Let me start by saying this is a rant. I have a dead 5th gen iPod given to me that I believe needs just a little TLC (battery replacement) to work just like new. It exhibits a sad mac on boot, which is indicative of a hardware failure, but one guy's experience i've read online found out it wasn't the hard drive (like most sad macs usually mean), it's actually the battery's fault... it goes so low that it can't be recharged over the standard method of plugging it in, and so it pops a sad mac. It's out of warranty, so it's not like I expect it work, and I've got nothing in this thing money-wise, so I figure it's worth a shot. Perhaps this one has the same problem.

The same guy writing all this says he pops open the case disconnects the battery from the PCB and left it overnight. Next day, he plugged it back in, and with power connected, the damn thing booted right up and started charging. Even all his music, etc., was still intact. He decided to replace the battery anyway, but long story short, his "dead" ipod was actually okay all along. It just needed a reset!

So.... One day i'm in Southpoint's Apple Store checking out the new MacBook Pro's, and i ask one idiot working there if they'd pop open the ipod i had (i didn't have it with me at the time), and he was like, "sure, no problem"... so i set up an appointment (which IMO is the lamest thing in the world to make customers do), go in today to get it done, and the MOTHERFUCKERS WOULDN'T DO IT. I argued with them about it.. i mean, it's ALREADY broke in their eyes, how the HELL can they do anything else to it?

So all in all, those bastards suck ass. Don't take anything to them if you don't want them to drum up some policy about why they can't do this or that. Buying stuff there isn't so bad, but despite the fact that I'm a professional IT guy, these idiots making $10/hr somehow think they're smarter and cooler than me and act as some gatekeeper to the leetness that is Apple. Just help me out when I need help, for crying out loud. Common courtesy here would've gone a long way.

NEWSFLASH, Apple: It's not so LEET.

7/7/2007 12:17:47 PM

i laff at this thread

7/7/2007 12:22:45 PM

yeah, um, that's pretty much common practice anywhere you go.

if you were to bring your, say, creative zen player to best buy and tell them to crack it open, they'd look at you like you were on crack

plus, it was out of warranty, so stfu. you should have gotten an applecare plan if you wanted service.

7/7/2007 12:24:06 PM

7/7/2007 12:29:08 PM

Quote :

"plus, it was out of warranty, so stfu."

out of warranty does NOT mean throw it away and buy a new one.... it just means he'd have to pay for the service, which these guys refused to do no matter what

you are one gullible person if you fall for that "have to have applecare warranty" crap

best buy is an electronics retail store, they have no association with creative, apple is the manufacturer here and apple stores is the same as buying from apple direct, you're analogy is flawed.

if apple wants to act like best buy, then we know what the problem is here and why apple sucks, i think that may be his point.

[Edited on July 7, 2007 at 12:45 PM. Reason : .]

7/7/2007 12:44:46 PM

I think what truly just pissed me off was that it really just depends on who you're talking to there. One guy says they'd do it, no problem at all, but another one is like all, "hellz no, dumbass, gtfo". Hell they even took the thing in the back like they were gonna do something, waste 5 minutes having a fucking MEETING about it, then just come out and say "no way."

What's even funnier about this to me is that I buy stuff there all the time for work. Hell, I spent $6000 on ONE machine there (it was for some high-end software analysis program that our research group uses), and the bitches wouldn't just do me a small favor and break open a DEAD ipod.

Customer Service: ZERO.

7/7/2007 1:13:02 PM

http://iresq.com/ipod/

all you need to know, the guys are totally legit

7/7/2007 1:17:37 PM

thats what you get for buying a shitty product

7/7/2007 1:18:26 PM

^ godammit, dnl, read the fucking post. I have NO money in this at all. It was GIVEN to me dead.

Wouldn't you try and spend ~$0 to fix something you paid nothing for, yet could be worth a couple hundred bucks if you could get it working?

hmmmmm, that's right, it's a shitty product, no one would probably want one anyway.

7/7/2007 1:25:52 PM

Quote :

"yeah, um, that's pretty much common practice anywhere you go. if you were to bring your, say, creative zen player to best buy and tell them to crack it open, they'd look at you like you were on crack plus, it was out of warranty, so stfu. you should have gotten an applecare plan if you wanted service."

it's staggering how many levels of retarded are in that statement.

nikob4jc you should just crack it open yourself and figure it out. I bought a 20 GB Dell DJ off of a friend because the headphone jack was flakey and I opened it up and all it needed was some junk wedged in there to put more pressure on the headphone jack connection to the main board. $10 for a 20 GB mp3 player, not too shabby at all.

7/7/2007 1:32:39 PM

Quote :

"it really just depends on who you're talking to there."

exactly Nik

7/7/2007 1:36:05 PM

^^ that's the plan. One site I checked out sold the tool to pop it open for $8 shipped. Battery's another $20 shipped if that indeed is the problem. I'd hate to buy stuff for it if indeed the HDD is bad. This is why it was worth a shot at getting the Apple Store to open it up for me. They have the tools to do so. I even asked at the end of our "genius bar experience" if they'd just let me use the damn tool myself. I've already seen how incredibly easy it is to open up with a careful hand.

