Apple: iPods built to last 4 years - Page 2

I'm sure it does but that doesn't mean that's what Kerris meant. If it was a phone interview or in person then it's quite possible the journo took for to mean four. They could have even just got their notes wrong or it was a typo in the article not picked up by a sub.

Anyway, I think Apple admitting a specific timespan is highly unlikely.

I was just mentioning on another forum that the iPod Shuffle has a life of about a year.
Hundreds of thousands of them are reportedly getting what is known as the "green and orange lights of death". Where they just stop working one day.

Both of mine failed a few weeks after the warranty ran out. I have 2 friends who oddly enough had the same thing happen. One of them is on his 4th Shuffle.

On Apple's site, there have been over 60,000 visits to a forum on this matter, and thousands of threads. It's a big big problem.

Yet still, Apple denies knowing anything about the issue.

Estimates are that around half a million people have been hit with this problem.

There are currently several sites gathing names for a class action lawsuit.

I don't have time to spend hours pulling up links. If you want, look for yourself.

I couldn't agree more. I realise that AppleInsider is not the greatest Journalistic bunch on the net but even my 6 year old daughter could see the fault with that sort of data collection (of course my 6 year old has two research social workers for parents so she has a little head start)

Brother... I hear ya!

"Hundreds of thousands" where do you get this number and why do you state it as a fact?

If you know that much about the issue, why don't you talk about the fact that there is a way to restore the iPod (though not the standard way) and that this is a software issue, not hardware?


Yeah, it's a firmware issue, but again you fail to tell us if you tried to restore them using the well-known trick of reformatting the iPod?



There's no single forum on Apple's site dedicated to this matter. You must be talking about a thread with 60,000 views? Didn't it occur to you that this doesn't mean 60,000 individual users? Each time anyone loads a page from this thread, the counter gets incremented. The counter doesn't know if it's the same users, and it doesn't know if the viewing user actually has this problem. If some external sites linked to these thread, it might have inflated the count. I did read this thread, incrementing the view counter many times but I don't have this problem.


Estimates from who and what? Thread viewing counts? Unreliable self-selected surveys like those on Macintouch?

There were sites gathering names to sue Apple because the iPod could be bad for your ears too... Microsoft's favorite attorney Steve Berman and friends are scanning the tech news to try to find what they could sue Apple about next.

Apple never publicly denied this issue. Not publicly acknowledging is not the same as denying.

Anyhow, this article is about hardware failures, the problem you describe will be fixed in the next firmware update.

Am I denying the problem? No... The problem exists, but I still think it's blown out of proportion, like many iPod/Mac problems. Blinking green and orange lights can mean many different problems, and yeah you could blame Apple for this, but this recent firmware problem only makes everyone with any kind of shuffle software/hardware problem post in the same thread.

Macintouch surveys are very skewed. The fail rates they calculate are simply ridiculous, no company like Apple would survive long with %40 failrates. Like it or not, phone surveys still provide the most randomized sample, and I can't see how Apple could legally lie about their fail-rates.

Ok, ok... again, I will state that I don't have hours and days to research exact numbers posted by the extremely limited 'AppleInsider' audience acceptable media sources... and then take those and hyperlink to all of them and provide cross data analysis to appease the very select few who will still shoot holes through my thread.
Don't you have jobs?

The iPod Shuffle problem is huge. Every day, more and more fail. If you do your homework, you will also find that it is not a firmware problem. There have been lots of threads from people who thought that it was, but still no results. Besides, there is no way of even patching the Shuffle with a firmware when the computer does not even see the device.
Furthermore, if I am wrong and there is a solution... then please share it all of us Apple enthusiasts. There is a small, yet growing army of people who are very concerned/pissed over this issue.

If there was a solution, trust me... I would have found it by now. After all the looking and research i've done, is 'A', how I know about the major issue, and 'B', that there is no solution to this point.

In the future, as I spend hours searching to find a solution to my Apple problems, I'll make sure to bookmark all my finds so that I can post a few hundred links in a thread, and have you anal 'professional bloggers' rip it apart.

Forums are for sharing information in a community atmosphere, not for ripping apart people. I understand the importance of trying to keep threads completely factual based, but there is also room for people to put out problems, idea's and other non-linear thoughs.

Good God... some of you seem to have forgotten why you love Apple in the first place... THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. Remember?

I thought you said there were hundreds of thousands?


Thinking outside the box doesn't mean we have to leave reason behind to do so.

