iLove/iHate
Love my iPod...
I really don't know what I'd do without my iPod. If I didn't have it I'd have to carry around a CD player and a stack of CDs a foot high, and even then I wouldn't be able to play podcasts while I'm in the car, say.
The sad news is that it looks like my iPod is dying, like Jennifer Jason Leigh's squishy game pod in eXistenZ.
I had a few problems with it when Apple released version 1.1 (I think) of the internal iPod software without testing it properly, but the 1.2.1 release seemed to fix most of the problems.
The recent problems have been much worse. The poor darling's screen keeps popping up a message saying that Firewire isn't supported, and it sometimes takes five or six hits on the centre button to get that to clear; occasionally I've had to reset it. Then last night something pretty bad happened; I updated podcasts as I do most days, and this morning I picked it up so that I'd have something to listen to in the car while I drove into town for milk - and the battery was flat.
I've got too much music and stuff on the pod to risk losing it all. Most of the music is held in iTunes - stuff I've bought from the iTunes Store, and stuff I've imported from CDs - but there are a fair number of home-made movies, MP3s and WAVs of older music, and a load of podcasts that I keep for reference, that aren't in iTunes. So I bought a thing called MediaWidget that lets you do a full backup of everything, took a backup, reset the iPod to factory settings and restored from the backup. So far so good. I'm hoping that's going to fix the Firewire warnings, and I really hope the battery doesn't go flat on me again, but we'll see.
...hate Apple
Apple's support stinks. Let me put that another way: Apple's support really stinks. You pay $300 for an iPod but when you have problems the only real support option is to go onto their support forums and post a message. I have never had a single response from Apple answering any question I've posted on the forums. If you want to call, it looks like you have to pay $35. I can't think of any other item I own for which the manufacturer's support is so shitty.
I really don't know what I'd do without my iPod. If I didn't have it I'd have to carry around a CD player and a stack of CDs a foot high, and even then I wouldn't be able to play podcasts while I'm in the car, say.
The sad news is that it looks like my iPod is dying, like Jennifer Jason Leigh's squishy game pod in eXistenZ.
I had a few problems with it when Apple released version 1.1 (I think) of the internal iPod software without testing it properly, but the 1.2.1 release seemed to fix most of the problems.
The recent problems have been much worse. The poor darling's screen keeps popping up a message saying that Firewire isn't supported, and it sometimes takes five or six hits on the centre button to get that to clear; occasionally I've had to reset it. Then last night something pretty bad happened; I updated podcasts as I do most days, and this morning I picked it up so that I'd have something to listen to in the car while I drove into town for milk - and the battery was flat.
I've got too much music and stuff on the pod to risk losing it all. Most of the music is held in iTunes - stuff I've bought from the iTunes Store, and stuff I've imported from CDs - but there are a fair number of home-made movies, MP3s and WAVs of older music, and a load of podcasts that I keep for reference, that aren't in iTunes. So I bought a thing called MediaWidget that lets you do a full backup of everything, took a backup, reset the iPod to factory settings and restored from the backup. So far so good. I'm hoping that's going to fix the Firewire warnings, and I really hope the battery doesn't go flat on me again, but we'll see.
...hate Apple
Apple's support stinks. Let me put that another way: Apple's support really stinks. You pay $300 for an iPod but when you have problems the only real support option is to go onto their support forums and post a message. I have never had a single response from Apple answering any question I've posted on the forums. If you want to call, it looks like you have to pay $35. I can't think of any other item I own for which the manufacturer's support is so shitty.
Labels: Podcasting, Rants
posted by Pete Ford at
1:35 PM
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