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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.
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
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).
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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
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.
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 paid 200 dollars for my nano. Maybe to you that isn't a lot of money, but to me it is. I wanted the nano because of its size, so I could stick it in my pocket and not think about it, just enjoy my music. Buying a case for it would not only make it bulkier, but take away from the beauty of its appearance. I now spend more time thinking about if my nano is getting scratched from the way that I am carrying it, rather than listening to and enjoyinh my music, like I should be.
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'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
>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.
They didn't get anything wrong. What the article submitter didn't quote was the part where the Apple guy says the Nano is not only made of the same material as the higher-end iPods, but that they've received no complaints about those iPods.
Some of the other posters who don't believe Apple and post a bunch of links to websites are making a logical fallacy. Just because there are websites doesn't make the problem widespread. It's not. It's been blown out of proportion by a contingent of people who just don't like iPods for various reasons, including competitors who have been astroturfing websites in a desperate attempt to discredit the Nano.
In a couple of weeks, nobody will even remember any of this "controversy," because it's overblown and phony. The Nanos are selling like hotcakes.
"Sufferin' succotash."
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.
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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.
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.
So is your cellphone scratch-free? Is your Gameboy scratch-free? How about your keychains, etc etc? Scratches happen, granted you can use "scratch-proof" plastics but even those scratch and they are rather expensive. Don't believe me? Go to the optomotrist and ask to have your lenses made of scratch-proof plastic, it's at least $30 most everyplace. Sure $30 doesn't seem like much, until you start trying to hit a certain price point with your product and a certain profit margin to stay profitable.
Slashdot had a story on the materials cost for the nano and put it somewhere around $98 including assembly cost, let's say scratch-proof plastic costs a manufacturer roughly 33% of what you pay at the eye doctor, so it's $10 per screen. You've just increased the material cost of your product by 10%, that's huge! Even 5% would be a lot margin-wise. As someone else said, a good rule of thumb is every $1 extra in materials cost translates to $4 more in final product price.
iPods can take a great deal of abuse, but demanding that they not even scratch is rather rediculous. All portable devices scratch when you put them in a pocket or bag unprotected, that's why most cell phones with LCDs and the GBA-SP are clamshell style, they fold over to protect the delicate screen. Just try leaving your phone flipped open or your GBA-SP open and in a backpack, I guarantee you'll see the same amount of scratching. And aren't these portable devices expected to go everywhere with you? Phones especially are designed to take damage, I've dropped mine at a jog more times than I care to think about and it's scratched to hell but still works.
And before anyone goes off on my armchair QBing here, I own an ipod mini, and my friend purchased a nano last week. I've seen and used ipods, they're just like any other screen, take care with it and it'll be fine, treat it like the whole thing is made of stainless steel and don't be surprised when normal wear occurs.
The other point that people seem to be glossing over and that I tried to highlight in my OP was that Apple is claiming the nano screens (outer plastic) are the same material as all other ipods. So that means one of two things, either Apple is lying (not smart, and why would they, they only stand to lose in that case) or people are doing more damage and/or have higher expectations than before. Perhaps it's just people's perception, no one much noticed or cared about a few scratches when it was just B/W text song titles being displayed, but now that they have a tiny color screen every obscured pixel is a personal affront!
Again, if in fact the materials are the same then the only way they can scratch more (than previous ipod models) is through different use!
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --