iPod a throwaway? Fans demand Apple face music

The rest of the article at: seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001824165_ipodsecret27.html

iPods dirty secret website: www.ipodsdirtysecret.com/

By Hank Stuever
The Washington Post
 
HELAYNE SEIDMAN / POST

Casey Neistat is a 22-year-old multimedia artist who lives in Lower Manhattan, so it almost goes without saying that he's got an Apple iPod and that he loves it, because what young, self-respecting multimedia artist in Lower Manhattan doesn't these days?

But his love was tested when his iPod went cold and he could not bring it back to life.

Ownership of an iPod digital music player has grown a bit culty, especially when people talk about how it has changed their inner musical lives. This sounds like crazy talk — until you get one, and then you, too, are having an everlasting love affair with something very small. An iPodder has a telltale white cord coming from his coat pocket to his ears and lives in sonic smugness; he walks around in a happy glaze, with his entire music collection — as many as 10,000 songs — going with him.

Neistat bought his iPod in early 2002, not long after Apple introduced it. He usually listened to it on his daily bike ride to TriBeCa, where he and his brother, Van, 28, have a small studio and work together on films and other art projects, professionally calling themselves the Neistat Brothers.

In late October — after about 18 months of use — the rechargeable lithium-ion battery in Casey Neistat's iPod would no longer work.

So he went to Apple's terribly chic megastore in SoHo and asked to purchase a new battery. He was calm about it. So were the clerks who dashed his hopes.

"I explained that it wasn't charging up anymore," Neistat recalls, "and they said, 'We don't offer a new battery. You should just buy a new iPod.' "

This offended him on a lot of levels, mostly their assumption that he could simply plunk down several hundred dollars for a new one. Neistat told them he couldn't afford that. They shrugged him off, so he went home and called Apple's technical-support number, three times.

This is where the trouble started, and it's how, a month later, nearly 1 million (and counting) Internet surfers have come to know the Neistat Brothers as the makers of a 2-minute, guerrilla-style film about deceit and revenge called "iPod's Dirty Secret."

In it, Casey Neistat calls Apple's tech support, presses 1 and explains his battery problem to someone named Ryan, a minion of the computer company.

Like a doctor with zero bedside manner, Ryan quickly gets to the point: Since Neistat's iPod is past the yearlong warranty, the cost of parts, labor and shipping would nearly equal the cost of a new machine. Ryan suggests, yet again, that Neistat should probably just relax and buy a new iPod, which currently costs from $299 to $499, depending on the memory size.

As the voice of Ryan drones coldly on about the iPod's internal workings, we see the brothers getting busy against the Man. With the rap group NWA's song "Express Yourself" as a soundtrack, they make a large poster-board stencil that reads: "iPod's Unreplaceable Battery Lasts Only 18 Months."

(cr)Apple steps up to the plate - NOT:
Apple began offerring a battery replacement program for the ipod for a fee of $99 and an extended warranty for the ipod for $59.

Where is SoHo and TriBeCa?

Where Goatboy lives?

SoHo is lower Manhattan, East Side, below E14th. Tribeca is north of there....but that's all I remember. SoHo is full of weirdo artsy fartsy types.

[url]http://www.newyork.com/visit/hoods/soho.html[/url]

Near Alphabet City.

Apple does this all the time to their cult. They'll sell you a computer and if you want to upgrade you have to add all sorts of expensive hardware if you want it to work.

[url]http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3472745,00.html[/url]

A $400 device that it cost $100 dollars to fix the battery in.



Don’t forget the annual $130 to keep current with OS X.

God people who buy Apple products are so stupid... Apple people drink the kool-aid already and get it over with.

Is there an off-the-shelf Linux jukebox?

Actually, it was Flavor-Aid.  [;)]

As opposed to equally expensive batteries for PocketPCs and an annual $120-200 to keep current with the latest version of Windows?

Keeping yourself 'on the edge' is an expensive proposition, no matter who you buy from...

Oh, and try finding out how much a new cell phone battery costs (unless you have a POS discontinued phone, and can find clearance-priced batteries, it's gonna be between $60-100)...

That's the problem with proprietary batteries... But of course, the alternative is shorter battery life if you design a device with AAs...

Sorry Dave_A, but new cell phone batteries are $40 from the manufacturer, and significantly less for aftermarket products. Even for the lithium ions. You're thinking of prices from 5 years ago.

Apple is screwing people, these lithium ion batteries should be user replaceable.

Get a Sony Mini-Disc player.

