole face and dislodges pocket fluff material into the channels at the edge of the screen. The buildup of grit on the edge of one of those screens after pocket storage is usually major.
The iPod nano is a slippery little devil, the entire surface of it is the soft screen material, and it's small enough that it's easily moved about when in a pocket. Without a hard edge to collect pocket grit, the grit remains embedded in the pocket fabric and moves across the screen freely.
These physical attributes are more significant in this case than the material used. The material is pretty much standard for portable screens. You can tell uncoated polycarbonate by feel.
Fundamentally, though, you ought to be putting any piece of expensive electronics this small in a case. The ipod nano's design means that the case can be very small. The reason to not make it larger and more durable is so that every person can choose the case shape that fits them best. Some iPod cases are waterproof, some are just a thin layer of leather, some are thick aluminum. If you wanted a waterproof case for your iRiver, it would be larger than a waterproof encased iPod Nano because they made some of the armor decision for you.
>Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
You're joking, right? Of course it does- it displays almost every webpage that has 'ipod', 'nano', 'screen' and 'scratch' in it. Is that supposed to mean anything? Googling "ipod nano screen scratch" yields nine hits, and guess what, this doesn't mean anything either.
J.
You're willing to invest $300-400 for an iPod yet people fuss about paying a few dollars for a case to protect their investment? (Although most of the case vendors do charge exhorbenant prices)
My 40 gig iPod cost $400, I had NO problems with spending $20 for a case.
Although I'm far more concerned about dropping it than I am about a few scratches.
Scratches? Just stfu and deal with it people!
My k700i gets carried with keys everyday, it is a year old and has no scratches. My first mp3 player was treated the same for over a year (kiiro ca128s) and no scratches, my iriver h10 has no scratches, my gba has hardly any scratches. All get treated like shit.
My old fuji a204 camera and my old t610 are scratched to crap. Surely it's just shitty casing? Why can't people accept things do not have to be scratch prone.
You think that's bad? Forget scratches, 'ipod nano kills' yields 120,000 results! :)
eat apples
Everyone except you.
Two points: One, the Cube crack wasn't a crack, but an occlusion caused by cold plastic coming together during the injection process. (I am a material/manufacturing engineer.) Two, solve the problem by selling plastic adhesive film like the kind you can get for PDAs. Or is it a case that Apple people just love to complain/whine and and would rather bitch about a problem expecting someone else to resolve their complaints. (Lamers)
----------
Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
I've got an iPod Shuffle. No scratches on my screen!
If your biggest problem in life involves cosmetic flaws in your overpriced plastic toy, you're living a pretty comfortable life.
Apple better do something about these Murderous iPod nanos before the whole world thinks they're EVUL@#(*!@)(% J.
I bought an iPod Shuffle and it is so scratched up that I can't see the screen at all!
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
I ordered one direct so I could get it laser engraved, if I had bought it locally at least I could've taken it back to the store for an exchange. It's ridiculous how easily it scratches, heck, I can scratch it with my fingernail! I don't know what people at Apple were smoking when they chose this material for something that people will want to put in their pockets and so on.
I've recently ordered some covers from decalgirl.com, which although not an optimal solution at least might stop new scratches from appearing on my nano. I knew something was wrong when a bit of the plastic it was wrapped in "stuck" to it and left a bit of a residue, and buffing it out (with my glasses microfiber cloth!) caused tons of scratches already.
This is my first Apple product and it's definitely left a bad taste in my mouth: before getting the nano I was also thinking of getting a 60gig model as well: definitely won't be doing that now.
-- the cake is a lie
When the Mac Mini's came out, tons of people complained about dim displays with analog connections. This was due to a fault in the onboard gaphics card (the frequency of the video outputted by the card was under the VESA standard). After a few months of people complaining, Apple finally made a statement which basically told people to adjust the gamma of the system (which helps the problem to a degree, but still makes the output look like garbage). Not only that, but people using the DVI plug were also having problems....green artifacts randomly appearing on their screen.
Sounded like a pretty major problem to me. One things for sure, I'll never buy another Apple product until the second gen version hits and they work the kinks out...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
The FIRST thing I did when I got an iPod Mini as a gift, was to get a cover that had a hard, plastic shell that went over the screen. Even I could see it was fragile and would get scratched up fast.
