Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Sorry, but this is complete nonsense. I still have two ipods from 2006 that are working well, and none of my iPhones had any battery issues after owning them for two years. You are, in fact, the only person I've ever heard make this particular complaint.
First, this is a made up problem which seems to be motivated in part by some anti-Apple animus you have. (iTrash? Really?) Second, most consumers seem happy to accept the tradeoff of no user-replaceable battery in exchange for a smaller, sealed form factor. As there's a lively market in replacement battery kits, it doesn't seem like these devices are ending up in the trash because the battery died. . . .
I'm happy that government isn't instituting some draconian tax whose only purpose would appear to be to vindicate your particular consumer choices.
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Don't get me wrong, I think it's just peachy that Apple now seems to know how to make MacBooks that won't catch fire, but you will please excuse me if I have to respectfully disagree, on some of your other points . . .
By 'iTrash' I was not implying that Apple's products are low-quality, but rather to their potential to end up in a landfill, because folks sometimes just aren't willing to deal with battery issues.
Let me give you a few real world examples -
A friend of mine was given an iPod by a relative (who had decided apparently that it was time for her to join the Apple pod-person collective) but due to some other issues with iTunes and her PC, the player sat unused in the box for several months before she was ready to use it, and by that time the internal battery was completely dead and would no longer hold a charge.
So far as I know that iPod is STILL setting in the back of her closet, where it will probably remain till it's so obsolete that it ends up in a landfill as iTrash (never having played a single song). YES I agree she has other options, YES I agree this is really dumb, but she is NOT dumb, she's one of the brightest people I know, it's just that these kinds of stupid battery issues tend to cause some folks to quickly become disenchanted with a new toy.
Another friends original iPhone battery started having problems after only a little over a year (less than a day standby, less than 30 minutes talk time) leaving him in a very difficult situation because his service commitment to ATT was two years, and in order to 'upgrade' to the newer iPhone he would have had to extend his contract yet again (which apparently was not something he was willing to do since he hated ATT). So he just bit the bullet and paid to have his iPhone's battery replaced. In fairness, this situation was by no means totally catastrophic since the battery problems could be resolved by sending in the phone for service and paying to have the battery replaced. Like most Apple issues; all you have to do is throw money at it. In this case he had to pay about three to four times what a normal cell phone replacement battery costs, and do without his phone for a week, but at least in this case he didn't get fed up enough to toss the phone in the garbage (which I guess counts as a victory of sorts.
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So far as your experence with your iPods goes . . .
I'm glad that your two iPods still work 'fine' though I must confess that I wonder what you define as
fine, since I would expect ANY 5 year old device that is still using it's original lithium-ion battery to have lost half to two-thirds of it's battery run time (perhaps as much as three-quarters.) If so, they could still be 'fine' if your definition of
fine is just getting through an album or two (for some folks it might be just getting through a song or two!).
Personally, I am a fan of Audio Books, which can run 15 to 20 hours or more, so I suspect that my definition of 'fine' might therefore be a little different than yours, and I like the fact that, for less than five bucks I can buy a battery that will restore my Galaxy Player 4 to 'like new' run times, and that I can install that battery in 30 seconds (without any 'special tools' or YouTube videos).