Comments on: Seriously, Apple

By: Jon H

Jon H — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:12:54 +0000

Julian wrote: “Well, fine, but this was still a 5 minute procedure, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Shouldn’t they at least suggest checking before throwing up their hands and saying “buy a new one”?”

Would *you* suggest that to the average iPod owner who is a complete stranger? If you think about it, for a moment, you’ll realize it’s not practical.

That’s why I always look at the vendor as the last resort. A techie-oriented forum or newsgroup would be more productive, because there’s less of an assumption of technical naivete.

For an out of warranty device, I’d probably only go to the vendor if there was a chance of getting a replacement.
The “tiny repair == buy a new one” is nothing new, nor specific to Apple. I had a Sony discman back in highschool in the late 80s, which needed a simple repair: a 2 cent piece of plastic which gripped the threads on the drive screw broke, so the laser head wouldn’t move. Getting it fixed would have been prohibitively expensive. I wound up fashioning a replacement out of part of the metal screw top of a soda bottle. That kept it working for a few more years.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:30:36 +0000

iPods will happily play DRM-free MP3s, you know…

No, I didn’t and this is very useful info to me because I go through crappy off-brand players at a clip of about one every six months. I always assumed iPods required some kind of encoded coyright clearance that my audio-recorded and/or ripped files may or may not have.

Right now I have a 4 gig piece of crap where you can’t really move thru the directory structure. I have to listen to the playlist in order, unless all the files are up at the root level. Modern problems. Grrrr.

I can’t wait til it breaks. I’ll try an iPod.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:50:49 +0000

iPods will happily play DRM-free MP3s, you know…

By: Dave W.

Dave W. — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:48:35 +0000

I have seen lots of iPod repair stores (or at least banners) sprout up here in Toronto this past year. I don’t think the idea is that you can’t get your iPod repaired — Apple just doesn’t want it done on warranty. It would be nice if they would sell unwarranted iPods so us consumers could get a feel for what the “warranty” component is costing us at retail. But iPod’s built in ip affords it a monopoly position, so that won’t be happening anytime soon. If anything, they will probably crack down on the repair shops at some point (maybe they have in the US?).

Also: 40 lashes w/ w. noodle to you for buying in to DRM, Mr. Sanchez.

By: Laure

Laure — Wed, 23 May 2007 23:27:41 +0000

As an aside, I was at the “Genius Bar” recently and the customer to my right was there because her iPod had reached a state of meltdown. The customer service agent/genius took the iPod into the back room. When he returned about 5 minutes later, he explained to the girl that she should get her files off the device as soon as possible as it would likely not function for long. “But what did you do back there!?” she demanded. “I took it to the other Apple store and they could not help me. They said I needed to bring it to this store.”

“Well,” the genius said with a 20-something-slacker smile, “I just hit it against a table.” The girl looked rather surprised. “Yes, he continued, “that really does seem to work a lot of the time. Just give it a nice firm slap.”

So next time, that might be an option you could try, you know, before the screwdrivers.

By: Elf M. Sternberg

Elf M. Sternberg — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:57:08 +0000

The website ifixipodsfast.com has a collection of videos that show you the most common repairs you might need for your average iPod. I had the headphone ribbon die on my headphone recently. I bought a new ribbon off eBay for about $20, watched the video, and proceeded to make my way through the procedure. Like you, it took about half an hour, was not rocket science (although at my age I needed the strong reading glasses to see those obscenely tiny ribbon connectors), and sure beat the heck off that $160 price Apple quoted me to “refurbish” the darn thing.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:00:04 +0000

Apple doesn’t repair iPods at the stores like they do with other computers. They mail it to a repair center. It’s more economical when spread out over a gajillion ipods, but less so in your particular case.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:58:53 +0000

Well, fine, but this was still a 5 minute procedure, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Shouldn’t they at least suggest checking before throwing up their hands and saying “buy a new one”?

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:58:44 +0000

I’ve played the game of paying to do major repairs on an old computer, and I’m now heavily biased towards replacement. I spent well over half of what a newer and far better one would have cost

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:24:16 +0000

Honestly, at least in my experience with laptop repair, a loose ribbon cable is a fairly unlikely reason for the problem. Those ZIF connectors tend to hold them down fairly well. It’s much more likely that there would be a problem with the input device, or the cable itself, and that would be a legitimately costly repair.

The Apple guys were doing exactly the right thing by suggesting that there might be a surprising high cost to the repair. If it ended up being less expensive, that’s fantastic, but you need to prepare the customer for the worst so as to avoid making them even more pissed in the future with a high bill.