So my iPod has a perfectly undamaged screen, because there's a hard plastic cover over it, keeping it nice and safe.
Of course, getting such a screen for the Nano would make the Nano almost as big as a Mini, which would defeat part of the purpose. At that point, you're only buying it because it's flash based instead of hard drive based, a negligible advantage.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
While that is a good point... After hearing about just how much thought apple is suppose to put in their products, I find it hard to accept that a music player that's suppose to go in your pocket isn't designed to withstand a pocket.
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
I can verify that the 4G 'poly side' DOES scratch easily. Not as easy as that damned chrome on the back, but it still scratches too easily and *requires* you to buy a cover of some sort.
Or you will regret it..
Thankfully the one i bought covers the chrome, screen AND clickwheel. Too bad i waited a week to get it.. I hear you can buff out the 'common surface scratches', but I'm not brave enough to try that on a 300$ device.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just think for a minute. The media amplifies, repeats and sensationalizes things. Especially when it comes to Apple. You can't get an accurate picture of the true extent of defects from the media. A few loud voices can make it seem like a bigger problem. Would similar defects (which are common in many products) be so widely reported if it were Toshiba's products? What about Dell - don't hear much in the media, but a large number of those things are delivered faulty. Don't hear much in the mainstream media about flaws in Windows. People pay attention to very small issues with Apple, which would never even raise an eyebrow for an ordinary company.
Do the thousands of reports on Hurrican Katrina mean that there were thousands of hurricanes?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Please point me to the 4GB Flash-based 30cm^3 Creative Zen.
Hell, point me to the 2GB Flash-based 40cm^3 Creative Zen.
Apple should have used that BluRay anti-scratch coating, yes. But black glossy things show scratches more. They also show grease more, and I bet half of the 'scratches' are actually fast food grease and late-night pr0n viewing residue.
Not sure whey they didn't offer the nano in an anodized aluminum enclosure.. it might scratch other things, but it would be resistant itself.
Now, they just need to invent transparant aluminum to protect the much more easily cratched screen. Haha.
..don't panic
Well, while not the same as directly marketing it as such, let's remember it was introduced by Steve Jobs by pulling it out of his jeans' pocket.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Jobs unveiled it by pulling it out of his pocket. Plus, I believe the press release before the event said something along the lines of "We started this with 1000 songs in your pocket. Time to do it again."
I think both of those are pretty big endorsements of putting it in your pocket.
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Who cares if the screen scratches, get a case or one of the plastic polishes.
The greater concern with devices of this type is the drop on pavement, gym floor test. The ipod acording to the ars-digita review is super durable and very hard to break, a much more important metric than how scratchable it is.
Look, like has been mentioned by many in That Other Thread, most people buying the Nano have plenty of prior experience with plastic pocket gadgets, and the kind of wear and tear they can reasonably expect. I doubt most of these people would all of a sudden complain about the same sort of scratches on their Nano that they already have on their cell phone etc. I have a Sony Ericsson T610 phone, which has black shiny plastic around the screen almost identical to the Nano. I always keep it in my pocket without a case, rubbing against the keys and change. The silver painted parts are seriously scratched and and worn, with the white plastic underneath showing through in many places. The T-Mobile logo is completely worn off, not a trace of it is left. And yet the screen and black plastic parts have no scratches to speak of. Sure, there are some surface abrasions that make it a bit matte rather than shiny in a few areas (especially around edges and corners), but there are no prominent scratches or gouges. The screen itself has virtually no visible damage. A lot more annoying is pocket lint that makes its way through openings (around keys, through the battery compartment etc.) behind the screen. I've seen several of the posted pictures of considerably scratched Nanos. Assuming the scratches really happened through trivial use and not due to malicious actions to denigrate Apple, I must conclude that the Nano does indeed scratch a lot easier than other devices.
I have no connection with this company, they were just the first google hit when I searched on polishing out scratches in polycarbonate.
The tests done at ArsTechnica were pretty extreme and the scratching they caused wasn't nearly as bad as some people here are describing their own experiences to be.
/., some extreme claims made by people here.
There have been, as always on
I completely removed all scratches from my black nano using Brasso. (Which I got the idea for from the previous Slashdot thread on this.)
