Tuesday, October 25, 2005
iPod Cooties
Lately, I've been getting less and less time from every recharging of my iPod's battery. I've done all the things they tell you to do: Used the Hold key, avoided using the Backlight, waited patiently for less desirable tracks to play out rather than overuse my Fast Forward. But I've had this iPod for two years, and the batteries never last as long as they're supposed to. And of course, they're not covered by my Apple Care policy.
I found a site that will sell you a battery along with a little tool kit so that you can change it yourself. This is guaranteed to result in a bunch of non-user-serviceable pieces that will get shoved into a drawer for the next ten years.
Apple will do it themselves if you send them your iPod and a check for sixty-five bucks. But what they will do is replace your iPod with another iPod. And they don't even make the ten gig iPod anymore, so what I will get back is a refurbished iPod, and not even my own, with my fingerprints and memories all over it. I'll get back somebody else's iPod that they had put their songs on. Even though the hard drive will be erased and their songs will no longer be on it, I'll feel like I'm getting somebody else's cooties.
It's like when you take your coat out of the closet at work or at a party, and you've got one of those coats that everybody has, like a peacoat or a black trench coat, and you put your coat on but it's not your coat. It's a coat that looks exactly like yours, but the pockets have been shaped a little differently from somebody else's hands, and somebody else's stuff is in the pockets. You want your own coat back, even if the one you took by mistake is in better shape.
I found a site that will sell you a battery along with a little tool kit so that you can change it yourself. This is guaranteed to result in a bunch of non-user-serviceable pieces that will get shoved into a drawer for the next ten years.
Apple will do it themselves if you send them your iPod and a check for sixty-five bucks. But what they will do is replace your iPod with another iPod. And they don't even make the ten gig iPod anymore, so what I will get back is a refurbished iPod, and not even my own, with my fingerprints and memories all over it. I'll get back somebody else's iPod that they had put their songs on. Even though the hard drive will be erased and their songs will no longer be on it, I'll feel like I'm getting somebody else's cooties.
It's like when you take your coat out of the closet at work or at a party, and you've got one of those coats that everybody has, like a peacoat or a black trench coat, and you put your coat on but it's not your coat. It's a coat that looks exactly like yours, but the pockets have been shaped a little differently from somebody else's hands, and somebody else's stuff is in the pockets. You want your own coat back, even if the one you took by mistake is in better shape.
