Of iPods, CDs …
p2pnet.net News:- With Microsoft hovering over it – way over it – with the dreaded iPod Killer, could Apple also be in potential trouble on the home front because of iPod batteries?
Again?
“People are crying foul over the Apple iPod, because the manufacturer doesn’t disclose the fact that the rechargeable batteries only last about a year and a half,” says a March 18 KOMO4NEWS.com story here.
The story says a fitness and massage expert “who uses hundreds of songs in her work,” borrowed the iPod she uses. Apparently, she got the original model a year and a half ago but, ” ‘I think that something’s wrong with the battery, because it won’t charge and it won’t hold a charge,’ she says. And she’s not alone.”
The excreta originally hit the fan last year when when Casey Neistat and his brother started a guerilla video campaign because of the the dead battery in Casey’s iPod. As more and more people are doing these days, by way of protest, they made their own video which quickly swept the Net – to Apple’s continuing embarrassment.
Five class-action lawsuits accusing Apple of misrepresenting claims of the battery life in its iPod digital music player were filed at the end of December and, “The Company is beginning its investigation of these claims,” it promises in its quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But not to worry.
These days, “If your iPod requires service only because the battery?s ability to hold an electrical charge has diminished, Apple will replace your iPod for a service fee of $99, plus $6.95 shipping,” says Apple on a page devoted to the subject here.
Mini-Pod
In the meanwhile, mini-Pod sales seem to be going like the clappers.
It took weeks for the Houston Chronicle’s Bob Levitus to get one and now, after “three weeks of intensive use” he had bad news for his daughter: “You can have the iPod mini when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. You’re going to love my bigger iPod.”
He goes on, “As for me, I didn’t like every one of the 2,447 songs on it anyway. I’ll be fine with the 847 songs I’ve got loaded up on the iPod mini.”
And a New Zealand Herald report here says sales of “personal jukeboxes” that play music downloaded from the internet are set to triple over the next few years – wrecking sales of CD albums and singles.
“n a report last week, experts at the music industry consultancy Understanding & Solutions revealed that the British download more music from the internet and use computers for playing music more often than the Americans, Japanese and French,” it says, adding:
“The latest predictions follow the runaway success of the iPod, the palm-sized “personal jukebox” made by Apple, since its launch in the UK last year. It sold out over Christmas, and at least 2.5 million iPods have now been sold worldwide.”
So it looks as if Steve Jobs was right when he decided to throw iTunes online as a loss-leader.
Is it his fault everyone else thought he’d tuned into the the first way to make money out of music online?
(PS – If you still worry about your iPod’s battery life, worry no more. Drew Perry has it figured out : )