:) I think that's the main issue with the nano, you (mostly) can't get cases right now either through Apple or third-parties. I imagine by the end of the month this won't be the case and this issue will blow over just in time for the Christmas buying season.
Full story here. Check out the before and after pictures, I was really surprised by the great results.
And yes, my nano is now sitting in a baggie, waiting for my case to arrive.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
I think it'd be a good idea for someone to do an actual test on the durability of the plastic. The nano is so small that you would be sticking it in places where you couldn't normally fit an iPod, so it's in a different environment than larger iPods are. I suspect if you did a fair test on both the nano and the larger iPods you would see that they are equally scratchable.
Werewolves attack people you say? As in "people who turn into wolves" attacking people?
I would similarly argue that the popular media should divert attention from the iPod nano and focus on random acts of violence from the Loch Ness monster, boogeymen, and other diabolical mythical creatures because it generates a higher google hit count.
"That's just ridiculous."
Googling for 'baby zombie rampage' yields 98,900 results! Run for your lives!
> Hell, point me to the 2GB Flash
2gig! Woohoo!!
Some of us want something approaching our whole CD collection in one smallish device - 30gigs is about a quarter of my CD collection. 2Gigs, eh? That'll get me up until Stravinsky's 1930's works. I guess I could get one 2gig device per composer - sadly, at Apple's prices I'd have to sell all my CDs to afford it.
No, we'll just whine about all those loose soft cushy legs.
Get a damn screen protector. It took me two seconds to find ones doing a GOOGLE search.
1) What the heck are you doing with a cellphone in your back pocket?
...a Nokia 6600 through T-Mobile. Fits fine in a FRONT pocket, is a GSM phone so it's got a chip with your data inside, and it's got Bluetooth so it syncs with my Mac at home. Data is safe!
2) I gave up the clamshell design after I went through two Motorola StarTAC's in a year (admittedly a few years ago) that had connection issues at the joint between the halves. I now prefer a solid state design, which is why I now have...
3)
4) Clamshell design is much easier to break than a non-clamshell design when it's open. I think you're forgetting that. Unfold one, accidentally sit on it or drop it and then get back to me. I've dropped and sat on my 6600 a bunch of times, still rugged as heck.
5) The 6600's camera sucks hard. But it's more than made up for by the neat apps you can get for SymbianOS which drives the phone (such as the Opera web browser).
Why not write just "less than a promile" or "less than in one case per 1,000" ?
I hate this benchmark. Googling 'cheese filled my pants' returned 767,000 results. Can't we all just decide that Google always returns a ridiculous amount of sites?
- The Amazina Llama
The one thing nobody seems to have commented on is this - are the iPod Nanos TOO small? I think the mini was the perfect form factor for taking it to the gym, putting it in your pocket, being able to see the screeen, etc. with it still being fairly robust. For no screen, the iPod Shuffle (I own one of those) is ideal. The nano just seems to be the wrong size for the wrong product - flimsy, less storge than a mini and, to quote that long-ago iPod post "Lame".
all Apple needs to do to verify the scope of this problem is open up a web browser.
The problem with your logic is: satisfied customers dont complain. What you see on the 'net is the same complaint 1000 times. Kinda like when CNN kept showing the same man in Iraq stealing the same vase every 5 minutes for 3 days.
Apple can only go by the complaints they receive.
Besides, being an iPod owner, I would say individual care partially to blame. Delicate things need to be treated delicately.
In other news, My Creative Zen Xtra is scratchless Its been in car glove boxes, pockets, bags and drawers. Ha HA
The screens that are cracking in this case are the LCD module inside the iPod nano, not the polycarbonate plastic sheet over it. I know this because it is when the glass (yes, glass) inside the LCD breaks is when you hear people describe that simultaneous with the display cracking also the pixels stopped responding on one side of the crack (or both). Also, people are saying the LCD cracked on them, with "no external damage". This they are referring to a crack inside the unit, not on the polycarbonate cover.
Honestly, it's by far the most common problem I've had with LCDs. I've broken LCDs in both pagers and cellphones in this same fashion (LCD glass broken, not outside plastic). And I'm sure most people have has similar experiences.
So, you're way off. They cannot be the same issue.
