Stop The Gung Ho! Apple iPod Nano Flawed

This incident will surely give Apple’s competitors to bite. After reports of screen defects in some Apple Ipod Nano which was launched earlier with much gung ho and fan fare.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, took a calculated risk by replacing the best-selling model of the company’s digital-music player, called the iPod mini, with an even smaller device. Apple is touting the nano’s small size in its marketing campaign, a move that could backfire if the product is perceived to be too fragile.

Apple released the iPod nano on Sept. 7. The music player uses flash memory and can hold up to 1,000 songs in its 4-gigabyte version. The company intends on having the nano to replace the iPod mini, which uses a hard-disk drive for storing music and data.

According to reports Display screens crack easily on a small number of iPod Nano digital music players, Apple Computer Inc. acknowledged Wednesday, saying it would replace flawed units.

Apple was responding to a flurry of complaints posted to online forums and community sites about faulty screens on the Nano, the tiny music player the company launched earlier this month to much fanfare. Most of the complaints revolved around screen scratches that made the displays difficult to read.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Apple had received few complaints and the only real problem was cracked screens, which would be replaced.

This is a real but minor issue that involved a vendor quality problem in a small number of units," Neumayr said. "This has affected less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the total iPod Nano units that we’ve shipped. And it’s not a design issue."

Customer service employees at three Best Buy stores and two Circuit City locations in different parts of the country said Tuesday that they had not received any complaints about the Nano screen.

Apple’s response appeared to quell some of the anger about the faulty screens.

A Web site called flawedmusicplayer.com, which had posted complaints about Nano screens, removed them after Apple acknowledged the problem.

"I am very delighted to see Apple take this issue seriously," according to a note on the Web site. "Apple is admitting there was a real issue. I got what I wanted: fixed iPod Nanos for the people who deserve them."

Its really comforting to see that the defects have been acted on as the iPods are very dear to the one who buys them as is protected with great zest.