Review: AppleCare DIY iPod Service

I recently had “an issue” with my Video iPod. I bought one of the first available from my local Canadian Big Box Reseller, the day they showed initial stock. Just drove over, bought the 60 Gb, the only ones they initially had then, and with barely making eye contact with the be-golf-shirted staff, bought it and waltzed back out again.

I’ve been very happy with the thing. Great step up over my 20Gb 4G and many many parsecs beyond my 1G, also bought first day available in Ottawa here.

Being able to hook it up to the TV alone was worth it. DVD player died a few weeks ago, and even though a new player is only $50, I found it easier just to rip the kids DVDs to the iPod and use that.

A bit of a digression.

Anyhow, this article is all about what happens when things go BAD. Not catastrophically bad, but just middle of the road bad.

I’m a runner. Not a fast runner. Three-legged squirrels lap me on the bike path, but I make up for it by running a long way. The squirrels have to lap me in relays. And my iPods have always been there for me. Lovely toys. Running in the winter in Ottawa—someone told me it was the world’s coldest capital city, beating out Moscow even, and I believe it—is quite the extreme sport. Now, I suspect -40C (or F, your pick since that cold they’re the same) is outside the technical spec for most iPods. And even tucked under my layers of polar fleece and windshells, it’s still pretty cold.

The iPod didn’t mind it. Never skipped once. Purred along with Front 242 no problem. The headphones, however, were quite another story.

After a few months, the plastic on the cord froze and wore through to bare wires. And started making unpleasant crackly sounds over my [] and []. More unpleasant than the crackly noises the bands usually mix into their music, that is. I started using the annoying—see previous article on that experience—Apple In-ear Buds and even though the soft rubber ear things froze and kept popping out, that was sort of okay, until one of the buds just died. Not good.

Spring finally arrived, and I started using the buds from my now defunct but possibly resurrectable 1G the Griffon Ear Jams ‘ve mentined in the past. Well, that worked pretty well. And I stopped worrying about it.

One Wednesday morning as I cleared my desk and removed the clutter of dead ear buds I decided that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t a GOOD THING.

Time to call Apple.

They replaced my 1G’s ear buds years and years back, after one of the buds self-destructed—someone ran an shopping cart into it, a messy accident—so I connected the two and decided to try to replace these.

First step, finding the AppleCare number.

First stop, the Canadian AppleCare site.

Whoa! Not exactly a user friendly place. A user with credit card or extended warranty in hand friendly place, but not a someone wanting 1 year service friendly place. No really easy place to find a phone number.

Google.

Found the AppleCare Canada number on some service provider in Calgary’s site.

Called the number. Waited a bit. Things went well with only a five minute wait. Talked to the service guy, got him past the mandatory questions asked from his binder—he was just being thorough—and past his checking my serial number, determining I was out of my 90 day complimentary support, and told me I’d have to pay to talk to him after that.

But, you know, unlike some of my less than useful Dell experiences, he volunteered to help me find the right web pages. Maybe that’s sort of normal, but I wasn’t expecting it. Dictated the exact URL, made sure I understood the page and then wished me a good day.

Maybe I expect too little, but that was great. I had an answer. Neat. I like answers. They’re good.

The process from there on was pretty easy. Web form. Type in your serial, chose your problem, select the part you needed. Give a credit card number, in case you decided to keep the broken part for some weird reason, and wait for DHL to deliver the goods.

It only took two days. The envelope was a self-remailer. Ripped off a label, put the broken buds in, sealed it. Called Purolator, their return carrier, arranged a same day pickup, dropped it in our mail box and they were gone within the hour.

The immediacy of it was pretty freaking amazing.

Once I sent off the broken earphones, I thought maybe I should send in the USB cable. It was broken and I’d been using my wife’s USB—she’d been using the firewire that came with the old 4G she was using.

Went back to the page and hit a full stop.

Only one issue per serial resolvable at a time.

A bit annoying, but I can sort of understand that.

Anyhow, I had to wait until they got the ear-buds back before being able to progress with the other repairs. Looks like I can maybe replace the In-ear buds as well.

But only one item at a time.

Somewhere there Apple sent me a service follow up and I’m a sucker for those things. Good job overall, but I saw a few improvements.

Below is what I sent them:

You asked for feedback and here it is.

I call these recommendations, not complaints.

These are just a few ways you can improve your service overall.

Maybe if enough people speak up, you’ll see the advantage.

DIY (do-it-yourself) service is hard to find.

I’ve been to the Apple Service Site a lot and the visitor is definitely directed to Pay Services.

Immediately.

I had to dig for AppleCare Canada’s number as well. Google search and found on an obscure sub-page of someone else’s site. Maybe I could have found it with a site:apple.ca Google, of course, but still.

Once I had that, I called and talked to someone, Sebastian I think, and after he determined I was off my 90-day free support period, was polite enough to direct me to the exact URL for the iPod DIY support. Thanks, Sebastian!

Everything was quite clear and painless from there.

An addition, I had multiple issues: pair of Apple In-ear phones I bought died as well and my USB cable is definitely wonky.

I thought it was my USB 1.1 connection at first, on my aging PC, but cable swap and trying it on my MacBook Pro isolated it. It’s the cable.

Any how.

Please make it easier for AppleCare numbers to be found on the site (we’re Apple users, we don’t read manuals, right?), just post it I the open, and make it easier for iPod DIY pages to be found as well, and maybe allow for multiple issues to be resolved per serial number per ticket, or allow multiple concurrent tickets.

All in all, despite this, I remain a happy customer,

James Bain.

So, overall for the Apple DIY services, 4.5 out of 5. Way to go.

Yeah, I’d have been happier to do all my things at once, but even one at a time quickly is a vast improvement over other consumer electronic support services.

Supporting iPods with the same high service standards that AppleCare has is a great thing. Most users probably don’t know just how comprehensive this is, and I’ve heard a lot of complaints about it on the web, and from other humans directly, but, really, it’s pretty darned good.

Just one more reason I’ll be buying these very expensive lifestyle accessories forever now.