As to perhaps the scratches problem itself is due to hardener, I agree it is possible. But having scratched a few iPods in my day also (including a nano), I have to believe Apple's story here. It's no different than the others except perhaps that since the screen is so small and the pixel density so high, scratches matter more than they have in the past.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I just looked at my 3rd gen iPod, and the screen is not recessed.
The buttons and scroll wheel are, however.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
Read this Mr. Google...
The annoyance is: There ARE nice scratch-resistant coats for polycarbonate lenses. They are SOP on polycarbonate glasses (very light and strong, quite common for sports-goggles).
Fortunatly, polycarbonate can be polished well. So I'm planning on just polishing mine out once the cases are available.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Unfortunately, Brasso is the reason I now own a beige iPod. It might work well for the black model, but the plastic on the iPod is porous, so it might not be the best thing for white iPods.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
So you are saying that because the happy people on TV are holding it in their hand or have it in an arm band we should conclude that this is the only way it should be used? You sir have just taken fanboy logic to a new level.
First of all, I'm both an investor and a customer. I can't imagine being one and not the other. Secondly, Apple hasn't done anything but respond to customer issues--it's not as if they stop paying attention to problem hardware as soon as their share price recovers. (Anyone remember the PowerBook AC replacement program?) Third, at some point you have to look at the pattern of consumers griping every time a new Apple product is released and ask yourself: is Apple failing its consumers, or is a small minority of consumers just a bunch of whiners? Considering that Apple has always managed to recover from these temporary "debacles" in short measure, I suspect that the consumers are being unreasonable. I mean, come on, they're bitching about scratches! Finally, as I point out in another posting here, this happens to all sorts of manufacturers all the time. The hype around Apple releases just seems to amplify the backlash too.
I went on a fishing trip with my 60GB iPod Photo and the screen got scratched 'cause my buddy put it in his pocket with his keys. This is not a defect 'cause it was clearly rough handled. Come on people, take some responsibility for you actions!
great, but you are actually making the case thinner. scratching the rest of it down to the same level as the scratch. you can't do this many times, and you're weakening it.(someone correct me if im wrong).
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Was that a rear or front pocket?
If I put a nano in a rear pocket, scratching the display would be the least of my worries and very much in line with cracked (rather than simply scratched) displays.
No. I've got a Nano now. The screen is the same size as my phone. The phone has very light scratching after a month. The nano has significant scratching in 48 hours.
I know this is a bit OT, but any word on ipaqs? I have an ipaq 1945 that spontaneousely developed a screen crack (hot day outside, AC inside, thermal expansion?) - HP and Future Shop (I know, stupid me, never buy from Future Shop - I had a gift credit though...) just gave me the runaround, basically saying "Our warranty is for decorative purposes only, do not attempt to actually use it. Go bother the other company." For the extended warranty (I know, extra stupid me, never buy the extended warranty - trusted the @#$!^%@!! Future Shop commissioned sales guy) all I get is ROTFL.
I have heard this is a somewhat frequent problem with this particular model though, and am hoping that maybe seeing Apple do the right thing might persuade HP to do something along the same lines - any suggestions?
the-idiot-who-bought-from-future-shop
Well, since they probably haven't sold a half-million units and not everyone with a nano has put up a web page bellyaching about screen scratches, you may want to filter your results there a little, chief. Good statistical analysis of your googling. Do you have a job in Bush's OMB yet?
On the other hand, you could also try understanding that like a shiny new car, the Nano needs care to maintain it's finish. And like a shiny new car, that finish can be restored with various products that it is not the manufacturer's responsibility to provide.
The nano's clear polycarbonate cover is made of the same stuff as the 3G and 4G nanos. When I got my iPod Photo almost a year ago, I knew it would scratch, so I got a case for it and kept it there.
http://nanoscratch.com/ go here to post pics of your scratched nano or to view other peoples scratched nanos.
what's wrong with saying 0.1%?
on the other hand, how do you know if your iPod screen if faulty. mine is a bit scratched and i would love to get it replaced, but before using it this time, i'm going to invest in some rubber (hopefully a not too expensive alternative to iSkin)
HD Trailers
On principal alone I can simply not bring myslef to buy a 25.00 fucking dollar piece of rubber "skin" that costs pennies to make.
