That sucks! Today when I called up for help with my Windows Media Player, they informed that it would cost $300 to speak with a techie over the phone T_T; I hate rip offs.

Hey, you're blogging again!

Lucky you that yours died just before the warranty... mine did one month after (at least the one-year-and-a-bit countdown function worked).

Guess what? The first thing he said was 'Mac or Windows?'
I answered 'Windows'
His answer: 'That's the base of your problem'. With a sarcastic laugh.
Then he said that I should have bought AppleCare... Too late.
Repairing the iPod would cost nearly as much as a new one, suckers.

Well... not all that's left is an broken Ipod (4G) and a person that wonn't buy Apple product for at least 50 years.

I had a 4G IPOD die during warranty and was miffed at the $29.95 s/h fee when I was first told of it.

Apple impressed me with their execute though. They overnighted an empty cardboard shipping box to my door. I put the ipod in & dropped it off at a DHL location (CopyMax, I think) on my way to work. I could check its shipping progress online and in a day or two Apple had it back. Later that same day the website showed they diagnosed it as bad and a new one with the engraving on the back would ship out the following day.

All in all, I had a new ipod back in my hands in less than a week and it was very low hassle.

The alternative would have been for me to find a box, pack it as best I could, find some place to ship it, pay for shipping there, wait for the U.S. mail to get it back to me, (Without the fee they would be motivated to use the cheapest aka slowest shipping possible). etc.

I think other companies could actually learn from this. Dell and Compaq are far worse at customer support in my experience.

It'd be better if the Apple Store could just replace it for you at no charge, but the Apple Store is geared toward sales not warranty replacement work.

Wow just wow, few things you missed.....

1) The Genius bar will replace a covered iPod at the bar for free if it was considered a defective iPod.

2) The reason you were charged $30 is either a) because you wanted to have one sent to your house and there were no replacements in stock b) You had an engraved iPod and wanted to have a new engraved one (which cant be done in the store.

3) I have had a first and second generation iPod that have never had any issues besides an expect lowering of battery life. I also now have a 5th generation iPod that is functioning perfectly fine.

4) Apple sells 12 million iPods a year and that number is increasing. When there are only 150 or so Apple Stores you are bound to see tons of broken iPods there, even if there is less then a 0.5% failure rate. Just because when you are at a garage and see a lot of broken cars dosnt mean all cars break.

5) Window machines are notoriously terrible at handling iPod software correctly, and I have heard about Dells flat out breaking iPods. Asking what machine you are using serves two purposes a) If they need to restore your iPod they know what system to do it for b) it assist them in troubleshooting OS related problems.

6) You are surprised that you need an appointment to see a specialist? Like I had mentioned not only do Geniuses deal with iPods but they are also certified to do any level of hardware repair on broken macs. They are very very busy people. Do you complain that you have to make an appointment to see a doctor? Im amazed you could be seen at all, in my local Apple Store if I dont have an appointment it is unlikely they will be able to get me one or be able to find time to see me on standby.

7) To receive an iPod replacement you do not need your box, receipt, packaging, warranty information or anything like that. Apple stores it all on their computer systems and they dont require it to replace one for you, that would just be foolish.

8) You are by no means required to us an iPod or even set foot in an apple store, you can get a Rio or a Sony player and deal with their tech support which dont have any local repair offices.

9) If you didn't think it was a good idea to spend the extra $50 on a warranty to protect your iPod thats your own fault you cant blame apple for being short sighted.

10) The apple stores are geared entirely towards support. They have the Genius Bar which no other company has ever done, the only thing close is the Geek Squad and that is 3rd party and will not work as authorized repair techs under your warranty. Apple even goes as far to have personal 1 on 1 trainers for people in the store.

11) I guess you have never dealt with Microsoft support. Good luck with a Microsoft music player im sure it will work much better then an iPod, after all windows vista is only 5 years over their release deadline.

12) I could really go on all day but if you dont understand by now its kind of pointless.

kodex,

Thanks for your comments.

I went directly to the genius bar, and my ipod was deemed to be defective, and I still had to pay the replacement feed. My ipod was not engraved.

Am I to understand that since your two ipods do not have issues, that nobody else should?

My ipod mini was rock solid, kinda wish I had that instead of this Nano.

I agree about your statement about seeing a lot of broken iPods, yes that's true, it added to my experience, and thought it relevant to mention during my initial post.

Dells breaking ipods? Oh my god, give me a break. Apple wrote the software and the hardware, if they can't figure out how to handle Dell or Windows, they should make their hadware Mac exclusive, give me a freakin' break!

The 'genius' people are glorified customer service reps. The guy I dealt with was an idiot, and when I pay a premium for hardware, I expect service. If their genius people are so busy, what does that say about the quality of their products? Whenever I purchase something from Magnolia Hifi, and there's a problem, I go into the store, no appointment, no bullshit, they take care of it. 'Making an appoint with a genius' is just another layer of Apple's elitist Bullshit.

I agree about trying to save the money on the extra warranty, and if it had been past a year, I could have been angry at myself for not purchasing that. But the point is, it was about 10 months and it died, and Apple should step up and replace it free of charge. When you have a new car and the alertnator dies in a year, you don't have to pay to ship a new one to the dealership, they get it, put it in as part of the warranty, most companies do this. I have never had to pay a shipping/handling charge for a product that has died during the warranty period.

The genius bar is nothing new to retail. It's people that are supposed to know more about the products they sell, come on it's not as innovate as you make it sound.

I have dealt w/ Microsoft support all the time. I'm a developer and microsoft customer. Their support is bad too. Although recently when my xbox 360 died, I did have a good support experience, and they did not charge me a shipping/handling fee for the part they sent to my house. They even sent me a box to return their defective part in.

To your last point, you're obviously an Apple die hard, and if they served you shit, you'd convince yourself, and everyone else how great it was. So I guess I'm just no where near as clever as you are, and yeah I guess your logic is lost on me.

Well now, you did not purchase applecare for the extended warranty, and thus you were in the last six months of a "limited warranty" and you had to pay, I almost paid for my ipod mini to be replaced, but I just went and bought applecare, so it was no big deal. 1st 6mos. = free, last 6mos.=29.95 fee, thats game. play it or not.

sorry they didnt tell you about the appointment thing, you do have to make an appointment, and no the genius bar is not new, its 5 years old, and they dont know more, they are certified to fix it. mac specialists are paid to know more.

I had a gateway computer and everytime I called, they said, use the reinstall disks, which didnt ever help. its collecting dust now. oh well. love my mac.

Learn to read. You have a one year LIMITED warranty with your iPod. The 30 dollars is because they need to dispose of and cover shipping of the old iPod. You got a new replacement unit same day.

You tightass

If you read the terms of the warranty, you'd know that the processing fee applies after six months. Your ignorance to the terms of the warranty is not cause for Apple to "step up to the plate" and give you a freebie of one thing or another.