I was on the treadmill the other day and went to turn it on (after having listened to it on the train earlier) and it wouldn't come on. I reset it and got the Sad Ipod icon. "Oh, no," I thought to myself, "it can't be!"
But apparently it can.
I made an appointment to take Kharm (my ipod's name) into the Apple store and see if anything can be done. But I think I already know the answer. We go in at 12:45pm central time.
We had a good three and a half years together anyway.
reggie [email] said at 11:27 AM 08-17-2007: See this is the OTHER thing that makes me not want to get one of those things. I keep hearing about them dying.
josh [email] said at 11:50 AM 08-17-2007: 3 and a half years is not bad at all for an electronics device you carry around. i have never had a phone last this long.
reggie [email] said at 12:06 PM 08-17-2007: I think my celly lasted about three years or so. Well "lasted" isn't really true, it probably should have been replaced about a year sooner.
I just kinda got the impression from many other people that those things are kinda frajeelay.
josh [email] said at 12:10 PM 08-17-2007: well it depends - hard drive based players have a hard drive inside them, and hard drives are fragile. you cannot treat it like you would treat a walkman... basically, you have to treat it as you would a laptop, because thats what it is, a lil computer with a hard drive.
if you want to be as rough on your mp3 player as you are on your phone, go with a flash-based player... such as the nano/shuffle or the various flash based models made by other companies. flash based ones should take quite a beating before breaking.
josh [email] said at 12:13 PM 08-17-2007: hard drive:
A hard disk drive stores information on one or more flat circular discs called platters. The platters are mounted on a spindle, with spacers in between, and a motor on the bottom end of the spindle. To read and write to the surface of the platters, the drive uses a small electro-magnet assembly, referred to as a head, located on the end of an actuator arm. With one head for each platter surface on the spindle. The platters are spun at a very high speed to allow the head to move quickly over the surface of the disk. Towards the other end of the actuator arm is a pivot point, and at the end is a voice coil, which moves the head. Above and below each voice coil is a rare earth magnet. This allows the head to move towards the center of the disk or towards the outside, in a radial pattern.
The disk controller uses a digital-to-analog converter to control the flow of electricity through the voice coil(s) located on the of the actuator arm. The voice coil acts as an electromagnet; it produces a magnetic field that interacts with magnetic fields of the magnet located above and below the voice coil, which causes the voice coil to move the actuator arm, and in turn the head located on the opposite end of the actuator arm. So as the voice coil is pushed towards one end, the assembly moves the head towards the center, and when the voice coil is pushed towards the other end, the heads move towards the outside edge of the disk, or the heads are parked. The digital-to-analog converter allows the disk controller to move the head in tiny steps in either direction.
The magnetic surface of each platter is divided into many small sub-micrometre-sized magnetic regions, each of which is used to encode a single binary unit of information. In today's HDDs each of these magnetic regions is composed of a few hundred magnetic grains. Each magnetic region forms a magnetic dipole which generates a highly localized magnetic field nearby. The write head magnetizes a magnetic region by generating a strong local magnetic field nearby. Early HDDs used the same inductor that was used to read the data as an electromagnet to create this field. Later versions of inductive heads included, metal in Gap (MIG) heads and thin film heads. In today's heads the read and write elements are separate but are in close proximity on the head portion of an actuator arm. The read element is typically magneto-resistive while the write element is typically thin-film inductive[3].
Hard disk drives are sealed to prevent dust and other sources of contamination, from interfering with the operation of the hard disks heads. The hard drives are not air tight, but rather utilize an extremely fine air filter, to allow for air inside the hard drive enclosure. The spinning of the platters causes the air to circulate forcing any particulates to become trapped on the filter. The spinning of the platters, also allows the hard disk heads to float above the surface of the disk surface using the same air currents. See Bernoulli's principle. (wikipedia)
read that and think about how, in a hard drive based player, all those components are doing that as described, while you are walking/jogging/tossing it on your desk/dropping it.
then if the thought of that scares ya, get a flashed based model - solid state!
