Apple faces class action suits on iPod battery

Tuesday February 10, 11:37 AM EST

NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) faces five class action suits filed in December claiming it misrepresented the battery life of its iPod digital music player, the company said on Tuesday in a regulatory filing.

The Cupertino, California maker of the Macintosh computer has been buoyed in recent quarters by robust sales of the iPod. But users have complained the iPod battery wears out too quickly.

The lawsuit's complaints include unfair competition and claims of false advertising, fraudulent concealment and breach of warranty, Apple said.

"The company is beginning its investigation of these claims," Apple said in the filing.

The plaintiffs have asked to consolidate the suits, which were filed between Dec. 23 and Dec. 30 in the counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco and Alameda, in San Mateo County. Apple is pushing for Santa Clara County, it said.

Apple also said in the filing that, if it had expensed the costs of stock options for employees based on the Black-Scholes method of determining value, its fiscal first-quarter earnings would have been 9 cents per share instead of the 17 cents per share it reported.

In the year-earlier quarter, it would have reported a loss of 17 cents per share instead of a loss of 2 cents a share.

©2003 Reuters Limited.

hey anybody got an ipod?

I know a bunch of people with an iPod, and I am going to notify them right now.

Don't forget this little gem...

http://www.ipodsdirtysecret.com/

You know there are how-to's available online now to change out the battery. Really invasive stuff though. THings the user shouldn't be expected to do (unscrewing the backplate and messing with the innards for one)

A few Macophiles I know have been ranting that this was only an issue with the earlier models of iPods and the newer ones do not have it. Still, it was all I needed to hear to cross them off my shopping list.

Then again, they were already off for being the most expensive model in town.

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/10370
Annalee Newitz does

Personally, Svensta, I feel that making a decision based solely on the fact that the battery life isn't the best is quite illogical.
Now,factoring in that they decieved customers (which they routinely do, along with 99.5% of the other computer companies out there),
that seems more like a reasonable argument. I, however, am a big fan of Apple, and own a Pwoerbook and just bought an iPod Mini.
I've had no problems with battery life whatsoever, and that is most likely due to the fact that this is a completely different model of
iPod. Even still, I have never known of anyone who has had of any problems with their iPod, be it short battery life, or whatever.

I have an IPod...
where do you go to get included in this class action suit?

Hiei,

The issue is being raised more because the battery CAN'T BE CHANGED than just the fact that they misrepresented the battery life, I believe. Imagine spending $300-400 for one of these iPods, and finding out that when your battery goes dead, you can't replace it, you have to buy a NEW iPod.

That turned me off iPods and off Apple.

Suits them well! I'm a Mac user and to some degrees an Apple fan, but the iPod battery is a no-go. Shame on you, Apple!

Never had a problem with mine, lasts weeks with light use (only while walking home)

I have an original iPod, still works fine, when it doesn't I will fix it myself. Small issue really, folks will get a new ipod or a discount/free replacement and that will be all. To ban a company or product based on one product flaw is simply foolish. It's not like the tires blow out or the gas tank explodes.

How many of you still drive a car or use a household appliance from a company that has had serious recall matters on another model - or even on the same model you drive/use? The answer is almost every company has had recalls or defective products. The World ain't perfect folks.

I love Apple products, but I hate the company. I will still buy what I need from them.

my friend has a first generation ipod .. he used it every day and ran its battery dead each day playing it.. he had only 1 music free hour each day =). he had it since they first introduced it..
(it was the 5 gig model they sold for 500 bucks before they introduced the 2 other models).
he sat on it one day and chipped the remote control port.. but otherwise it still works perfectly to this day and i could easily sell it for circa 100 bucks on ebay.

NOTE: all apple products have a 1 year warrantee from date of purchase.
a small percentage extra at time of purchase can be paid for 3 more years like dull(R)
or you can take a used product you bought in and buy applecare warrantee for 3 years for a small fee. this gets you tech support, labor and parts, etc...
they replaced my dvd-r drive when i murdered it by ripping/burning for 2 days straight w/o stopping =)

very expensive but sexy looking kit!


I just bought an Archos device, half the price, twice the storage and a can take MP3's (and DivX's) on or off it in seconds, it don`t care what i do with them!

i like ipod.. ipod will double as a firewire drive and as a firewire drive it doesnt care what you put on it either.. i stored on my ipod
- final cut pro pirated
- 4 episodes of gundam seed (divx avi)
- the garageband jampack disk image (several gigs)
im an appleite.. but i can say this.. my friend has an archos.. i doubt they have 80 gigs of space, his is 5 gig. (ipods are 40 gigs now).
theyre also double maybe triple the size and very ugly in my honest opinion.. but whatever floats your boat =P

LiePod

Anyone know if the IPOD can be operated directly from an external AC adapter or is it just used to charge the internal battery ?

