Me too, mine died 5 months in. Won't turn on, won't recharge. Had to send the fucker in. And I'm off on a 6 hour drive to the cabin on thursday. I've heard of two other friends in my town who had there IPODs die too. It's ridiculous! When I pay about $300 for a piece of equipment, I want to rely on it for at least 5 years not 5 months.

When I pay about $300 for a piece of equipment, I want to rely on it for at least 5 years not 5 months.

Bloody oath! Mine cost over $500AUS so you can imagine I'm pretty damn pissed about it. It's particularly annoying because, if it was any other brand, the store I purchased it from would replace it immediately. Because it's Apple it has to go to Apple, then they send it away... blah blah blah... wait, wait, wait.

NOT HAPPY.

Because it's Apple it has to go to Apple, then they send it away.

This drove me absolutely *bonkers* when my first Apple Ipod Shuffle proved faulty (couldn't recharge at all, brand new). Typically I never purchase 'name brands', and stories like this vindicate that stance, but I got the Shuffle in a moment of weakness. The stores that sell you such things never tell you about the kafuffle you have to go to to get an Apple gadget replaced, having to dance to Apple's tune ... and it's something that just would never occur to one to ask. Arrrgh! Never again.

And then calling Apple up, and trying to bludgeon my way through the inevitable Indian accent ... double-arrrrgh.

This is why I didn't buy an iPod--i bought a Dell DJ mp3 player--20Gigs for a little more than half the cost of a 30Gig iPod (I bought it from Target.com online, and with tax and shipping it was $218 US). And it just FEELS sturdier than an iPod--it's got a metallic, if not actual METAL, exterior and feels quite hefty in the hand. Not heavy, just solid.

Apparently, my policy of not doing anything to make Steve Jobs happy is paying off. *g* Though I just got it last month, so I can't speak to its sturdiness. (It was my Christmas present to myself.)

I thought you got a Shuffle! Anyway, my friend Fred has a Dell DJ too that he uses pretty much everywhere and at first he was happy with it because it was sturdy and he liked how it cost less and still gave him the tunes he wanted... until he dropped it getting out of the car and it's had issues ever since. Now, mind you, he's a PC IT guy and he can pretty much fix anything. He sent it back to Dell for them to take a look at it and they wouldn't do anything with it because they saw he dropped it and said it's not covered under their warranty. He had to pay $30 for shipping and $100 consultation fee because it a non-warranty issue and all in all has paid more for his 20gb player than I've paid for my Mini which is still working well, thank God. *knocks on wood for good measure* Hee!

Eurgh. Ipods. I must say, I have a cheapish brand and it has served me well for a year and a bit now. It is the size of half a matchbox and hangs around my neck. Brand is Oregon and it holds about 100 songs. Its from Harvey Norman. No radio or anything fancy though.
Where are you driving 2 1/2 hours to? Have fun!

My second iPod just died too! I have a very hacked off Stepfather who is about to make the poor Manager of our local retailer's day hell...

I'm not sure about buying another one. On the one hand I love it to death- not carting around a hundred million cds to Uni (1 1/2 trip each way) is wonderful. On the other hand I hate, hate, hate it and stupid Apple who keep screwing me over like this!

I've had an iPod for over a year, and I've never had a problem, nor have any of my iPod-owning friends (although I'm possibly jinxing myself by replying here). I'm sorry yours died. :(

DOH!!!

::Urgently does de-jinxing dance!!::

And that, my friends, is why I won't purchase an iPod. I hear too many horror stories about them dying. I'll stick to lowly MP3 players...they are cheaper and I can gack the tunes from a share site.

I hate that this happened to you AGAIN!

Ah, don't you hate that?! My first mini, which I got for my birthday last year, has been dead for about seven months now. I finally got around to replacing it last week, but then disaster struck and the new one took an unexpected fall and died. It was three days old. Normally IPOD people don't give you new IPODs when you drop them, but because it was Christmas the guy wanted to be nice and ordered me a new one which will arrive in two weeks. I go back to school in one. What am I to do on the bus with all the noisy asshats without my Windu to silence them? WOE! ANGST! DESPAIR!