One AA battery lasts over 50 hours and is rechargeable.

One 80 min disc can recorde almost 5 and a half hours in extended recordeing mode.

The sound beats any MP3 out there.

[url=http://www.sonystyle.com/cgi-bin/ss5/cgi/tracker/sstracker.cgi%3FadPlacementID%3Dgoogle%26bannerID%3Dsony_mini_disc&sa=l&ai=A6i3BZbh7_gumLEqw0QZspi9Cq_q_EAI6LnAuFnICLEAkOBAginQACIAmWAAAAAAA]Sony mini disc[/url]

I just got the wife one of these for Christmas and I love the little thing.

I hate Apple.

If the little dweeb had a brain instead of bitching about his Ipod on the internet he'd take it apart and figure out what it's power needs are and order Nickel Metal Hydride batterys to make a new pack for it.
So what if they'd have to be outside of his geek fetish toy.


I've got dead Nicads in a flash system that need replacing to make the unit usefull again.
A new part is not availabale the best repair guy in the country won't do the repairs on this unit because he'd have to charge more than a stand alone aftermarket pac that uses the AC port would cost (around $350).  It's going to cost me less than $30 plus my time (I need 26AA sized cells with solder tabs).

A similar situtation for my motor drives, $130+ fee for a rebuild with nicads but I can rebuild them myself for around $25 (need to use 2 9v packs and cut them apart)

Did you guys read the rest of the article?

After this whole saga these two queers went back and BOUGHT THE DAMN IPOD!

Talk about a CULT? Isnt continually returning to them after they have abused you a indicator of cultic behavior and that you have becomed programmed?

"Casey Neistat went back to the Apple boutique and bought a new iPod for $400..."


SUCKER!

And from reading the article they did get a replacement battery (with instructions and tools!) and tried installing it themselves, but failed miserably.

However crap like this:
"It's this emotional, visceral field."
and, "people talk about how it has changed their inner musical lives" makes me [puke]

Not to mention how miserable he must be without the Ipod isolation given ability to "walks around in a happy glaze"  Spend time in the real word you moron! [pyro]

This is from a really funny blogger who sometimes rags on Apple and those who keep coming back to Apple even after the OS X upgrade and now the iPod scam.  They're like battered wives who wont leave their husband.

[b]OS for Pussies…

One would think Apple customers have no balls whatsoever the way the company treats them.  It's just come out that users of MacOS X must purchase the latest [s]service pack[/s] operating system upgrade in order to receive several critical security fixes.



Let's be clear about this.  OS X 10.2 is barely a year old and already Apple refuses to support it.  No, for the same money you shelled out in January you have the privilege of making another interest payment on Steve Jobs' private jet.  In return they'll give you OS X 10.3, aka "Panther", aka the OS for Pussies.



This is pretty much extortion and if Apple's customers let them get away with it they must be the biggest collection of masochists in the country.


Oh and they're marketing this glorified service release as innovative – "like getting a whole new Mac" – for features such as user-switching (XP Home), aliased file system and network objects (Windows 2000), memory protection (Windows NT), videoconferencing (for Christ's sake, Apple, it's been around for years), offline network storage (Windows 2000), a minimize all windows function (Windows 3.1), etc. etc. etc.  Typical "new" 10.3 feature as advertised on Apple.com:  an e-mail program.  Yeah, you'll want to get yourself one of those now that you're on the Inter-web.



The Reality Distortion Field must be cranked up to eleven for this shakedown to have any hope of success.  How can something that is 99% same old crap be advertised as "completely new"?  I don't understand the attraction of Apple's marketing style either, which can be summed up as "ignorantly smug".  And yet somehow it works – at least on the second percentile of computer users.



Add to this the requirement that users buy the upgrade to get essential security fixes and you have a company and product that only a zombie could love.



It's a sad situation that while Microsoft is pilloried for not bending over backwards to promote competing technologies and mollify market losers, Apple performs ritualized upgrade-rape on its user base.  And as God as my witness these moronic slaves couldn't be more thrilled. 10/30/2003 7:41 PM


As if the disaster of forcing users to upgrade for security fixes wasn't enough bad karma for Apple, it looks like 10.3 is also riddled with bugs.  "The computer for the rest of you" strikes again.



Update:  Apple has clarified its position on pre-10.2 security fixes.  Meanwhile the 10.3 bug list counter is still spinning. 11/4/2003 5:30 PM[/b]

[url]http://www.udolpho.com/weblog/Default.asp?id=00220&title=OS-for-Pussies[/url]

That's funny I'm running 10.2.8 and just downloaded a service update. Hmm.

