Posted by Ablang on 06/26/06 06:11

If Lights Blink on Your iPod Shuffle, It Could Be Bad News

Some owners search for help after Apple USB music players flash
alternating LEDs and then die.

Stuart J. Johnston, PC World
Thursday, June 22, 2006

If you believe the results of one survey this spring, Apple's iPods
are now more popular than beer on college campuses.

But for Clayton Hunniford, that beer has gone flat. The Vancouver,
British Columbia, college student is working on his fifth iPod
Shuffle. The four previous ones all died. Two failed with one very
conspicuous symptom--what he calls "the flashing orange and green
lights of death." Often when that happens, the Shuffle never plays
again.

And Hunniford is not alone. A single topic on Apple's iPod Shuffle
support forum has garnered more than 36,000 visits since late October,
according to statistics posted on the forum index page. Dubbed "Green
and Orange flashing lights," the thread stretches on for more than 550
posts.

Flashing green and amber lights on the popular gum-pack-size music
player indicate that a generic "error" has occurred, according to
Apple's documentation. But most of the problem-related posts on the
Apple forum are from people whose Shuffles have suddenly died with the
same symptoms as Hunniford's.

Unexpected

"It just happened out of nowhere," says Hunniford, a physics student
at Simon Fraser University. Instead of his favorite songs, he got the
alternating green and amber LEDs flashing on the front of his Shuffle
when he pressed any button. The unit had worked the moment before, he
says.

Some users, like Ron Mellum of Minneapolis, have successfully revived
their Shuffles by downloading the latest iPod Updater software and
following Apple's reset instructions. But for Hunniford and others,
neither the updater nor iTunes recognizes the docked Shuffle, so
resetting or restoring is not an option.

Since the Shuffle has no display, the owner can't read an error
message or troubleshoot easily. As a result, users of dead Shuffles
generally are left with warranty coverage or nothing. Rose Ferri's
15-year-old son saw his Shuffle fail, with the telltale lights, on
June 16, three months after the one-year hardware warranty had
expired.

"He had just finished updating a podcast and went to play it when [the
lights] started," says Ferri, who lives in Olympia, Washington.
Because it was out of warranty, "[Apple support] couldn't do
anything."

Many Millions Sold

Apple introduced the Shuffle in January 2005, and the device has grown
hugely popular since then. "They've been selling close to a million
[Shuffles] a month for the last three quarters," says Gene Munster, a
senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis. He estimates
that Shuffle sales account for as much as a third of Apple's iPod
revenues. A month after its release, analysts estimated Apple's profit
margin on the Shuffles at 35 to 40 percent.

With that many Shuffles in play, some defects and other problems are
bound to show up. But the vast majority of other topics on the Apple
support forum draw far less activity. As a quick glance at the Shuffle
forum index page shows, most topics contain a maximum of 20 posts, and
relatively few have been viewed 100 or more times.

Also, unlike many threads that start off with a flurry and then fall
into inactivity, this one continues to see singularly high levels of
use. In the past seven weeks, the thread has received more than 11,000
new page views and more than 125 new posts, despite being about eight
months old. (Note: The number of views is not the same as individual
readers, since one person could read the pages multiple times.)

Apple officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and
have not released any numbers relating to total owner-reported
problems. But those users who do have trouble are growing increasingly
frustrated--and mobilized. Denis Heraud of Quebec has started his own
blog called Shufflers Unite.

Other people are turning to alternative products. "I got fed up with
my Shuffle and the whole iTunes thing.... I just bought a new [MP3]
player," wrote Terri Laudermilt of Huntsville, Alabama, in an e-mail.
(For the record, Laudermilt's new player is a SanDisk.)

Your Options

If your Shuffle dies and you've had no luck with the latest iPod
Updater software, you can call Apple for free single-incident phone
support if you've had the player for fewer than 90 days. If your
Shuffle is still under the 12-month hardware warranty, Apple's policy
is to replace it. If you've had the device for more than 180 days, the
company charges $30 for shipping and handling.

The company offers an AppleCare extended warranty and phone support
that covers a total of two years. But the $59 cost is nearly as much
as the $69 current price for a new 512MB Shuffle, and even the 1GB
Shuffle is only $99. "I didn't think it was worth it," Ferri says.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126146,tk,nl_dnxnws,00.asp

==
"You have enemies? Good! That means you've stood up for something in your life."
-- Winston Churchill
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