Good luck with your trip though.

I'm so sorry to hear about your string of bad luck. I had bought my iPod Mini a week before going on my week-long beach vacation, only to have it die my first day there (lost all power and wouldn't recharge). However, I'm fortunate enough to live within minutes of TWO different authentic Mac stores (not just other stores licensed to sell knockoffs), so I took it straight in and they had it working almost immediately.

I asked my friends about why other stores like Best Buy sell iPods, and was told that these weren't actually manufactured by Mac, but by a licensed second-party--hence they're sometimes cheaper...and not as reliable. I'm wondering now if many of the folks having all these troubles are getting the knockoffs and not realizing it.

I'm selling my iPod Mini now, but not because I was unhappy with it. I just decided I was tired of having to swap music constantly and wanted a larger drive to hold ALL my music without spending so much time swapping and selecting, etc. I now have the iPod 60GB video and ADORE it!! (I already have 30GB full!)

Now, the fact that I dropped it in the parking lot the day after I bought it, and didn't notice it was missing until I was in the office--and then ran around in a dead panic for an hour until some soul blessed by God turned it in to Lost & Found...was MY fault! :^P (I still haven't recovered from that.)

Apple is too expensive here in Australia (literally twice the price of PC), and therefore has a very limited/exclusive type of clientelle, so there's like 2 Apple 'dealerships' (for want of a better word) in all of Melbourne, (a city of 4-5 million people) and none in the rest of the state at all. So 98% of iPods here are sold via the various electrical chains/approved suppliers. I really don't think Apple would be allowed to (or want to) put their label on something that wasn't their product.

The video version came out just after I'd bought the photo version for hubby, or I'd have seriously considered getting him one. Yet my son's friend has just come to visit and he has one, which he brought round for show&tell, and he hasn't been able to load any videos on it yet because apparently the software to load the videos must be purchased separately! Which I find outrageous. That should have come with the device!

I'm just working on loading as much as I can onto hubby's iPod at the moment (so I'll have SOMETHING in the car), so I'll have to see if there's a problem or special requirements for loading photos which don't come with it...

And people used to call me crazy when I refused to buy one. I work at a service center and we get in 1000's, in a month. Granted some are in there due to customer error but a large percentage are defective. Sorry about your luck and I hope things get better.

Wow. My sister's had an iPod for a year now and it still works beautifully, and anyone else I know with them still seems pretty happy to have them.

Are they shipping all the way in from the States? I wonder if it's an issue of which factory is making them or something.

I had trouble with mine just the other day. I thought it had died, because it was completely unresponsive. I've had mine since September. Anyway, I went to the site, and followed their little instruction to leave it alone, and not to plug it into anything for twenty-four hours, and when I went back to it, it worked. You might try that if you haven't already.

Nope, it kept flashing the 'sad iPod' screen at me and the web addy for apple support. Is dead. :~(

I've had my iPod Mini for about six months now and *knock on wood* so far so good. Of course, I'm also an avid Mac user, so forgive me if I'm not as PC-savy and give you inappropriate information.

Have you tried resetting your iPod? You can find the 5 R's here to help with iPod issues. I've never had any problems with sending things into Apple and one of the things I do love about their support is that they will replace it without cost, including shipping. I'm sorry you're having issues with your iPod and I hope this little tidbit of info helps.

My friend Natalie had an iPod Shuffle, and she found out later that it was crap. Like almost *everybody* has trouble with that one, but the other versions are fine.

Umm... Hi. This is totally random, sorry. I'm a lurker and occasional commenter from the HP fandom. (We have belovedranger in common.) I did not know that you did Star Wars as well, and I just stumbled across your website today through clicking a link from a link from a link. Er, right, my point. I love, love, love, love this one and thought I should tell you how fantastic it is. :)

Ok. I'll be going now. Nothing to see here.

Hmmm. That's kind of odd. I've had my Ipod for 1 1/2 years and I use it about 5 hours everyday and I haven't had any problems out of it...

Happy birthday, Leela :)

Thanks!! :~)