Westserve

iPod rises from the dead

Time to update the rant against Apple regarding my iPod.

Cutting to the chase, I have a fully functional iPod again – my original unit. But it was a messy business, and one that hasn’t left me feeling confident in Apple support.

To keep a long story short, the iPod was returned to me in working order with a note simply stating that ‘no software’ was installed on the unit, and installation of ‘software’ made the unit functional again.
And they were right, but as soon as I plugged it into my PC, the iPod Updater software insisted that the unit needed formatting for use on that computer, so I let it. Ten seconds later, I had an unusable iPod again! Back to the ‘folder with exclamation mark’ again.

At this point, I was contacted by someone I had known briefly from an online forum. Warren offered to assist if I was continuing to have issues, as he was an Apple Reseller.
So Warren dropped by on his way home on Thursday and checked out the iPod. He then plugged it into his Powerbook, and it wouldn’t recognise the iPod either.
We were about to start work on a letter to Apple to send in with the unit, when he thought to check the version of the iPod Updater on his Powerbook. Sure enough, it was way out of date. He downloaded the current version and bingo! It recognised the iPod and prepared it for use with his Mac (Thanks Warren!).
So I did the same – on my laptop this time – and sure enough, all was good and the iPod was happy talking to the PC.

This led me back to my desktop, and I uninstalled the iPod Updater, re-downloaded it, and again, all was good.

In all this, I learned some undocumented things about the iPod (at least, I think these things are right):

• iPods come from the factory in a ‘neutral’state. When they are attached to a computer, the Apple software on the Mac or PC then actually flashes the flash memory in the iPod with a ‘Mac’ or ‘PC’ version of the firmware. What I was seeing when that flashing process failed was the fall back, ‘emergency’ firmware in the ‘Pod
  But nowhere is this documented or even mentioned.

  So, some observations and conclusions about my experience:

• The original problem (a totally dead iPod) was never explained. Apple insisted it was a case of ‘no fault found’. Very puzzling.
• The subsequent problems appear to be rooted in a corrupt copy of the iPod Updater on my desktop PC.
• The problems were made a lot worse by:
  • Appalling lack of communication from Apple Support. I had asked the support person directly, what the process was that the iPod had to go through when it was ‘installed’ on a computer? I was told they don’t give out that kind of information.
    There was no information available about the flashing process. If had this information, I could have short-circuited the whole process.
    There was no explanation given about the totally dead iPod I returned initially. Their attitude smacks of an arrogance and an aloofness that I find really unhelpful.
  • Inaccurate and misleading error messages. When the flashing process failed on my PC, it reported a disk read/write error, when it was nothing of the kind. Likewise, the iPod seems touchy when it comes to the USB connection. If I plug the unit into a USB port directly, I have no trouble. If I use a USB extension cable, I get periodic ‘disk read/write’ errors. These are nothing of the kind. More like transmission errors in the USB connection.

Bottom line?
I’m happy to have a working iPod again.
I’ve learned a bit about the way they work, and a lot about the way Apple works.
Would I buy another one? Maybe.
Based on the experience with Apple support, though, I would be reluctant to invest in an Apple computer. I have little faith in their support of their hardware.

Time to move on!