lsanderson | Good Luck With That Broken iPod

By JOE NOCERA
MY iPod died.

It happened right after Christmas — a Christmas, I hasten to add, in which I gave my wife the new video iPod, making it the latest of the half-dozen iPods my family has bought since Apple began selling them in October 2001. We also own five Apple computers, and have become pathetically loyal because of our reliance on the iPod. To the extent that Apple is using the iPod to drive sales of other Apple products, the Nocera family is proof that the strategy works; we've probably spent more than $10,000 on Apple hardware since the iPod first came out. Alas, at least three of the iPods were replacements for ones that broke.

This time, though, I decided to get my iPod fixed. After all, it wasn't even two years old and had cost around $300. Like all iPods, it came with a one-year warranty. Although Apple sells an additional year of protection for $59, I declined the extended warranty because the cost struck me as awfully high — a fifth of the purchase price of the device itself.

Anecdotal evidence — like chat boards filled with outraged howls from owners of dead iPods — strongly suggests that you can write the rest of this story yourself. You start by thinking: "I'll just call Apple!" But it's so hard to find the customer support number on Apple's Web site that you suspect the company has purposely hidden it.

Eventually, you find the number and make the call. Although the tech support guy quickly diagnoses your problem — a hard drive gone bad — he really has only one suggestion: buy a new iPod. "Since it is out of warranty," he says, "there's nothing we can do." You're a little stunned. But you're not ready to give up. On the Apple site, there's a form you can fill out to send the iPod back to Apple and get it fixed. But you do a double-take when you see the price. Apple is going to charge you $250, plus tax, to fix your iPod. There is no mistaking the message: Apple has zero interest in fixing a machine it was quite happy to sell you not so long ago.

Now you're reeling. You're furious. But what choice do you have? You can't turn to a competitor's product, not if you want to keep using Apple's proprietary iTunes software, where you've stored all the music you love, including songs purchased directly from the iTunes Music Store, which you'll lose if you leave the iTunes environment. So you grit your teeth and buy a new iPod. Of course since it's a newer machine, it has that cool video capability. But you're still angry.

You've read recently that Apple has sold 42 million iPods in less than four and a half years. Thanks to the iPod, Apple just reported its most profitable quarter ever. But you wonder how many of those 42 million units have gone to people who feel, as you do, that you've just been taken to the cleaners by Apple? You also wonder why do iPods seem to break so frequently? And why is Apple so willing to tick off people who spend thousands of dollars on Apple products by refusing to deal with broken iPods?

Or at least that's what I wondered as I went through the five stages of iPod grief. More