Friday, September 12, 2008

New iPod nano won't charge in many accessories

Did Apple have a REALLY good reason to disable firewire charging? Electrical issues? Access to China's market? Whatever the reason, it's a big negative ...
Apple iPod nano Fourth-Generation (8GB/16GB) | iLounge

... Incompatible with past FireWire charging accessories; will not charge when placed in Bose’s SoundDock, Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi, or certain car kits...
Bet there will be a lot of surprised owners of the Apple iPod Hi-Fi and Bose SoundDock.

Update 5/5/09: The Griffin Firewire to USB converter works for me. I can use my car stereo connector again.

8 comments:

  1. You're so right.
    This move seems mind boggling.
    Why lose such a trivial backward compatibility ?
    I have a Pioneer car head unit with Ipod cable and a Denison Ice-Link Plus cable in the other car and neither will charge this new Ipod Nano piece of shit.

    Yeah Apple.
    I refuse to use your computers - the only concession I have made to the Apple empire was the Ipod.
    Looks like I'll be revising that idea now.

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  2. There may be good reasons. Apple may know that the 12V systems are more vulnerable to fire, or that China's USB standard for phones excludes firewire charging, or that the chipset vendors didn't want to support it.

    There could also be very BAD reasons: save a few pennies, sell more peripherals, etc.

    If I were Apple I'd have at least tried to make up a palatable explanation.

    Apple doesn't explain. They've been very successful with that approach, but I share your frustration.

    I think pissing off customers can't be great in the long run, but on the other hand I also figured the public would eventually notice the downside of digital rights management.

    I really don't understand humanity that well!

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  3. I will so enjoy explaining this to my wife...

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  4. Paid $2500 for a Clarion head unit and a big part of that decision was the ipod compatability . Now I will return this new nano POS and switch to Zune. I will never purchase anything from Apple again.
    Can you Imagine what Clarion, Pioneer, and all the other manufacturers that paid Apple for their rights are thinking now.

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  5. Try Scosche Passport. It's an adapter that is supposed to make the newer models compatible for charging, playing, etc.

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  6. I wsa given a new ipod nano for Christmas and now it will not charge with any other dock. Not my RCA and not my Skullcandy charger. Does anyone know what I can do?

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  7. Never will I have another APPLE product. pure greed is what it is.

    very pissed,
    2 mistakes
    2ed gen nano
    4th gen nano

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  8. Just bought a nono 4G and have same charging problem. Do all of the current ipods have the same problem, or fust the nano??? (I might return it for exchange).

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