Dec302008
Replacing an iPod battery … not so easy
Filed under General by david brooks at 4:15 pm
A few months ago I lamented in this blog that the battery had died in my iPod mini, and that I couldn’t get it replaced because it was one of the few sold by Hewlett-Packard - HP doesn’t fix them any more, and Apple won’t do those (don’t ask me why, since they’re just iPods with an HP logo).
Helpful posters pointed me to iPodjuice.com, which sells batteries and kits to let you change them yourself. So I got one for Christmas; oh, boy! My daughter has an old mini with a busted screen, so I experimented with hers first.
Holy toledo, forget it - there’s one point where you have to pry off a multi-pin connector that’s tucked down in the body of the device, and they warn you repeatedly that if you even look cross-eyed at the exposed portions of this Molex connector, the scroll wheel won’t work any more rendering the iPod useless. Ten minutes of struggling convinced me there’s no way I can get that connector off without screwing up the scroll wheel. I guess I need to find somebody with steadier hands than me …
(Note - in light of the posting below, my wife wanted me to emphasize that I’m a fumble-fingered doofus when it comes to mechanical stuff, and that she suspects normal human beings would find the job much easier.)
December 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
David,
Hey there! my name is Anthony and I am the owner of ipodjuice.com and happened across your post just now. Feel free to send your iPod mini in to my attention if you are still having trouble/concerns about completing the battery replacement process with your iPod mini and we can complete the job for you free of charge.
Just be sure to include your original order number so we know that this is your iPod mini!
I do have to say that the vast majority of our customers can swap out the battery quite easily, but every once in a while we get a customer that has a spot of trouble or gets a little squeamish halfway through!
Thanks for giving us another chance to help you out, and feel free to contact me directly at support at ipodjuice dot com if you have any further questions!
Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD / ipodjuice.com
December 30th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Anthony,
Just a quick note to say how very cool to see a company willing to provide such great service. I've bookmarked your site and if/when our iPod batteries go poof, you'll be getting our business.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Oh dear, this leaves me with a dilemma.
As a Traditional Old Media Reporter, I work under an unofficial ethics policy that frowns on taking a freebie from a company I was writing about for the newspaper. Does writing for this blog carry the same ethical weight, I wonder?
Ipodjuice offers to help the fumble-fingered with the battery swap for a fee, so this is definitely a gift offer with monetary value. If I accept it, will the Blog Patrol form a hollow square around me and snip off my buttons?*
* if you're too young to remember “Branded” this may baffle you
December 30th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Dave,
Funny stuff. I don't have any empirical data, but for some reason it seems that the more mechanical people are, the more involved the battery replacement process seems to be for them (perhaps they over-analyze the process).
Why don't we do this so you don't give the appearance of any ethical violations: send us your iPod mini to my attention please (reference this article, if you don't mind!) and we will gladly finish it up for you at our recently-lowered rate of $12 plus return shipping (with your permission we can simply charge the same credit card on file).
Afterwards, I will take it upon myself to decide whether or not to toss in few freebies for which you would have no control over
P.S. Thanks, Doug - we appreciate the kind words.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:20 am
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http://www.pdaaccessories.com/productDetail.asp...
March 29th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] December I wrote about how I was too fumble-fingered to replace my battery in my iPod mini with the kit I bought [...]