After running WindowsME, I'll stick with the lesser evil, the abusive husband that is Mac, thank you.

As for the iPod, that is troubling. So far I haven't been able to find an .mp3 player that has the storage capacity of an iPod, and I haven't been able to get over the sticker shock of buying one either. It is good to know that if a rich uncle does die I can replace the battery myself with one available from a computer parts store.

ME is dead.  Microsoft switched to the NT Kernel years ago with XP.  Comparing ME with OS 10 is picking for a worst-best mismatch.

One hard crash in thousands of hours use of XP.

XP is damn near bulletproof.

Maybe I'm missing the whole point of this ipod thing, but does this guy know that he can get a good Walkman for under 50 bucks, and it runs on AA batteries?

I know I'm in the technological stone age, but what the hell is this ipod thing, and why is it better than carrying a Walkman and 3 or 4 CDs?

(marked for future reading)

BTW, Ipods are nice and all, but what good is a Western Digital 10Gig hard drive in a high vibration environment? Or after a couple years of spooling data from the same tracks? I already kill one HD a year listening to mp3s; I'd much rather replace one from a computer than some trendy $400 hand held.

WC Fields said it the best "there is a sucker born every minute."

[url]http://www.ipodbattery.com/[/url]
[url]http://www.ipodbattery.com/slimipodinstall.htm[/url]

Gee swapping the battery doesn't seem THAT hard...and some of guys actually build you own AR's? Jeez.

I love my ipod and have no qualms replacing the battery 1.5 years from now.

Wow,  I'm surprised you were able to kill a HD after a year.  Anyhow the drive in an iPod is just an off the shelf laptop harddrive,  they are MUCH more shock and vibration resisitant than any desktop drive.

GT, an ipod is an mp3 player that uses a laptop hard drive, enough space space for your entire music collection (for normal people anyway).

There are many other similar products, so I never understood why the ipod was so popular.

Hmmm, I have a Mac,

I also have several PCs

I am goign to take the Mac out and blow the shit out of it with my M14 and as many mags as I can pump through it without turning the barrel red hot

I prefer Linux or WinXP Pro

and I think Mac should learn a lesson onhow to treat their customers, then again, if they keep coming back... maybe they have

I've got XP running on my machine and have used it for over a year with -0- failures. No crashes, no hiccups, no FTB, no FTTO, nada. Used to use Mac's at JPL; nice for the multi-media plug-n-play, but otherwise PIA to do real work with. Apple bites.

CW

the marketing ppl. at apple are geniuses, they actually get customers to pay more for a vastly inferior product

I really don't want to get into another platform vs platform debate, but I still have to wonder why many PC users feel the need to trash Macs at every opportunity.

Hmmm...

This thing will hold 10,000 songs? I don't think I even like that many songs.

Why would you need that many songs in a pocket sized package? I could see needing a few CDs if I was going to walk somewhere. But if I needed 10,000 songs to walk somewhere, then I'd probably drive there. My truck can hold a lot of CDs. And if it was going to take 10,000 songs to drive there, then I'd probably fly. And again I'm back to the walkman and a few CDs to get me through the trip.

I think I'm missing the point.

WAIT- is this a metrosexual thing (I'm not sure what that is either, but it seems to fit.)? Is it a homosexual thing? 'Cause I don't go in for that sorta stuff, which is probably why I don't understand.

Cause a lot of us are ex-Mac users...

What I dont like about Apple users is this smug attitude they have about being an Apple user. They're like "Wow, I dont know shit about how to use or set up a PC, but the Macintosh is so user-friendly, even someone as stupid as me can use it!  I feel sorry for those people who use PC's."

Mac people are like the French.  You just want to punch them.

Hey Gunbert, a new battery for my phone is $70.00 plus tax. Sho nuff wish I had one of them cheap battery phones.

b/c i've been forced to use macs in the past and know how much they suck [:p]

The MiniDisc player isn't comparable...

The comparison is between the iPod, RCA Lyra, and some Creative Labs product (I forgot what they called it)???

In order to play it back, they need 'specialty' batteries...

As for why Apple's is so popular, it's simple: MARKETING.

The iPod was on TV. The iPod was in 'normal' magazines (Time, et al). It was even on THE RADIO (a novel thought for a music player, advertise where people listen to music)....

That's why they sell, because Apple needs to market them...


