iPod Woes
I have this snazzy new black iPod. It's 5th generation and has the ability to play video at surprisingly high resolution. I really like having access to every single one of my MP3s at all times, and being able to watch Battlestar Galactica on the subway is good times. I love being an iPod user.
But I still loathe Apple. It might be because I've had a chip on my shoulder towards them for years and years, but the way they design their products infuriates me. About a day after getting the iPod in the first place, iTunes crashed my PC, which crashed my iPod to boot. It took a call to tech support for me to learn how to manually reboot my iPod; this manual reboot is literally the only tool the user has for resolving any iPod issues. Like all Apple products, the iPod OS is effectively an impenetrable black box - press the five buttons we give you like a good monkey, since we've made the input and output very intuitive, and don't worry about what happens between the two.
My iPod also appears to have been constructed of a soft plastic that has the precise hardness of Chevre goat cheese. This device is less than two weeks old, and has spent 90% or more of its life safely ensconced in the soft leather case with which it was bundled upon arrival from Apple. Even so, the screen is already badly scratched, to the point of being an irritation while watching video, and I'm now worrying about how I can work some of the scratches out of the surface and bitching about how the 5th Generation protective skins haven't hit retailers yet (they're still carrying 4th generation stuff).
Finally, my battery life leaves a great deal to be desired. My iPod began the day with a full charge - it was plugged into an AC charger early yesterday evening, then was turned off and placed in its case, on "hold" status, after it informed me that it was fully charged. It spent about 5 minutes plugged into my computer this morning... a connection that also works as a charger. I can understand that the fifteen or so minutes of video I watched on the subway are pretty power-intensive, but it spent the rest of the day playing shuffled songs from its full library (the "shuffle songs" menu option) almost entirely without interruption, and died around 3:30. An electronic device isn't much use to me if it can't get through a full day of my normal routine without needing special precautions like a charger at work. Is this because the batteries hadn't run down entirely before last night's charging session? Is my model flawed? I have no idea, because the documentation I'm working off is laughably incomplete.
When a product is as overdesigned as Apple's iPod, I'm pissed off by seeing things like crap documentation and a level of durability literally requiring "optional" or third-party protective devices from the word go. Apple's desired user appears to be some sort of technology-worshipping but mostly computer-illiterate trendster who can afford to buy an irreparable system and simply replace it when something does inevitably go wrong.
But I still loathe Apple. It might be because I've had a chip on my shoulder towards them for years and years, but the way they design their products infuriates me. About a day after getting the iPod in the first place, iTunes crashed my PC, which crashed my iPod to boot. It took a call to tech support for me to learn how to manually reboot my iPod; this manual reboot is literally the only tool the user has for resolving any iPod issues. Like all Apple products, the iPod OS is effectively an impenetrable black box - press the five buttons we give you like a good monkey, since we've made the input and output very intuitive, and don't worry about what happens between the two.
My iPod also appears to have been constructed of a soft plastic that has the precise hardness of Chevre goat cheese. This device is less than two weeks old, and has spent 90% or more of its life safely ensconced in the soft leather case with which it was bundled upon arrival from Apple. Even so, the screen is already badly scratched, to the point of being an irritation while watching video, and I'm now worrying about how I can work some of the scratches out of the surface and bitching about how the 5th Generation protective skins haven't hit retailers yet (they're still carrying 4th generation stuff).
Finally, my battery life leaves a great deal to be desired. My iPod began the day with a full charge - it was plugged into an AC charger early yesterday evening, then was turned off and placed in its case, on "hold" status, after it informed me that it was fully charged. It spent about 5 minutes plugged into my computer this morning... a connection that also works as a charger. I can understand that the fifteen or so minutes of video I watched on the subway are pretty power-intensive, but it spent the rest of the day playing shuffled songs from its full library (the "shuffle songs" menu option) almost entirely without interruption, and died around 3:30. An electronic device isn't much use to me if it can't get through a full day of my normal routine without needing special precautions like a charger at work. Is this because the batteries hadn't run down entirely before last night's charging session? Is my model flawed? I have no idea, because the documentation I'm working off is laughably incomplete.
When a product is as overdesigned as Apple's iPod, I'm pissed off by seeing things like crap documentation and a level of durability literally requiring "optional" or third-party protective devices from the word go. Apple's desired user appears to be some sort of technology-worshipping but mostly computer-illiterate trendster who can afford to buy an irreparable system and simply replace it when something does inevitably go wrong.