We will see.

[Edited on July 7, 2007 at 1:38 PM. Reason : woot]

7/7/2007 1:37:54 PM

So, apple denied your stupid request and they are at fault?

It's one thing to ask them to fix it, and it's another to ask them to participate in your cockamamy plan because you are too afraid to do it yourself.

Diagnosis: failure to exhibit common sense.

7/7/2007 1:40:39 PM

no, you blithering idiot, he doesn't want to waste money on buying the tool and the battery if that was never the problem.

he was trying to get the apple folk to open the ipod and check if it was the battery or not, then he'd buy the battery seperately and replace it


since it's out of warrenty he can do whatever he wants to it, the apple folk, if they broke it doing that would not be responsible for the further breakage, he knows that too.

7/7/2007 1:45:13 PM

Look, another dumbass who expects free, out of warranty special service from a corporation.

Diagnosis: failure to exhibit common sense.


[Edited on July 7, 2007 at 1:52 PM. Reason : l;]

7/7/2007 1:51:59 PM

look motherfucker, they already do it for a number of other products, and I'll still go back to the point that another employee would have done it for me, why wouldn't another one?

Part of the reason behind the retail stores was to get people better service and support, hence the "Genius Bar". They are SUPPOSED to help. It's their whole business mantra. You can bring in a beige G3 running 8.5 that's having trouble with some weird extensions and they'll help you, in warranty or not, "dumbass."

I'm not asking for special favors here, it's a simple task that anyone with the tools can do. Are they obligated to help me? No, but given that they'll do it for other dumbass questions from far lesser deserving individuals than myself, I don't see why they wouldn't have done it for me.

7/7/2007 2:05:19 PM

apple's warranty service is great. I've walked into the apple store twice now with my laptop and fried a/c adapter and 5 minutes later i walked out with a new adapter. and no i don't have apple care.

7/7/2007 2:06:40 PM

^ i agree. The apple 1 year warranties have come in handy many times for me, and i bought the 2 year extension for my wife's Macbook and it's already paid for itself. They replaced the battery in the first year, and so far in the 2nd year I've had the keyboard and hard drive replaced. In addition, when they replaced the keyboard and hard drive (on separate occasions), they also replaced the battery both times, even though it wasn't bad.

7/7/2007 3:16:36 PM

Quote :

"Buying stuff there isn't so bad, but despite the fact that I'm a professional IT guy, these idiots making $10/hr somehow think they're smarter and cooler than me and act as some gatekeeper to the leetness that is Apple. Just help me out when I need help, for crying out loud. Common courtesy here would've gone a long way."

Obviously they are the gatekeeper to fixing it, because you don't know how to pop the ipod open and repair it yourself.

Quote :

"I'm not asking for special favors here, it's a simple task that anyone with the tools can do. Are they obligated to help me? No, but given that they'll do it for other dumbass questions from far lesser deserving individuals than myself, I don't see why they wouldn't have done it for me."

I'm in tech support and I'd much rather help someone who is completely hopeless than someone who thinks they are entitled to something and then bitches about it on the internet instead of talking to someone else in the store who can actually help.

7/7/2007 3:27:06 PM

Quote :

"It exhibits a sad mac on boot, which is indicative of a hardware failure, but one guy's experience i've read online found out it wasn't the hard drive (like most sad macs usually mean), it's actually the battery's fault... it goes so low that it can't be recharged over the standard method of plugging it in, and so it pops a sad mac."

Battery issues are indicated by a battery icon and/or failure to boot at all. A sad iPod is a failing hardware, and almost always the HDD.

Quote :

"The same guy writing all this says he pops open the case disconnects the battery from the PCB and left it overnight. Next day, he plugged it back in, and with power connected, the damn thing booted right up and started charging. Even all his music, etc., was still intact. He decided to replace the battery anyway, but long story short, his "dead" ipod was actually okay all along. It just needed a reset!"

It is most likely that in his mucking in the internals, he possibly reseated the connector on the iPod HDD, which has been known to solve sad iPod issues, but doesn't always work and is sometimes just a temporary fix of a larger issue.

Quote :

"I argued with them about it.. i mean, it's ALREADY broke in their eyes, how the HELL can they do anything else to it?"

Liability issues, and the fact that they don't service iPods, they replace them.

Quote :

"out of warranty does NOT mean throw it away and buy a new one.... it just means he'd have to pay for the service, which these guys refused to do no matter what "

Didn't sound like he offered to pay. Furthermore, even if he did, they could only provide what services Apple provides. Since Apple doesn't provide out of waranty iPod repair, merely replacement, they couldn't do anything to service the iPod.

Quote :

"since it's out of warrenty he can do whatever he wants to it, the apple folk, if they broke it doing that would not be responsible for the further breakage, he knows that too."

You're right. HE can do whatever he wants to it. The guys at Apple can do what Apple allows them to do.

[Edited on July 7, 2007 at 5:38 PM. Reason : dg]

7/7/2007 5:35:38 PM