I don't like the iPOD simply because it's way too expensive.

$300 for 15 GB?

$400 for 20 GB?

$500 for 40 GB

$265 for a 4 GB iPOD MINI??????

Is Apple crazy????

There are many MP3 players that are just as good as the iPOD for way less money.

awehr -- the 5 gb archos is at least 3 year old technology. To compare it to a 3rd gen ipod is COMPLETELY unfair. I currently own a 10 gig archos jukebox (bought used). It does the job, and does it rather well, but it only plays mp3s and I don't try to pretend that it matches the latest technology.

For people who are saying that they've had no battery problems... you're missing the point (except for... well, awehr). The issue isn't that you only have 8 instead of 12 hours per charge (though I've heard that that's also true). The issue is that any rechargable battery, after 1.5 years of regular recharging, will begin to function at only about 85% of its maximum capacity. The iPod, on the other hand (particularly the 1st gen models) actually dies at that point. No recharge capabilities.... $300+ paperweight.

I have a 20 GB Archos Gmini 120.

Cost me $213.

It has USB 2.0, easy user interface, voice recorder, data file storage, acts just like an external hard drive. You don't need any software to transfer music to it. You hook it up, windows recognizes it and creates a new drive letter, and you just drag and drop the files/folders just like Windows Explorer.

It also has a flash memory slot, so I can take the scan disk card out of my digital camcorder/camera, put it in my Archos, empty the files, and then put it back in my camcorder/camera fresh and ready to go.

IMO, it's better than the iPOD, and it only cost me half the price.

Let me also add that if you buy an iPOD and your computer doesn't have a FireWire port, then you have to go to Bestbuy or Circuity City and buy a FireWire card, which is going to cost you about $40.

ah iPods suck.

but.. how off are apple's clames, if they really arn't that far off then, there is no point for a lawsuit. sueing someone (or everyone) is not a solution to any problem.

Why didn't they just design it with a replaceable battery???? How hard could that be!!!!!! HMMMMMMM

hmmm I use a simple kazoo (sony) mp3 player load what I want, take off what I want, need more space, buy a bigger card, I have control over its content nad where it comes from no dmr nonsense,
But the batery thing can get a bit exoesive but not 300 bucks worth at one shot.

You CAN replace the iPod battery.

www.ipodbattery.com

it is a little invasive, but Ive taken mine apart just to see whats\'s inside.

the iPods also come with a battery charger that also doubles as a power source when charging using the firewire port (or dock on the G3 iPods)


You also don't need to have a firewire port to connect to a computer. I bought an adapter cable from apple that has both USB and firewire connectors.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9126G/A

You plug the USB cable into your pc, and plug the firewire connector into you ac adapter.

ANd to top it all off, I use the iPod as an external firewire hard drive to copy stuff back and forth from work!

I know there are some drawbacks to this product (crappy headphones, easily scratched case) but I feel that this player blows the competition away. All Apple needs to do is design the back to come apart a little easier so the average joe can pop in a new battery.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

I have 3 iRiver products. I had iPod once but return it because the sound was bad, realy really bad. A lot of distortion on heavy bass songs including instrumental. And that isnt just me, a lot of iPod users also having distorted sound. The sound is just flat and sounded junk. Plus battery life was just pathetic. With 630mAh, even my cell phone have 1100mAh. With puny battery life, this one doesnt even shut down, it just go to sleep mode and suck up battery. Plus its a gay design. Nice GUI though, faster scrolling. I have never experience iPod with iTunes, I was using MM/ephod back then because iTunes wasnt even release when I bought one.

iRiver has a good MP3 players, good features and nice sound. Good for metalhead like me, awesome bass.

There are a ton of CD players out there that also play mp3's. (You can get a butt-load of mp3's on a single CD-R.) Since most formats we use for music listening are either in CD or mp3 format, I see no need to buy an iPod or any other restrictive player that "breaks" if you let the battery go dead. Those iPods are an industry bred fad to control what you do with music folks... don't buy into it!

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

FewerInhibitions,

Why do you hate Apple?

If your response is that they mis-represent benchmark scores, then, welcome to the whole damn computer indstry. It's commonplace. You'll be hard pressed to find one computer company that doesn't inflate their benchmark or any other kind of scores.