On December 16th, 2005 my wife and I ordered an Apple iPod Video 30GB for our daughters 13th birthday. She had been talking about it for nearly a year. We told her we needed to run an errand and to get in the car. We drove about 20 miles to a mall at Jantzen Beach Oregon to the Circuit City store. She was pretty frustrated because it was her birthday and she would rather be home hanging out instant messaging friends rather than running another technology errand with her parents. Eventually we walked up to the iPod cases and accessories. I asked her which case she thought was the best one. She was frustrated and ask “why, I don't have an iPod?” About that time I handed here a prepaid receipt and said that she ought to pick out a case for the iPod that she could pick up over at the will-call counter. The grin started slow and then went to disbelief - “you're joking” she said. After she realized that it was real, we required that she pick out and pay for a case to protect the device. About 7 months after she got it we experienced the first problem – the iPod was locked and there was no apparent way to unlock it. To get around this problem we updated the iPod software and it cleared, solved the problem and no loss of data.
Ipod happiness continued through the 2006 Christmas season. On December 30th, 2006 – 1 year and 14 days after she got the device – the iPod died. Through iTunes on Windows you could play movies and songs stored on the iPod but no amount of reseting, rebooting or chanting would allow the control wheel to start working. Since the Apple defined process would not work, we tried the Apple software reload to reset the system completely. The reload process seemed to complete and the device went into language selection mode after a restart. Since the control wheel would still not work, the process was a total failure. After this I started the service request process on the Apple web site. This was an interesting journey that concluded with us being requested to return the unit to Apple and to pay a $255 repair bill. This seemed totally unreasonable to us. A company that is as people oriented as Apple would not possibly expect a customer to pay 85% of the purchase prices to simply diagnose and swap out the failing part.
We visited the Apple store at a different mall in Oregon and one of the sales associated suggested that we return with the device and seek the assistance of one the Apple Genius Bar team. He said they might know what to do to fix the problem and, since the device was just slightly out of warranty, could offer some intermediate solution such as selling us an extended warranty and swapping out the device. After waiting a reasonable 30 minutes to actually get to speak to a genius we watched as he simply repeated the same steps we had already tried, remarking that “maybe it will work here!” At the conclusion of our time, he offered no help from Apple and started to scribble the names of several non Apple company web sites that might be able to help.
So, where are we know? No where! My daughter spend $40 of her 2006 Christmas money on some new music and videos and has no place to play them – apart from the desktop computer they are on. One of the reputable, non-Apple, repair facilities I contacted says the worst case repair cost would be $170 (56% of the purchase price) to repair the device. Just to figure out what it would take requires a $29 (10% of the purchase price) fee to get it there and back. Now an updated 2006 iPod Video is priced at $249.00.
It seems like Apple could do better here!
I'm in no hurry to spend family funds on an Apple replacement product. Most companies that want 85% of the purchase price to fix a product don't survive.
I looked at an Apple Mini the other day and was thinking that it might be really nice for the computer we have in the kitchen of our home for school work but I can't see owning a product that demands an extended warranty to manage repair costs.
What is the purpose of this blog? I wanted to share the story with others so they might be less surprised when they discover just how expensive it is to repair an iPod that is 3% older than the warranty period. All I would like is for a reasonable fee to return the device to working status.
Update - 01/15/2007
We have researched many different MP3 players. There are some very good players available from a variety of vendors. The Creative Zen line is interesting as is the MS Zune. I haven't persued a better understanding for the repair costs of the other devices. Since my daughter has invested a fair amount of money in videos for her iPod, I ordered her a replacement iPod from Apple. It is a 30gb iPod Video unit which is refurbished. It carries a 1year warranty and the extended warranty can be added. This is like getting a repair for $180 which is better than some options but still equates to 60% of the original purchase price. It does have a warranty that is considerably longer than those associated with a repair.
