Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Blind freakin' rage at my iPod
If you don't already have an iPod, my strong recommendation is that you don't get one. It is a wonderful device, and I am addicted to mine, but it has been extremely glitchy. Mine is only five months old, but in the last couple of weeks has been crashing several times a day, even though I have added no new songs to it and have all the software up to date. Finally, it advised me to restore the system, which I did at great investment of time (or at least a vastly longer investment of time then I ever want to put in to something that plays music). Now all the music is erased (as I was advised it would be), but my system does not recognize the existence of the device so I can't reload it. After struggling to understand the hideously worthless online advice at Apple support I am giving up. Nothing is worth this rage and frustration.
Of course, if anybody at Apple reads this and wants to put some actually useful instruction into the comments, I would be most grateful. Not holding my breath, though.
Any device for playing music that cannot function in, say, ten minutes of dicking around is badly designed, no matter how well it performs when it performs. It's been years since I've even had to spend that much time messing with my Windows-based computer. Don't let it happen to you.
18 Comments:
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Tue Jan 23, 08:11:00 AM:
Dude -- relax. Call the geek squad. The IPOD is a MUST. Buy another. Whatever. But if you are on a weight loss mission, and you are doing the exercise thing, the IPOD is your best friend!
:)
CP
By 
, at
Tue Jan 23, 08:21:00 AM:
TH--
Don't get me started.
When my iPod malfunctions (the battery "dies" at least twice a day, after 15 minutes), I curse for a while.
Then, when I get near my computer, I pull up and read this priceless (Times Select; $$) column by the NYT's best business writer, Joe Nocera: "Good Luck with That Broken iPod."
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/business/04nocera.html
Very soothing.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 08:29:00 AM:
Ah, yes -- the secret to the "easy to use" Apple products. They break just as often as everything else -- they just never tell you why, or how to fix it.
-joe
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 08:47:00 AM:
The iPod's got a one year warranty, so you can just take it to an Apple Store and give it to them. I think in most cases they just take yours and give you a refurbished one right there. It's a very slick system.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 09:16:00 AM:
If it is a hard drive model, remember that it IS A HARD DRIVE, and subject to hard drive problems. Run disk maintainence on it and defrag it. I do mine once a month and never had a problem in over 3 years.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 09:35:00 AM:
Definitely take it in to the Apple Store, if there's one nearby. Since it's only a couple of months old (assuming you bought it new), they'll probably swap yours for a different one on the spot.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 09:37:00 AM:
I'd suggest you get what all the 6th graders at my daughter's school have had for the past year. Ipod Nano(with flash memory-no harddrive-much more reliable imo). They aren't kind to them and they seem to work. Alternatively if you love music but now hate Apple with a purple passion, give the mini disk a spin. Its not nearly as convenient to use as Ipod+iTunes, but they work great and seem durable.
By skipsailing, at
Tue Jan 23, 09:49:00 AM:
come on, if you think this is a big PITA try finding a new stylus for a pickering phono cartridge.
By TigerHawk, at
Tue Jan 23, 10:31:00 AM:
Tragically, there is no Apple Store that is close enough to Princeton to be worth the windshield time to visit. Basically, it would be almost two hours out of my life just driving to and fro. That, plus the mileage, makes it a bad deal.
That, I think, is the ultimately problem with this device. It is too expensive to be disposable, but the "care and feeding" of it takes more time than I, at least, am willing to spend on it. I'm sure there are other people who, on the one hand, are willing to spend a lot of money on stuff like this, and on the other hand do not highly value their time, but I am not one of them.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 12:16:00 PM:
Freehold raceway mall has a apple store.
By ben, at
Tue Jan 23, 03:04:00 PM:
I say get a sony bean. I have had mine for over a year. It has never crashed. It has never run out of batteries on me. I got the 1 gb version, but I think there are bigger ones. The battery life lasts for 50 hours of music playing. There is a display screen (better than the nano). It has a usb plug that pops out of the side (better than the nano, which needs a cord) so that you keep the plug clean, yet still get to plug in wherever.
The only problem with it is that you can't just drag and drop mp3 files onto it and then listen to them. You need to use the music playing software that comes with the player. The only reason this is inconvenient is that I use iTunes to listen to music on my computer, and I have to keep my music library updated on a different software every time I want to update the music on my player. That happens infrequently, so I've decided that I can live with the inconvenience.
It was also cheaper...need I say more?
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 04:58:00 PM:
Edison, Bridgewater and Freehold all have Apple Stores (http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/)
By TigerHawk, at
Tue Jan 23, 05:01:00 PM:
I saw that, but they are all 30-40 minutes away. That's a lot of time and miles. Good point, though -- I can carry it around in my car, and eventually I'll be going by one of those destinations on some other mission.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 05:12:00 PM:
Consider a Zune, or if you want something smaller, an iRiver Clix or a Creative Zen Vision. SOme very cool devices that don't tie you to Apple's store/format/wiles/etc. By the way, what is up with a company who's logo is an apple with one bite missing? Is that some kind of celebration of the fall of humankind and the entrance of evil into the world? Who thinks that is cool?
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 06:04:00 PM:
Hey, I bought a "cheap" sansdisk 6 gig MP3 player for $50 on clearance, it was difficult to figure out how to use at first, but I've been using it literally every day at work (I'm a cabinetmaker) w/o any problems...it's worth a shot...also Microsoft offers an alternative to iPod that is supposed to be pretty good...
Rich V.
By , at
Tue Jan 23, 07:32:00 PM:
The IPOD is a MUST
I don't have one, and feel no desire to obtain one, and probably wouldn't use one if it were given to me free.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Jan 23, 08:38:00 PM:
I have one that was given to me for free and I still don't use it.
By Country Squire, at
Tue Jan 23, 11:01:00 PM:
TH,
Thanks for the heads up. I have been lusting after the black 80 GB model for some time (Santa must have decided I wasn't that nice last year). Comments like these disturb me when I'm contemplating spending $350 plus for one of these gizmos.
Decisions, decisions...