.10 cent rubber case are the proof that the saying "A sucker is born every minute" still holds true.
.78 ounces? Umm, yea that's fair. It's a virtual punch in the face for anyone with common sense to see prices like that when your at a Apple store.
People paying 1/3 to a 1/4 of the original price of their Ipod for a
Oh btw a big FU to Apple for charging $30 dollars for their armbands. $30 for a rubber strap and some velco to support a device that weighs
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
...you can win one at Von like I did last week. :-)
http://www.mit.edu/~kbarr/ipod.html
... I do believe that Mark H. Walker is your man.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
I wish the Mac zealots would quit whining about it and get a nice case for it.
http://www.vajacases.com/home_en.html
In other words, unless Apple's marketing department suspends the second law of thermodynamics, I'm not playing!
Ipods have never been designed for the pocket... its my main problem with them (and the reason I never bought another after mine died). The touch sensitive controls and interface that requires one hand to hold while the other operates make their devices impossible to operate without taking out of the pocket and staring at them. For an excellent pocketable interface, look at an old Rio 500. The buttons have different shapes, have a good tactile press about them, and are hard to push accidentally, even if its in your pocket with your wallet or knife or whatnot.
What I will say for the Ipod though, is that its the finest thing ever made to leave in your car for music. Its weird though... I've had an mp3 player around since the first Rio, but now that the Ipod died I've not replaced it; I've been walking about with no portable music, and I feel better than before. Though I can't get that song about a desert and a horse with no name out of my head... maybe that was the reason I started listening to other music all the time anyway?
Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results.
Throwing around Google search result numbers doesn't provide a very compelling argument for your case. Especially on Slashdot, where we all understand that after the first couple of pages you'll be getting hits that have nothing to do with the subject.
BTW, putting "ipod nano screen scratch" in quotes gets you 9 results. Does that prove that only 9 people had the problem?
I'm suddenly glad my shuffle doesn't have a screen.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
"Googling 'ipod nano screen scratch' yields 521,000 results."
You should send your resume to the Bush administration immediately. Upon reading your words of wisdom, I quickly googled for 'Iraq WMD' - 6.8 million results! Gee, who'd have thunk it's that easy to find 'em!
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
No, they're pretty big endorsements of the fact that the Nano is really, really small. Nowhere does Apple say "durable enough to stand up to keys, crumbs, coins and your 14-threadcount cotton pocket lining." They say, "it's really, REALLY freakin' small. Here, watch Steve pull it from his change pocket. It's THAT small." The pocket-marketing is about size.
Apple doesn't represent the Nano as being indestructible. Apple doesn't claim that it'll survive in your pocket scratch-free. They say it'll FIT in your pocket. Utterly different idea.
Googling "love my ipod nano" yields over 2,000,000 results.
So... for every idiot who thinks plastic doesn't scratch as you rub it around in you pocket all day *doh!* there are over four other people who are ecstatically happy with their ipod nano. Those seem like pretty good odds to me.
--- Nothing To See Here ---
Still, who needs an overpriced Apple when a Creative Zen player offers better sound quality and higher storage capacity for a lower price?
Anyone who wants seamless integration between their music library and their portable device. Anyone who wants the smallest physical size per storage amount in their portable device. Anyone who wants a clean user interface uncluttered by "kitchen sink" syndrome.
I've looked at the Zen and others, but none come even close to Apple's solution with iTunes and iPod. My music is automatically synchronized when connecting the iPod to the computer, both ways. Maybe I'm weird, but I like tracking data like Last Played Time and Play Count, making Smart Playlists based on them. When I hook up the iPod, all the tunes I played while I was out get updated in the library. And I love Smart Playlists. Keeps things nice and organized based on just about any criteria I can possibly imagine. It's in my library and on my portable device.
Nobody needs it, but all of the above is worth the small bit of extra money to me. If it isn't to you, cool. Get something else and be happy.
Believe me, I'd love to jump ship to another product because Apple's continuing lack of attention to the gapless playback problem is getting irritating. They obviously don't care at all, because 99.99% of their customers don't care. Unfortunately I'm one of the few who does. I've looked at the alternatives. And I've found no other solution that comes close to Apple's in every other facet of the system. Guess that makes me a stupid fanboy who only cares about being trendy and fashionable, huh?
