Love Hurts

I love my iPod. I love it more than I've ever loved any inanimate object in my lifetime, except for maybe those jeans I had in college that made my ass look like a wrapped gift from God himself. Unfortunately my iPod doesn't help my ass look better, but it does make me happy and keep me entertained on those 3 HOUR COMMUTE days that I've become subject to lately. It did, anyways.

I purchased the new-fangled iPod video (60G of ipod goodness) in February of this year. I loaded it up with my music and audiobooks, then began taking advantage of the video features. I downloaded stuff from the iTunes store, and I also used some very savvy websites to help me figure out how to get uTube content into a format that my iPod would recognize. I was a very happy woman. But then things started going downhill.

At first, it was just an odd reset now and again. It seemed to me to be happening at odd times - in the middle of an audiobook (which means that I completely lost my place) or when it would turn off automatically and I turned it back on, it would reset itself completely. It was annoying, but not a deal-breaker or anything. I could live with it.

But then it started doing it more often. I consulted the Apple - Support website and learned that the best course of action would be to reset it to the factory defaults and try again. So I did that, with no ill will at all. Everything went smoothly, and it was actually a surprisingly quick process. I was not upset at all.

A couple of times when I plugged it into the computer, I got a notice that the software needed to be updated. I let that happen gladly, thinking that it could only be a good thing. Maybe others were having the same issues as me and the good folks at apple were being proactive. But alas, it was not so. The thing kept resetting itself, now much more often than I was comfortable with. So I visited my friendly local apple store in downtown Seattle. Nice bunch of folks, those apple store people. The dude I talked with was very helpful, suggesting a number of different things I could do, including the factory reset again. Optomistic person that I am, I went home and did the reset again. Second time. And it still got worse. I reached my breaking point last month when it started freezing up or resetting every time I tried to play videos. It would either play the video, but the clickwheel wouldn't respond, or it would start playing the video for about .25 seconds, then reset itself. I did the factory reset one more time, trying to be rational and calm, but it didn't work. I had had enough, so I did a support request on the website, which was very easy and straightforward, and waited for them to send me a box for shipping.

I was pleasantly surprised a couple of days later when I got an email from them stating that, after reviewing my support request, that they were going to replace my equipment. Good for me. I figured that I can't have been the only person experiencing these issues, and perhaps apple was making good on my $500 investment. I sent them the iPod.

I've come to find out a few things about apple support which I'm not excited about. First, their communication language is the same wether they're actually "replacing" your item or resetting it to factory defaults and sending it back to you with a "no trouble found" tag. Seriously. It got it back and after reloading all of my stuff, the same damn thing happened when I tried to watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Immediate reset. Fuck.

I'm not going to go into the gruesome details any longer. Suffice it to say that after yet another factory reset, I'm still not able to watch video. I even pulled off all of the video stuff that didn't come directly from the iTunes store. No dice. I was driving home the other night, crossing the ship canal bridge, when I tried the video again, and it damn well froze up so I couldn't stop it. I did a very nasty 3-lane shift (in traffic) and got off at 45th and went stomping into the apple store. I explained to the very charming young man at the service counter that I was having problems again. In fact, he witnessed the very problems I was talking about his own self, plus he commented on the fact that he could hear a clicking noise that he shouldn't be hearing. He filled out a little form on his lovely Mac, and printed it out and I signed it and he took my beloved iPod away. Again.

So... now I have to suffer my nasty-ass, 2-hour+ commute without the calming sounds that my ipod provides. It's truly been so long since I've purchased an actual CD that I had to burn a few just to have something besides FM raido to listen to in the car. I'm not happy.

This morning I received a call from the apple store, stating that I needed to cancel my open service request (one I opened in frustration after reading the "no trouble found" comment on the last one) before they can send the ipod out for the service. The dude told me I could cancel it online, or call apple and cancel it. Which brings me to yet another sourse of apple-related frustration. RAR!!

I have never, in all of my searches - which included "find on this page" searches for the words 'phone', 'call', and 'fucking phone number' - seen anyplace which gives a number with which to contact someone human who can help you with your issues. Perhaps I'm retarded, but I just haven't seen it. It doesn't help, probably, that by the time I get around to wanting to talk to a human, I'm so frustrated that I can't even spell my own name any more, but that's beside the point.

So... here I sit, with no ipod, needing to cancel my service request (referred to as a 'replacement request' on the website. right.) and not being able to. The dude at the apple store is waiting for me to call him back so he can send my little friend away to be replaced by a new little friend to fall in love with again.

Sigh.