P.S. WRT phone batteries, I used to work for RadioShack this past year... Retail price for manufacturer supplied replacement batteries is still in that range, with the exception of a few low-end/old phones (Nokia 5000/6000 series)...

Way back when I was in college, pc's were a piece of crap, and MAC was the shit.

That was before windows when pc's were all on DOS.

MACS were great for graphics and very user friendly(compared to DOS), but, that was then, this is now.

I don't see how the general public can justify a MAC over a PC since the early to mid 90's

iPods are incredibly cool pieces of gadgetry. It's a joy to use--it's the same kind of buzz you get when you handle a really nice 1911. Sure, there are cheapo 1911s out there that throw lead in the general direction of a target when you pull the trigger, but there's an undeniable joy when you finally use something that's _right_.

Having several gigs of space for music is very handy. I can carry mine to my car (plays over car speakers), to my office, and to my home, and have a significant fraction of my music collection with me anywhere I go. Radio is so lame these days that you just about have to program for yourself, and I don't want to be stuck with the same five CDs until I get up the gumption to hunt through the collection for more.

I picked up a 250 gb hard disk to rip the whole CD collection. I don't want to paw through stacks of CDs any more.

It's cause they suck.

but it works both ways, I still have to wonder why many [b]Mac[/b] users feel the need to trash [b]PCs[/b] at every opportunity.

I know ME is dead. I tried getting support for it when my PC died. Of course MS blamed my problems on the driver. When I told them I had the latest driver, they blamed my problems on my video card. It worked fine before I loaded the new MS software. Anyway, I spent several hours on the phone with MS tech performing the same tricks over and over again. Then they asked the make of my computer. I said that there was no make that I built it myself. Well that was the answer for them. It was obviously my fault. Never mind I had been using it for over a year with no problems before I loaded MS's new software.  Later I found out that MS had bugs in that new software that often caused problems. A friend of mine sent an email, days too late, telling me not to download the new software.  

So I made the switch to a Mac simply so I don't have to worry about the mix and match game. It seems the older I get the less I want to fiddle. I'm enjoying my slide back into computer illiteracy.  If I had the time to mess with computers like I used to then I would absolutely hate it. With a Mac you don't feel like you have the control you have with a PC, which is the case.

At work we use XP and NT 4.0. It seems to work fine, but then again I don't have to fool with it at work.

I've been running my Mac almost non-stop (I reboot for software installs and updates) since April. I have had no crashes, and the only glitch I see is if I run too many programs at once, like 6 or more, the ability to close a program from the docking station is locked out. I have to close the program from the menu bar. Since I'm coming from an ME machine you can probably tell why I'm pleased so far.

Boy I feel bad with my Archos USB2 hard drive which though a bit bigger uses common "AA" batteries, records (digital, microphone, and analog) and is a whole bunch cheaper [lol]

Did the fucking cell phone cost $400.00?

Do you have to fucking disassemble the cell phone to replace the battery?

Would you have bought the fucking cell phone knowing that it was designed not to have the battery user servicable?

After you bought the fucking cell phone for $400 and then found out the hard way that you could not replace the battery after it died and you called the cell phone company and they told you that you should just buy a new one I suppose you would have just shelled out another $400....

Swapping the battery is not that hard.
It only took the threat of a lawsuit for (cr)Apple to change their "tune".

I still would not buy one just for the simple fact that it is not "user friendly" servicable.

Fucking (cr)Apple makes your disassemble the entire piece of shit to get at the battery.
Why not make it with a removable battery so that you could have TWO fucking batteries, one in the charger and one in the unit, and just swap them out as needed.

Oh, Mac bashing again.....yawn..........[sleep]

Jesus ka3b, lay off the coffee bud....

I don't see what the big deal is here.  How many of you that think the Ipod is shit or that there's "vastly better" products out there have actually spent any time with one?  The interface is awesome, very intuitive, they are typically smaller than the competitors of the same memory size, and you can carry 10,000 songs.  And now you can replace the battery yourself for $60.

GovtThug
People like to be able to have 10k songs with them because you can always have your entire library of music with you.  If you're in the mood to hear a particular song, whether in the car, at work, on the train, airplane, whatever, you can.  No, it's not a necessity like eating or breathing, but to someone with a little disposable income it's a pretty cool little device.

I don't own one of these things, but one of my friends does and I think they're cool as hell.  If I wasn't working out some current gun projects I'd probably buy one.