Pointing out issues is one thing, and it leads to better products. Making statements with unsubstantiated numbers is another thing entirely. No one's asking you to do a statistical analysis, just don't make outrageous claims that don't have a reasonable basis behind them. That's all.

Look at it this way - assume that Apple shipped 1000 bad laptops in the last quarter. 1000 lemons, DOA, full on mobo failures. Sounds awful.

That's just over 0.1% failure rate.

Apple shipped 8 *million* iPods last quarter alone. 0.1% failure rate would net 8,000 dead iPods. 8,000 angry customers, in three months, all sounding off on the web, Apple's boards, and their own blogs. Sounds horrible.

A hypothetical 0.1% failure rate is something most manufacturers can only dream of.

The point is, 8,000 angry voices will always drown out 7.992 *MILLION* happy silent ones.

My iPod is 3 years old, and still going strong (even the battery is still fine). I'm expecting it to reach age 4 still healthy and fit!

My 1st Gen 5gig is exactly four years old today (happy birthday to me, and my ipod), it gets used several times a week and I guess I get about two or possibly three hours of music out of it (it is getting a bit cranky though, much like myself, needing restoring once in a while).

That's pretty unfair, but that's how it works.
No one who is happy with a purchase, shares his/her
good experiences with the product to others. No need to.
But the other way around, you know...

Agreed. I think the confusion is more because of the journalist from the Tribune than Kerris. The article isn't directly quoting her - it just says THAT she said they last four years, so we don't know the exact words she used. Perhaps the journalist clarified this in their research. Maybe they didn't. It could go either way.

I doubt it would be a typo, though - not when that phrase is used in the title of the article - unless nobody was thinking.

If we're right, I wonder if Apple will issue a clarifying statement on this??

How could Apple possibly know the failure rate of iPods over 1 year old??? My wife's iPod Mini broke one month after the 1 year warranty expired. Why would we contact Apple? Especially considering it would cost nearly as much to replace it as it would to simply buy a brand new Nano.

Apple could only come to this conclusion by drawing data from:
a) People who purchased extended AppleCare warranties
b) People who were dumb enough to exchange their outdated broken iPod for the price of a brand new one.

Using the iPod is an awesome experience. IMO, no other music player compares. But I am extremely hesitant to buy another one if it will only last 13 months. Honestly, a 4 year lifespan is nothing to be proud of either.

LMAO... wow... After 2 months of glaring at the aforementioned broken iPod Mini, I just smacked it about 5 times against the palm of my hand as i turned it on. All of a sudden, it works!

After trying everything on Apple Support sitea month ago we had given up.

Then we tried the 'drop it on the floor' method a few days ago to no avail.

The next option would've been the 'put it in the freezer' method.

I think Apple's real problem lies in the fact that they don't document these simple remedies in the user manual.

Boy, I really feel like I should be behind the Genius Bar now.

ROTFL

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris has confirmed to iLounge that she was misquoted in a Chicago Tribune article on failing iPods published earlier this week. The article had quoted her as saying that iPods have a low failure rate and that they are designed to last four years. Kerris said she told the reporter that the iPod was designed to last for yearsnot four years. The Tribune has yet to correct its original report.

AI : please update this story

I'd say that's double the expected lifespan of most cell phones, from my experience. I'd wager it's consistent with most portable devices in general.

Also, Apple has clarified the statement - see related thread here. They go on to say the failure rate is ~5%. A lot more than I'd expect, but honestly, I'm not in a position to state whether that's more or less than the average for portable electronics.

Now... see my prior post, and let me amend it to:

400,000 angry voices will always drown out 7.6 *MILLION* happy ones.

A 5%* failure rate for 8 million iPods sold every quarter means 400,000 dead iPods! That's a lot, in absolute terms, but not much when taken in context. I imagine that the flash players will have lower failure rates as well - hard drives are probably the major source of failures.

As with all electronic equipment, failures will either occur quite soon after manufacture, or after a very long time due to component wear. I think the failure rate graph is called a 'bathtub' because of its shape.

Mobile consumer electronics items rarely last a very very long time - they had far more wear and tear than other items, and currently that area of the industry has been improving the devices at an amazing rate, meaning people don't care if it lasts 3 years because they'll want the next best thing anyway. There's probably millions of unused iPods in drawers because the owners have a newer shinier iPod.


* that Apple knows about - i.e., iPods in warranty or Applecare. However they can presumably extrapolate from the number returned under Applecare vs. the total amount that had Applecare to get a reasonably accurate result.