woody [email] said at 1:22 PM 08-17-2007: I almost dropped my nano in the pool, luckily the pool cover was on and it stayed dry. Also, my new hard drive camcorder senses when it is experiencing 1G of acceleration (ie: you dropped it) and parks the heads. Nice!
josh [email] said at 11:51 AM 08-17-2007: i would say try and restore it in itunes. then, if that fails, there are places that can fix a broken ipod for like $20. i e-know someone that can probably help, he works at a place that fixes them.
ed [email] said at 12:47 PM 08-17-2007: Mine spoofed death a while back, and boy was iSad. (there ya go, Reggie!)
But it miraculously came back to life after a couple of days' worth of inactivity. When I plugged it in to try and salvage it via iTunes' restore function, it just worked again. Nary a hiccup since then!
brianbibbly [email] said at 3:32 PM 08-17-2007: Here we go again. Dude, it is not JUST A FREAKING PHONE!!!! It is an 8gig Ipod. Ipod nano runs about $250 or more. It is a phone. Cellphone runs about $150, on the low end for a decent one. It is a blackberry. Blackberry runs around $200. Add it all up. You get around $600 for an all in one device which blows the doors off any other handheld device of its kind, hands down. Anyone who says otherwise is simply bitter (no 3G, copy and paste, blah blah blah.)
ed [email] said at 4:12 PM 08-17-2007: Riddle me this, Batman:
Can you add apps to it?
Dude, I know six people who adopted the iPhone within days of its release (including one Nerd who waited 10 hours in line the day it was released, and blogged hourly from the queue).
I know how "cool" it is.
But 8GB isn't nearly enough for me, as far as a music player is concerned. So that selling point is lost immediately.
I bought a pretty sweet smartphone (the Audiovox XV6700) off of eBay for 200 bux, and I could add pretty much any program I wanted to. Again, can you add an app - ANY app - to an iPhone?
Plus, as I may have mentioned, ATT/Cingular is the absolutely WORST provider I have ever dealt with.
Drop the price by 200 dollars, add the ability to download and install applications I might want, and let Verizon be my carrier. THEN, I might consider an iPhone.
brianbibbly [email] said at 4:30 PM 08-17-2007: Look, I can't address your subjective complaints, including Josh's comment about people who buy "expensive smartphones" (which I don't understand why he would make that comment seeing as he makes $90,000.. I've been a Cingular customer for 3 years, never had a problem. I also had Verizon for 2 years and Sprint before that for 2 years. The only network I hated was Sprint. Everyone has different problems with different providers.
I do not understand, however, how 8 gigs of space is not enough for a handheld device. I currently have 80 albums on my iphone, plus 2 full feature movies and i STILL have a gig leftover. When in hell do you need 30 gigs of music at your fingertips at one time (unless you are a serious DJ)? I mean, do you listen to 100 albums a day? I don't get through 3 of my 80 albums in a given day. Did I mention that I have 80 ALBUMS on the fucking thing? 80! 80!
Now, I can see it not being the greatest thing if you need a phone that can handle business applications like Word and Excel on a regular basis. But I don't really buy that excuse either. I mean, I am a freaking businessman. I DROWN in paper every day. On an average day I can confidently say that I draft at least 50 pages of documents/pleadings/client reports/manifestos to take over the world. Yet, I never have to do so over a freaking phone. Thats what laptops and computers are for. If you are drafting substantive documents on a damn phone, then you are not managing your time very well.