The holiday shopping season illustrated a bit of the best and worst about Apple Computer.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B0C69A496%2D0D47%2D4DC4%2D88D7%2D6C4F5B6B7AE9%7D&siteid=mktw

IPods to take center stage for Apple
PC maker to push low prices, new devices at MacWorld

The Cupertino, Calif.-based personal computer maker has such a hit on its hands with its iPod digital music player that the devices -- which store up to 10,000 songs -- were strong sellers and many retailers and Apple (AAPL: news, chart, profile) company stores reportedly ran out of the iconic iPod before Christmas. There were more than enough willing buyers, but not enough iPods on the shelves to meet the needs of many Christmas wish lists.

And only recently has Apple begun a battery-replacement program for the iPod after coming under consumer fire for the difficulties involved in getting repairs for the popular music player beyond its one-year warranty.

But even those hurdles, and the iPod's price, which puts it above competing music players from the likes of PC rivals Dell (DELL: news, chart, profile) and Gateway (GTW: news, chart, profile), have not slowed demand. The iPod comes in a 10-gigabyte, 2,500-song version for $299, a 20-gigabyte, 5,000-song device for $399 and a 40-gigabyte, 10,000-song version for $499. For the 12 months ending in October, Apple said it sold 939,000 iPods, up from 381,000 in the year-ago period.

By comparison, Dell's 15-gigabyte Dell DJ costs $224 and its 20-gigabyte device costs $279 when purchased through the Dell Web site; Gateway's DMP-X20 20-gigabyte music player costs $299.

However, those lower, competitive prices could be having an effect on Apple's thinking. The company is set to take part in the annual San Francisco MacWorld Conference and Expo show from Jan. 5-9 and industry analysts expect Apple to take the wraps off a slate of new, lower-priced iPods.

It is probably just coincidence that the MacWorld show and the attention toward the iPod occurs less than a month before the 20th anniversary of the Mac, Apple's flagship computer, and, arguably, the most-influential PC in history. The Mac symbolized Apple over the past two decades, and now, the iPod is enjoying some of the same status in the tech industry and could be the device that drives Apple's future growth.

Apple showed the same market leadership with its iTunes music download site, a cousin to the iPod. ITunes has had about 25 million downloads so far, Apple says, at 99 cents a pop. As with the Mac and iPod, competitors tagged along as paid download sites emerged from Dell, Wal-Mart (WMT: news, chart, profile) and Roxio's (ROXI: news, chart, profile) revival of the Napster site.

Any new iPods would likely be shown off very early in the conference, with CEO Steve Jobs scheduled to deliver the show's keynote address the morning of Jan. 6. Expectations are high that the new iPods will cost around $100 and hold between 400 and 800 songs, and will be aimed at consumers who want a digital music player but who might not have the need for a device that can replace more CDs than a person is likely to ever own.

The economic realities of the market are also making it likely that Apple will, at the very least, cut the prices of its current iPod line even if it doesn't show off any new iPods. While Apple and its unique design might have the mindshare of the market, competitors continue to grow. In addition to Dell and Gateway, Panasonic, Rio, and Samsung also make popular and less-expensive music players.

Additionally, many of Apple's PC rivals have taken steps to bring the PC and the digital music players closer to the consumer living room by releasing versions of the Media Center, a computer that runs on Microsoft's (MSFT: news, chart, profile) Windows operating system and is designed to ultimately link the PC with a television and broadband Internet access.

When Jobs showed off the flat-screen version of the iMac PC in early 2002, he said the computer would be the center of the digital lifestyle hub. With Apple's rivals not waiting to play catch-up, analysts say Jobs will need to prove that the company's technology can work in the living room as well as it does on the computer desktop and in the ears of its many iPod users.

From page 3 of Battery And Assault by the Washington Post:
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16540-2003Dec19.html[/url]

When you buy an iPod, nothing in the fine print of the owner's manual prepares you for the eventual, final power drain, or gives you any estimate of how far down the road death awaits. This appears to be less an omission or deceit on Apple's part and more of a callous assumption: All electronics go to heaven, kids. Apple and other manufacturers are carefully pushing consumers further away from the battery age, when consumers could try to fix broken things, or replace their power sources.

"There's a whole culture evolving," says Stan Ng, Apple's director of worldwide marketing for the iPod. "The iPod is a labor of love for everyone at Apple, but we still don't really understand just how much of a role it's playing in people's lives, how important it's really become. It's this emotional, visceral field."

Ng says everyone is learning together: Apple doesn't yet know how often consumers will want or can afford to replace their iPods, nor has the product been around long enough for the company to know accurately how long most iPods will last. (It's commonly thought the battery is good for about 500 full recharges. "We're hearing from people who bought theirs in November 2001 when it was first released," Ng says, "and they're still listening to their music.")