Say hello to zMac.
Ipods have never been designed for the pocket...
WTF? I've never carried my 3G 20GB iPod any other way. It fits perfectly in the front or back pocket of my jeans.
The touch sensitive controls and interface that requires one hand to hold while the other operates...
Only if you belong to a species which has no opposable thumbs. Do you peel bananas with your teeth, too?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I had an afternoon free last week while in Paris, so I dropped into the Apple Expo to see what goodies were on offer. When I stopped by the apple area to look at the Nanos, I noticed they were already fairly scratched, as well as covered in fingerprints. So I cleaned one up with my t-shirt, and the Apple employee just about shit a brick. It seems they were replacing the Nanos every night because by the end of the day, they were too scratched to be useful as demo models. I wasn't particularly rough with the t-shirt, but less than a minute of polishing the front surface left it almost completely frosted. The black Nanos showed the damage much worse than the whites, so I know if I ever get one it will be the white. Both that I polished over the screen were unusable within seconds, though.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Then it would no longer be shiny. The scratching problem also affects other devices that have the same type of shiny surfaces. I have a 3-year old 128 MB Muvo that's been totally abused, and the battery case is cracked, but it's not even scratched, but my three months old 1 GB Muvo (new shiny surface) and iPod shuffle are so completely scratched that they can't be scratched any longer.
So you are saying that because the happy people on TV are holding it in their hand or have it in an arm band we should conclude that this is the only way it should be used? You sir have just taken fanboy logic to a new level.
Read my post, it is in reference to marketing. I never said the device should never be put in the pocket, only it wasn't marketed for that. Heck I never even said that the Nano's susceptibility to scratches is ok. But if you actually read what I wrote you would know that and to that I say; Sir you have taken illiteracy to a new level.
Obviously, the Nano scratches happen as a result of the werewolf attacks.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
In New Zealand, Apple's players are cheaper than Creative's... and any other brand name music players. The only thing which compares to Apple in price are the no-name tiny flash players. As soon as you get to 1 GB or more, Apple has the best price point.
:) Old stock just sits in stores without shifting, and we pay about half as much again for most electronic goods as Americans do.
Don't know why - we are a small country with small retail chains though
Anyway, just saying - in some countries Apple is the best deal, and Creative Zens are the overpriced ripoffs.
I'm far more concerned with the 300+ people who have dealt with a flying testicle.
I think people's beef though is that the nano is so easily scratched. Not that they get scratched if mistreated, but that they get miscratched if you damn-near just touch the screen.
So no ipod, esp. a nano, and no ROKR, until this sort of thing is resolved.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
yes because i should be able to toss my devices around like they are a piece of crap and not expect them to get damaged. i've seen how people treat phones so ipods wouldn't get much different treatment.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The Zen's interface is hardly cluttered. I'll never use iTunes or that sort of service until they offer lossless files.
Gapless playback is a problem becuase files aren't encoded properly. The end of one file and the start of the next don't line up. If that bothers you then stick the wav files together and compress it as one file. It would be easy for playback software to support virtual tracks within that larger track. Most people don't care. Most people don't notice the drop in sound quality from CD to mp3.
I've had my iPod for almost 4 years now. No scratches on it. I take care of it. Same goes for my 2-year-old cellphone.
Or you can do like I might one day, and taking advice from a /. user, find a perfectly clear packing tape that can peel off easily after being applied, and afix a well sized piece to your screen. When it becomes marred, just remove it and apply another.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
mostly i think you are though you may also be pushing some material into the scratch. But the truth is scratches are generally very shallow so its not really an issue to polish stuff to get rid of them.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Sure but haven't we used cotton based clothes for quite some time now? and there hasn't been problems matching those with the iPod Nano before. I don't think micro particles in cotton clothing is to blame here.
Waiting for you by the bridge
When I got a Cube, I freaked out at a scratch that looked to be the start of a complete cracking of the case. I raised hell with Apple, and they sent me a new case. It had a similar scratch. Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe the way I felt. Yet I continued using it, and have always liked the way it looks.
I still have the Cube. That scratch (?) is still there. It didn't get bigger. Every time I'd started thinking about finding a quiet PC, or installing Linux, I'd look at the Cube and think, hey I already have it.
