So, I've had an iPod for awhile. And awhile ago, my iPod battery clearly stopped being my friend. It would hold a charge for less than an hour. My "favorite" (see sarcastic font on that word) moment was when I was flying to Atlanta and onto Athens, Greece. I plugged in the iPod, hoping to listen to my favorite flying album,
OK Computer. (Long story.) I got a song and a half into my ritual, and pffft, the iPod battery just puttered out. And I had about 700 hours left in the flight!
With another huge flight/trip ahead of me, I just couldn't bear the thought of having no iPod for the flight...so I started doing some research on the internet on possible solutions.
So, the first time I heard about the iPod battery situation was when I read a NY Times article about iPod's "Irreplaceable Battery" and that some guys did a video about
iPod's "Dirty Secret." So you can't say that I wasn't warned. The replacement fee went from two hundred something to ninety-something to fifty-something. Still. You send them your iPod and at some point, they send you back another one (refurbished) and you have to re-load your tunes. For 99.99% of the population, that is agreeable. But if I'm going to get a blank slate, I'm going to start loading the thing on my home computer - which is a PC - as opposed to Kris' BS mac throwaway, which was the only iPod compatible computer that I had when I got the damned thing. But I digress.
So I find another site where I could buy a replacement battery for the iPod,
iPodJuice.com. Not only could I get a battery, but it would have MORE LIFE than the original battery. But, I was worried, I'm sortof a tech dork (and not in a good way). I wasn't sure that I could replace the thing on my own and was seriously considering paying the $20 to
have them replace it for me. Then I watched the
video that they have on their site and it seemed pretty easy to do it myself. So I ordered the kit. Plus, $20 will buy me four beers at
Tom Bergin's.
Within a few days, I received the kit. It contains an opener, a battery, and colored instructions. I wanted to have Rudy and Brandon at my disposal. They're sortof techy, but let's be honest, they are boys, so their attention to detail is not great.
The first step, which is admittedly the hardest, is to get the iPod case open. They provide a
tool, which is supposedly so sharp that you need to be careful. Mine wasn't so sharp, plus Rudy kept wanting to play with the tool. I kept telling him to stop! After about four minutes, it was clear that this puppy wasn't going to pop open anytime soon. The tool had become dull and the folks at iPodJuice.com recommend using sandpaper to sharpen it back up. I sent Rudy off in search of sandpaper. He came back with five different weights of sandpaper AND an industrial strength box cutter. That's when I knew he was going to be a problem. Luckily, he forgot that he had an appointment and ran off to it - late. The tool was all mine again.
When I had a free moment at work, I tried prying open the case. I could NOT do it, and to be honest, my thumb HURT. I thought I would be one of those people that could not open this fucker. Then I came up with some sort of concept. I would "hold" the iPod up on top of a pile of something and use the force of the opener to jimmy open the side. After a few tries, I could feel it starting to give. Success!!
Eventually, it popped open. I used the tool to finish opening the entire thing. Boy, was my warranty invalidated about 1000 times over and over! The instructions told me how to remove the back cover, remove the hard drive (which is actually two pieces), remove the battery, insert the new one, replace the hard rive and pop the back cover back on. Easy. Ish.
I needed the two boys to help me - but for random issues. The hard drive was in two pieces and I only unplugged the first one, so I had to go back in and unplug two pieces. I couldn't figure out which way to plug the battery in, because my OLD eyes can't figure out which end was up on the female/male plug configuration. I apparently crushed the little "fingers" and Brandon had to fix them so that we could get the battery in.
Then I was afraid I would crush the motherboard. Because Rudy has worked on other electronic stuff, plus he's the son of Ike, I decided that he would be the best one to reattach the motherboard. I was sweating and trying to figure out how I was going to afford a new iPod.
Once we got the battery in, the motherboard reattached, etc., it was time to put the back of the iPod back on and power that baby up.
All systems go. I plugged it into the socket and was happy to see the CHARGING icon. Almost as happy was seeing that the battery was still charging - hours later. We might actually hold a charge!
And so far, so good. I charged the battery and then proceeded to listen to the iPod. On shuffle. AND fast forwarding through songs. I went back to my iPod a few hours later, and there was a still a charge!
Thank you iPodJuice, Rudy and Brandon...I think this might just WORK!!! :)
Happy Halloween!
n Wrestler: