7 posts tagged “ipod”
Here's one you can file away for future reference.
The battery in my old iPod has been failing for months. It got to the point where I was only getting about 30 minutes out of a charge.
You can send your iPod back to Apple and they'll send you a wiped, refurbished one for about $60 I think. Other companies will replace your battery for about the same amount. iPodJuice.com provides battery replacement kits for just about every iPod version. For under $40 you get a nifty little plastic tool so you can crack the case without scratching it up, a new battery, and excellent full color instructions on how to replace the battery yourself.
It was kind of scary to crack the case open, remove the hard drive, replace the battery, and then put it all back together again, but it only took about 10 minutes and everything's working fine. The batteries they provide are actually better than the originals. There are two choices, one of which promises 43% better performance and the other of which promises 86% better performance for a few extra bucks. I went with the better battery and I've run the iPod for at least 3 hours in the last few days and it's still showing over half charged. I don't think I ever got even 4 hrs. out of the original battery.
I definitely recommend iPodJuice if you find yourself in the same situation.
A while back I bought a new car radio with an aux input so that I could listen to my iPod in the car. It's great to have that capability, but I found it incredibly distracting to have the iPod laying in the little well in front of the gearshift lever.
Whenever I had one of those 'who the hell is this" or "I can't listen to this one right now" or "I must immediately give this song 4 stars" moments, I'd have to take my eyes off of the road to reach down and deal with the iPod. I realized that I had become like those annoying people who talk on their cell phones while driving... maybe even worse.
Pro-Clip to the rescue. This is a great product that clips right to your dash and keeps your device at eye level. There are models that fit just about any make or model of car. And there are holders not only for iPods, but for phones, PDA's, etc. The install was very simple and took less than 10 minutes. Now I can go back to grumbling about the talking while driving crowd......
A few years ago Steven Levy wrote a book called Insanely Great about the genesis of the Macintosh. He's just come out with a new one, The Perfect Thing, about the development of the iPod. Excerpted here. Another good article here.
Haven't gotten my hands on it yet, but I've really enjoyed his other work (Hackers, Crypto, The Unicorn's Tale, as well as Insanely Great), so it's definitely going high on my list.
In a previous post I outlined my suspicion that the iPod has some kind of unholy intelligence. Another example:
On Sunday I was thinking, "gee, I'm PMAO (posting my ass off) up here and I'm not getting much love back. Even my kids, ingrates that they are, can't be bothered to post a comment on the old man's site. I mean, 'that sucks' would be fine.
So Monday morning I get in the car to go to work, plug in the iPod, start a shuffle, and what do you think is the first song I hear. Yeah, that's right, 'Gimme Some Lovin' by The Spencer Davis Group.
It was a great week on the shuffle-train.
This Heart - Reckless Sleepers (Jules Shear - the most underappreciated man in rock)
Big Boss Man - Mance Lipscomb
That's the Way - Tom Waits
What Becomes of the Brokenhearted - Jimmy Ruffin
I Must Be High - Wilco
Two Left Feet - Richard Thompson
Mary Danced With Soldiers - Emmylou Harris w/ Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Hold On - Tom Waits
Lover I Don't Have to Love - Bright Eyes
Trane's Slo Blues - John Coltrane
Twistin' the Night Away - Sam Cooke
See.... told ya.
What You Are - Patty Griffin
Mr. Bitterness - Soul Coughing
Fitter Happier - Radiohead
Clementine - Decemberists
So it appears that the iPod has some sort of (perhaps extraterrestrial or extradimensional) intelligence. I first noticed this on June 21st, 2005 when I got in the car to head to work and the first song that played was 'Summertime' by Stan Getz. Several other times over the past year I've noticed even scarier things. I'll have a song in my head and the next time I turn the thing on, bam! It happened again today. Last night I was getting a jar of pickles out of the fridge. (Stay with me here....) For some reason I started singing the old Arlo Guthrie song "I Don't Want A Pickle (I Just Want To Ride On My Motor-sickle)" (don't ask)
which I probably hadn't heard or thought about for 25 years. Today, on the way home.... bam!
So here's the question: Is it reading my mind or is it actually planting these things in my head?
I will continue to document these occurences. If I suddenly disappear, you'll know I'm on to something we're not supposed to know.