And Apple stopped making Cubes. Yeah, they were ridiculously overpriced, but maybe Apple did too good a job - it looked so good that people wouldn't accept any flaws.
Maybe the Nano is just too cute.
have a Sony Ericsson T610 phone, which has black shiny plastic around the screen almost identical to the Nano. I always keep it in my pocket without a case, rubbing against the keys and change ... And yet the screen and black plastic parts have no scratches to speak of.
Same with my Panasonic phone, and that's been carried around with my keys for over 3.5 years now - most buttons are unreadable, the body has had the metalic silver paint almost entirely scratched off, but the screen has only a few minuscule scratches that are only noticable when you shine a light to reflect off the surface and do not impair readability at all. Sounds like an apple manufacturing error to me - they tried to make the nano ultra-smooth and shiny, and cocked up big time in the process.
What kind of screen does the nano have? My mini has what feels like a glass plate over the LCD, which is very smooth, so far scratch resistant (more so than the rest of case) and flush with the case.
whores that want to do you
I'm sorry, but I can't agree with your argument.
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Sorry, thanks for playing. Most of the people complaining did -not- put it in their pocket with -anything-, much less with keys. Just an empty pocket. That's why they're pissed.
I've seen the photos, and I am 100% certain that the damage was not caused by keys. Damage by keys is very distinct. It is a small number of deep scars spaced apart randomly in a zig-zag fashion, generally crossing each other randomly, and showing variable depth of gouging.
The damage in the scarred Nano photos I've seen was almost uniform across a section of the surface. The ONLY way that such damage can occur is if the surface is exposed to a large, flat abrasive area, such as sandpaper, someone's driveway, etc.
From this, we can assert that one of the following must be true:
I -strongly- suspect #3 is, in fact, the cast, as the scarring very much looks like my camera lens gets if I smuge it and wipe it with my shirt without blowing warm, moist air on the lens. Blowing warm, most air on the lens and wiping it immediately with a lens tissue or my shirt, however, removes these marks (which are almost indistinguishable from scars except in that they refract light differently).
If your iPod is scarred, seriously try wiping it with a damp cloth (water or Windex or something similarly non-abrasive--NOTE: do NOT use Windex with ammonia or any other strong cleaner). See if that makes the apparent scars go away. If it doesn't, and if you didn't abuse the Nano... no idea.
Apple wants to dilly with the public and doesn't care then call the nano the nono. IT is a no no when someone refuses to realise they have a problem. "My Cat scrached my nano mommy. " Mother says, " You bought a nono."
I don't have a 'pod yet, I've read good things about polishing with brasso (liquid abrasive. ammonia based but a good way to remove scratches from areas without silkscreened text) and the invisible shield seems to come recommend as a replaceable glossy finish with transparent protective properties after your repair. This is available for cellphones as well.
I went to Circuit City last night to pick up a Nano with the $15 off coupon they have been passing out. They told me they sent their entire stock of 4 GB nanos back to Apple. I was hoping to pick up their extended warrenty so if the nano got scratched up or the price dropped I would get my money back. CC must have wised up fast to the nano.
wait a bit more because this may be the iPhone/iPod
When my 2G iPod's hd died on me days after I bought it, I got a Zen instead of a 2G iPod back when they came out because of the a) price and b) hesitations at Apple's lack of support for lossless (at the time).
Not only was the interface completely horrid, I spent more time trying to use the software without it dying horribly. Thank god for Notmad Explorer, the only thing that made it bearable. Creative should fire all their software people (for ALL their lines, the Audigy applets for example are paragons of BAD EVERYTHING - UI, usability, stability).
After a just-as-bad debacle with a Rio Karma, I went back to the iPod. I rarely buy anything from the iTMS (which is, by the way NOT iTunes; you can't buy anything from iTunes, you buy it from the iTMS). However, the integration between all components (iTunes, iPod, iTMS, iSync even) is sooooo buttery smooth that everything else is really second rate in comparison. Other companies may have better or more interesting hardware, but Apple wins by a HUGE margin when it comes to usability and integration. And the lossless issue? Hasn't been one for a long time now.
