Matthew LaVelle’s weblog

First, a little background information

An My iPod, for those of you who don’t know, can be used for several different things, the most basic of which are the:

• Storage and playback of up to 40,000 audio tracks (like a really big walkman)


• Storage of up to 40 gigabytes of data (like an external hard drive)

I was given an iPod w/dock connector in September of 2004. I promptly purchased an Apple Care Protection Plan (extended warranty) for $60 that covers my iPod for two years from the date of purchase. I’ve used the iPod as regularly as possible since and as of today, October 26, 2005, barely one year after beginning my Apple Care Protection Plan the following has happened to my iPod:

1. My iPod would not respond to any command when a hard drive failure occured, according to the customer service representative I spoke with over the phone last year, only a few months of regular use.


2. About 5-6 months later there was a major software failure on my iPod. I once again called Apple. This time, with the help of a technical support person, I tried to reset, then update my iPods Windows based software. With no luck I sent in my little white hard drive for some work.


3. On my trip down to Texas this last week I accidently unplugged my iPod from my Windows-based Dell notebook and, to no surprise caused a software failure in my iPod.

What I’m now realizing

Apple Computers has been notorious for several things during the company’s history. Not least of which is a simple rule they’ve lived by until a couple of years ago and that is that Apple has not writen software for use on Windows Operating Systems…ever. At first glance this technique seemed, to me at least, arrogant, elitest, and defiant. But now, just over a year after owning my first new Apple product, I’m begginning to understnad why Apple doesn’t write software for Windows. I haven’t pinpointed it yet but based on some well thought out statements I think we can figure that these things might be the cause of my angst towards my iPod.

1. Apple, until recently, had never written Windows Software. So this means that due to lack of practice, Apple is probably not that good at writing software for Windows.


2. Apple, having it’s own Operating System is probably more concerned (and rightly so) with supporting the OS X platform.


3. (All) Windows software has a reputation for being buggy, cryptic, and not very well supported. This statement is not working with the above statements but rather against it making my problems with my iPod compunded since I’m using an Apple product with a Windows-based PC.

What needs to be done?

Apple needs to write better software that should begin with better research into the use habits of people that use Windows. I seriously doubt that Apple has written bad software on purpose in an attempt to force users to switch over to using an Apple machine. Windows has had the ability since 2000 to accept 3rd party input devices (such as an iPod) as what they call Plug and Play devices. If Apple would spend some more time researching this technology they could no doubt figure out a way that I can plug my iPod into my Dell notebook, sync and/or charge my iPod and then unplug it and walk away without major software corruption taking place on my iPod.

What really frustrates me

Besides the fact that this iPod costed over $400 with the protection plan I was really hoping to utilize it as an external hard drive for my files. I’m a web designer by trade and

What are my options?

There are a few different options I have at this point:

1. I can sell my iPod on craigslist with my iTrip for a couple hundred dollars and take my chances with a different audio player


2. I can buy a top of the lineMac Mini for around $600, reformat my iPod and try my luck on OS X.


3. I can write a letter to Apple Computer that would be similiar to this weblog entry and see if they have any comments or suggestions that might help me make my decision easier.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Whining, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.