When Steve Jobs showed off the new iPod Nano, he turned a few heads and many started foaming at the mouth to get their hands on the pocket-sized music player. It would seem however, the pocket is the last place one would put the Nano.
Enter Matthew Peterson. He excitedly awaited the wee Nano with overwhelming anticipation. He plopped down his money, which comes out to over $200 and got his sweet little Nano. Four days later, he said the little Nano broke.
It seems he had put the device in his pocket and sat down. When he pulled the music player out of his pocket, the LCD screen was cracked and broken. It looked like someone had broken an ink pen on the screen.
Peterson even went so far as to electronically picket Apple via his site, FlawedMusicPlayer.com to discuss his situation. The site also solicits emails from people about their Nano experiences, good or bad in Peterson’s attempt to gather information. The BBC said he’s getting about 30 emails an hour.
Peterson posted a number of emails he’d received on his site and a number of them discussed problems with Apple’s customer service too, telling consumers things like “scratches happen.”
Peterson’s problem doesn’t seem to be an isolated event, however. Apple’s forum discussing the iPod Nano has had over 600 responses, many of which complain about the Nano’s ability to get scratched at a mere touch or breaking the screen if it spends time in a pants pocket.
One poster, Jeremy Riga, ran a little impromptu test on his own Nano and here’s what he found:
In the name of science I have wiped the case in 6 spots with different materials – here are my results. pics to follow tonight.
1. dry finger : smooth scratches and smudges, most of which are removed easily with a micro fiber cloth.
2. micro fiber cloth : all intelligence aside – this micro fiber cloth scratched the crap out of the nano, I mean swirled the plastic and made a spot on the screen that is just a blur.
3. damp micro fiber cloth : same result, after the area dried it was not in good condition.
4. cotton t-shirt : whoa. don’t do this. really messed it up. bad scratches and much deeper than with the micro fiber.
5. paper towel : actually, not too bad. better than the micro fiber, which is really odd.
6. paper towel with Honda plastic polish for motorcycles on it : no marks or scratching at ALL. clean and clear.
Either way you cut it, I used VERY light pressure when cleaning it as stated above. My other white iPod photo did not mark under the same pressure and testing, so it’s a nano-specific issue.
There were hundreds of other responses discussing the problems with the Nano. Just about all of them had to do with how susceptible to damage the product is.
Apple promised to give Mr. Peterson a new Nano but with literally hundreds if not thousands of problem customers, Apple could potentially have a PR disaster on their hands.
Apple has had problems in the past with other versions of the iPod in the form of batteries and even patent issues. In order to handle this properly, Apple’s PR team needs to be working a little overtime to get this situation under control. If problems continue, it won’t bode well for upcoming Christmas sales.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
