iPod’s Dont Last Beyond 18 Months

Recently, my iPod Touch (2nd gen) hit the dreaded 18 month wall and it (like clockwork) has become virtually unusable . This is something as a multi generation iPod user I have become far too familiar with. But this time the culprit of the downfall of the device is actually Apple itself.

I have had two previous iPods, a 10 gig 3rd generation iPod and a 30 gig 4th generation color display iPod, and both hit the 18 month mark, and hit it hard.  The 3rd generation iPod’s battery died almost instantly upon the device turning a year and a half.  The color display iPod’s battery did not drop off as heavily as the 3rd gen, but it did fall a noticeable amount. That coupled with the click wheel becoming very unresponsive, made me deem the device broken.

Now, I am not implying that Apple programs their iPods to self destruct on day 486 of ownership, I think it has been pretty well documented that the batteries in the first few ipod models were not the greatest and I am willing to concede that perhaps I just got a “bad” one in a bunch for my 2nd iPod (color display), but when Apple released iOS4 and made it available for download, I feel like they handed my iPod Touch a crippling computer virus. Previously to installing iOS4, my ipod was a device that worked, and worked very very well. Now, with iOS4 installed, I would estimate that 15% of my apps are broken, 35% crash upon start up, and it feels like 100% of apps will crash if you stay in the program longer than 3 minutes. Sometimes when I am using the iPod now I feel I could do it faster with my HTC Sprint Hero (and I am not implying the Hero is a responsive device).

I do understand Apple’s situation however, imagine releasing a software update and having to tell owners of a device one generation removed that they can not have it? there would have been a huge riot, much worse than “Antennagate.” Apple had to release the update, so what they did was strip out features that would require more power and work from an already underpowered processor. Most notably was the lack of multi-tasking and (to some) the option for a custom background, and thats fine. It would have been nice to have those abilities, but if they are going to hurt the performance of my iPod, please leave them out. Instead what I got was an iPod acting like an unprotected Windows machine. It feels as if I got all of the side affects that Apple was afraid of for (with the exception of Folders) no real device changing features!

So with that being said, I am now preparing to upgrade by downgrading to 3.1.3 on my iPod today

…It feels like im dealing with Windows Vista and going back to XP (I’m sure thats what Apple likes to hear)