If I've only got one hand free, I usually do. The juice from the peels makes my tongue all numb and tingly though. They're another good example of something that, to be operated well, takes one hand to hold while the other operates.
Of course, it would be awesome to say, stare at the banana and use my mind to make it peel itself, but my species isn't really known for that either.
> Not only was the interface completely horrid,
That's subjective. I find it intuitive and easy to use.
> I spent more time trying to use the software without it dying horribly
I've never had that problem. I just plug it into my PC and it appears as a device. I double click and I get a window with panes for Genre, Artist, Album and Tracks.
> Thank god for Notmad Explorer,
The trail version is too crippled for me to be able to assess whether it's worth spending money on. Given that the supplied software does the job for me, I'm not worried about it since.
> And the lossless issue? Hasn't been one for a long time now.
Can you get lossless audio files from iTunes or iTMS now? I don't really need to buy a lot of new music as I have so much to listen to already, so I'm not really too concerned about how well integrated it is. But different people have different needs.
almost every pereon that i have seen with an ipod has at least some scratches on it if a person were to get the same number of scratches on a screen that was alot smaller then it woulnt it appear that the smaller screen scratchs more and easyer thats my theory on the matter
Gapless playback is a problem becuase files aren't encoded properly. The end of one file and the start of the next don't line up.
:)
;)
If you'd read the site I linked to, you'd understand that this is only a very small part of the problem. The iPod (and iTunes) adds a much larger gap than can be attributed to encoded frame length alone. The site shows this beautifully with real data. It's simply sloppy programming on Apple's part - they obviously chose to do the simplest thing, which is don't even open or start decoding the next file until the current one is finished playing and closed. Any decent programmer worthy of breathing could buffer audio output so that there's no extra delay introduced. And the gap inherent in the frame size could be removed with a little smart logic that skips any silence at the end of the very last frame.
They're just too lazy (and this is the company that's constantly praised for "paying attention to detail" - yeah right!).
If that bothers you then stick the wav files together and compress it as one file. It would be easy for playback software to support virtual tracks within that larger track.
That's not even close to an acceptable solution. The entire CD becomes one big track, and you can no longer store metadata on a per-song basis. You can't skip around and play individual songs. Doesn't work.
Importing the album twice isn't acceptable either, so don't even think about suggesting that.
Plenty of complete solutions do exist, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for their implementation.
Most people don't care.
Exactly, and that's why it's so frustrating to me. I do care, but I know the current situation makes it unlikely that Apple (or any of its competitors) will listen to the minority. It's really the only blemish on an otherwise superb listening experience, so I usually focus on the positives (and the music!) and enjoy myself anyway.
Say hello to zMac.
That's subjective. I find it intuitive and easy to use. Possibly, but it's shared by a vast majority - read up on reviews of the Zen, and every single one mentions the subpar software interface. If it wasn't so bad, Notmad Explorer wouldn't be a viable end product, now would it? Finally, plop someone down in front of the Creative solution, then iTunes, and guess which one they will find easier to use? (Note that you don't even have to find someone that's used iTunes before).
I've never had that problem. I just plug it into my PC and it appears as a device. I double click and I get a window with panes for Genre, Artist, Album and Tracks.
The software is bloated and slow. Check out your memory usage on it after leaving it running for a few hours. Using it as a jukebox is a joke. And let me tell you something about the whole 'plug in and get a device' method; it's a poor substitute for a properly managed database driven setup. For small flash based players or smaller devices, dragging and dropping from the explorer is a good thing and sometimes preferable. For anything serious, that quickly becomes arduous and painful. Since the Zen software is barely a step above that... well, there you go. At least the iPod work it a little better - music is managed by iTunes, and you can do whatever the hell you want with the extra space in disk mode.
It may function for you. But for me and a lot of other people, it's suboptimal, not from a hardware point of view, but on the software front, where it's just completely bowled over by the Apple solution - and this is coming from someone who up until that point really didn't want to have anything to do with the company.
My nano's screen broke only after 4 days! Then I heard about the Class Action Lawsuit against Apple and joined at the site brokennano.com You guys should check it out! Its interesting because Apple says they will fix the Nanos that are breaking in a public statement, but they ARE NOT!
If you are stuck with a broken or scratched NANO then go to brokennano.com and get yours fixed!