MY IPODS SUCKED

I posted this on the Apple support forums. I might look for a customer support email address where I can send it, but nobody reads email anymore so maybe I won't bother. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.j...

Edit: the post was removed about six hours afterward, and I got an email inviting me to send it into apple.com/feedback, so I c/p'd it to them. I doubt I'll get any sort of response, but at least it's off my chest.

Topic : My iPod Photo: LEAST reliable electronic device I have ever purchased.

I bought a 60-Gb iPod Photo (now called iPod with colour screen) in March 2005 when they were first released. It was the first Apple product I'd ever purchased; I'd been planning to buy the first music player big enough to hold a significant portion of my music, and Apple won the race.

I took steps to protect my investment. I bought a rubber skin which I never removed from the iPod; I put plastic over the screen; I bought a custom-made padded aluminum casing to use as an outer layer. I could stand on this casing, when empty, and it wouldn't bend or break. I wanted to make the iPod klutzproof as I do a fair amount of travelling, and I'd heard stories that it didn't take much to break an iPod.

Throughout the device's life it was never removed from skin nor casing, and was dropped twice from the height of a coffee table (less than two feet).

About four months after purchasing the iPod it began to freeze/crash during regular music play. These crashes were infrequent at first (once every week or two with almost daily use) but after six months of ownership the iPod would crash within 20 minutes to 3 hours of playing time, every time. This was frustrating, and it caused me to use the iPod less and less.

After about 9 months of ownership the iPod would not turn on after a freeze/crash. Sometimes, if convenient, I could plug it into the wall or computer and this would bring it back to life. Eventually nothing worked to turn it on-- I'd just see the sad iPod icon-- and so I sent it back with a month left on the original 12-month warranty.

My replacement iPod came with a 3-month warranty. (I know it was a replacement and not a repair because my first iPod had engraving and this one has none). I protected this iPod in the same manner as the first, even going so far as to never touch it with human hands before putting the rubber skin, plastic screen cover, and aluminum case on it. I never dropped, hit, or otherwise jarred this replacement iPod.

Shortly after the 3-month warranty expired I began encountering the same problems as before: random freezing and crashing that became more and more frequent until at last the device would not turn on. Or, at least, not every time. Sometimes I could get the iPod to turn on after waiting a day or two; eventually this became a week. I gave up and considered the iPod to be bricked/dead, although I kept it by the desk and gave a cursory attempt to turn it on once a day or so. I considered sending it to Apple for repair, but the repair costs plus shipping amounted to 80% of the purchase price for a new iPod with a larger hard disk, and to be honest... I wasn't sure I wanted another iPod anyway.

Five months later it actually turned on! It registered zero songs when it had shown 5000 before, so I connected it to the computer, updated the firmware, and rebuilt my iPod library (a process which takes 8-10 hours of work sorting through music in order to choose what will fit on the iPod). Unfortunately the iPod began its whole death-throe process again, except this time, much more quickly. In about a month after its rescusitation, the iPod no longer turns on.

Although I've owned this iPod for two years (well, 11 months for the first one, and the rest for the replacement) I've had seven months total regular use, across BOTH devices. Considering the steps I took to protect my investment, this is completely unreasonable.

I would like to ship the broken iPod Photo back to Apple-- I am completely dissatisfied with it and I'm ashamed to own it! I can't help but draw a parallel to my experience and the recent fiasco of the iPhone price drop... Apple cares more about squeezing maximum money out of early adopters, whether it's by rushing defective iPod Photos to market or gouging the first iPhone buyers for an extra $200 per device.

As of now, I'm no longer purchasing nor recommending Apple products, nor purchasing or using Apple software. I run a business which invests $5,000-$10,000 annually in computers and related equipment, and that may not be a lot, but it's business Apple has forfeited. Furthermore, I have recommended others against buying an iPod for the duration of my dissatisfactory ownership, and will continue to do so.

That is, of course, unless Apple can make things right. I'd like a new-model iPod of similar storage capacity shipped to me at Apple's expense, including a two-year full warranty on the device. Had I known the iPod would only last a few months before degrading into an iPod-shaped brick, I'd never have wasted the money on it. Maybe I'm wasting my time writing this, but if it's the last 20 minutes of grief I experience from ownership of an Apple product, so much the better, right?