He's also not entirely sure they'll avail themselves of the battery-replacement service. The company has not yet made provision for a deluge of 1.4 million returned iPods awaiting service. "You're right, there are people who are running into the situation [of the battery dying] and who will use our replacement program," he says. "But there are also customers who, at that point, could decide, 'Wow, look at those new products,' which have new capabilities."

This is a notion Sequeira heartily seconds: "We're just not expecting this to be a big issue."

http://www.appleturns.com/yesterday/

(cr)Apple geeks respond.


It's official: if we hear any more smack talk about the iPod's battery, we're going to turn green and swell up and all our clothes will rip and fall off with the exception of our tattered pants, which will have mysteriously turned purple. We've been over the Neistat Brothers' publicity-seeking act of vandalism before, so we're not going to go through all that again, but now that the Neistats are finally getting the national mainstream press coverage they so obviously wanted in the first place (we've recently seen articles in the Washington Post and the New York Post) and faithful viewer Phil points out that Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP is even considering filing a class action lawsuit over the issue, we figure a public service announcement is in order to clear up at least some of the misconceptions about the iPod's battery life.

First of all, we're not saying that the Neistats' message is off-base, just that it seems intentionally misleading and controversial, presumably for the sake of boosting the buzz for their filmmaking efforts. Sure, if your iPod is a year and a half old, it's entirely possible that you'll eventually find that you can no longer get it to hold a charge of longer than about twenty minutes. We know, because it happened to us, too. And there is absolutely no question that Apple isn't handling the situation as well as it should; the tech support experience the Neistats went through is something that belongs in the Wintel world, not Apple's. That said, no matter how clearly the Neistats state that they "are in no way affiliated with the pending class action against Apple Computer, Inc. or the law firm of Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP," their video almost certainly instigated it.

Well, we mentioned this in passing in a previous scene, but in light of potential legal action, we feel we should mention it again. Ready? We managed to get a two-year-old iPod, one that couldn't hold a charge overnight even when it was turned off, running again at about 70% of its original charge capacity simply by installing a firmware update.

It's true! No replacement battery, third-party or otherwise; no hardware replacement or adjustment of any kind. All we did was search through Apple's support forums and tech notes, which told us that one of the iPod software updates (we forget which; maybe 1.2.6?) addressed a battery life problem, and that several people who had lost most of their battery capacity got it back after doing a restore of their iPods to the new firmware version. It seemed to work for some people and not for others, but after a bit of research, it seemed that most people had luck if they performed the restore after letting their iPod battery discharge to the point where it was completely and totally dead-- meaning, there wasn't even enough charge left to display the battery warning icon when a button was pushed.

So we played our iPod right into the ground, and when it was dead, dead, dead, we plugged it in and did the big, scary restore. (A restore actually wipes all the music and data off the 'Pod, but since the magic of FireWire lets us fill our 5 GB iPod in about ten minutes, it was really no big deal.) When we were done with the update, we threw a little music back on the 'Pod, let it charge for a few hours, unplugged it-- and played it for about six and a half hours straight. And it's been fine ever since. Well, actually, the capacity does keep lessening over time; it's probably down to about five hours, now, but that's to be expected with a battery. It's just that a lot of the "dead" iPod batteries out there probably aren't dead at all-- just resting. Beautiful plumage.

Since we originally mentioned that procedure, we've heard from three AtAT viewers who have resuscitated "dead" iPod batteries the same way, based on our suggestion. So it's not just us. Again, it may not work for everybody, but clearly it works for some people. If you've got an iPod that's similarly afflicted, you might consider trying a restore with the latest iPod software updater after running the battery all the way down-- at least before you plunk down $50 for an install-it-yourself battery or $100 for Apple to do it for you. Or before you join this class action suit that's brewing. Or before you videotape yourself vandalizing Apple's marketing materials.

What we really don't get is why Apple's tech support personnel are apparently not telling people to try this. If it really does fix the problem for even a small subset of afflicted users, it might have been enough to keep the Neistats from going all stencil-happy, and even enough to stave off this potential lawsuit. Whatever. If you've got iPod battery woes, here's hoping this works for you. If it does, Merry Christmas. Use the money you saved on a new battery to buy yourself a shirt.

let me guess, the people who wrote that apologetic drivel are regular posters on DU. [%|] Macs are junk, and almost impossible to work on. I'd rather work on my old HP pizza box, and that's a pos.