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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.
...that after that whole fiasco with the G4 cube Apple would just get it right when it comes to cracking cases!
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
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
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.
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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
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
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 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?
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*
I think if you're an Apple investor, you're probably happy enough about the near-quintupling in the last 2 years that a 4% drop isn't the end of the world.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
but there is no excuse for it with the price they are charging. I have a pair of glasses on my face that is made out of polycarbonate as well and they are damn hard to scratch. It's called an anti-scratch coating. I even have it on the $6.99 LCD watch on my wrist (I break watches FAST!)
Apple could have had the scratch coating applied to the screen area only making most people very happy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.
> 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?
Modded as informative? At least one person with mod points has a sense of humour today ;-)
-- Using the preview button since 2005
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-
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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. --
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.
"DDTT" = "Don't Do That Then".
A fairly common abbreviation I thought ..
I'm sorry, but I think its a reasonable request to be able to put an ipod nano in your pocket, unprotected, and expect not to look like crap after a few days of use. My 3g ipod is a year old. While the battery life is down to about 2-3 hours of use, the case and screen look fine after keeping it in my pocket daily, for over a year. While you may not have an issue, there are obviously thousands of people who dissatisfied.
I see a lot of Apple apologists saying "use a case" buy a "screen protector" but any of those solutions are simply compensating for a design flaw.
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
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.
>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!
Apple Made Them
Of course, we all know that Apple are fairly close to perfect, so this is obviously big new. Not quite as big as the news that Google did something wrong, but pretty big, nonetheless. Of course, if it had been Microsoft then it wouldn't have been news, but it would still have been posted on Slashdot so people could have a chance to say how much better Linux is, and how Apple would never have made the same mistake.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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"
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.
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.
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!
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.