Apps? What other apps do you need? Hello Kitty Restaurant Guide? A virtual pet? The apps that are included in the iphone are relevant to what you would need while on the go. Text messaging, your calendar, a camera, map function, the internet, a calculator, your contacts. Functional shit. Not some bells and whistles bull that are basically useless. Weeeee I have an app that tells me every episode of Justice League of America in which Aquaman appears! Who gives a shit.
josh [email] said at 5:41 PM 08-17-2007: 8 gigs is NOT enough for me to not also own an iPod.
my current iPod has ~5 gigs of data, that is, not music or video on it. then like ~5 gigs of podcasts. im 2 gigs over without any music or video.
then, music - i would be unhappy with less than say 30 gigs for music, because i drive 2 hours a day on average, then relatively often (2-3 times a year) take week long trips places and want lots of different stuff to listen to while im travelling.
which isnt to say the iphone sucks, but it doesn't mean i'm saving $350 i would have spent on an ipod by getting the phone...
also - i dont buy expensive smart phones because i have a tendency to drunkenly drop my phone on concrete, in water, etc... if i dropped and broke a $600 phone i would be super bummed. so i stick with my $150 nice but not insane phones.
josh [email] said at 5:43 PM 08-17-2007: i agree about the phone Office stuff. who the fuck wants to work on an excel spread sheet on a phone - ANY phone
Lotsa people. FWIW, I'm not one of them, any longer, but it was useful as all get-out when I *did* need it. Need a figure from an Excel spreadsheet that's on your work computer... while you're in a movie theater? Grab your NerdPhone, open your browser, go to logmein.com, sign in, remote control your desktop machine, open Excel, get the figures, and become a hero. Or, just save yourself from having to leave the theater altogether and go home to your laptop, or back to work, to retrieve the information.
It's really not that difficult to imagine why a SysAdmin would need to have the ability to remote in from pretty much anywhere, regardless of whether or not he has a laptop... or even a WiFi connection... available.
The iPhone cost 3X more than the phone I bought, and doesn't allow for this PRIMARY need of an IT professional. Weak.
josh [email] said at 7:03 PM 08-17-2007: view is not the same as edit. you can view an excel on anything with a web browser. edit, now that is a different story
ed [email] said at 7:30 PM 08-17-2007: Sooo... my NerdPhone cost me $200. And it was able to interact with Verizon's network.
The iPhone? Three times the cost, with an inferior carrier brute-forced in.
I'm not saying the iPhone isn't cool, because it is. But there's no way I could justify buying one, due to its high cost, and the fact that ATT/Cingular loses signal in South Florida every time there's a thunderstorm. Which is pretty much daily, from March - November. Don't even get me started on what happens during hurricanes.
ed [email] said at 10:52 PM 08-18-2007: True, since remoting in is browser-based, I suppose the iPhone could fit that need. But, for example, if someone emailed me an Excel spreadsheet, are you saying the iPhone has a compatible app with which I could open it (a la Pocket Excel, on a PocketPC)?
ed [email] said at 4:15 PM 08-17-2007: PS - why are you using fallacy math? You're adding the cost of a cellphone to the cost of a blackberry - which is a cellphone.
brianbibbly [email] said at 4:33 PM 08-17-2007: Earth to Ed: Many businesses provide their workers with a blackberry and a data plan only, making the employee use their own cellphone for making phone calls.
ed [email] said at 6:40 PM 08-17-2007: Math to Brian: If your employer provides you with a blackberry, how does that appropriately fit into your cost-benefit analysis above?
And no, I haven't done extensive work in Word or Excel on my NerdPhone, but I *have* been able to open Excel spreadsheets in emergency moments and been able to provide key information when no one else was able to (because there was no WiFi available).
Yeah, guess that equals bad time management.
Good thing I have a lot of time to work on that now, eh?
meredith [email] said at 2:31 PM 08-17-2007: They fixed Kharm!!! He is alive!! The dude says he doesn't know how long Kharm has, it could be anywhere from a day to a year, but that I should download the latest software and do a restore just to be safe.
Also, the Apple store is pretty cool. I think I might want to get a shuffle just to run with.
carla [email] said at 8:03 PM 08-20-2007: my ipod just died for good, too.
i wrote a big lj entry about it and how it was my douchebag shield in addition to just being a handy dandy peice of technology.
carla [email] said at 8:06 PM 08-20-2007: oh i didn't read how yours got fixed until now.
i wonder if mine can be salvaged. i should probably just get a new one, but i dont' want to lose all those sweet sweet songs.
