The iPod Saga

All I wanted was a less cumbersome way to carry music when I fly.

So I asked for an iPod for Christmas, and Dad and Brenda gave me one. It has a lot of storage capacity, so, thinking he was being helpful, he burned all his music onto it, because it would be cool to have all of his music and all of mine.

After a few months, I finally get all my music ripped onto my hard drive and go to hook up the iPod. I find out you can't combine two computers worth of music on an iPod - it wipes the old memory and loads whatever music is on the computer it's currently docked to. That in itself was fine with me, except. . .

Dad has a PC. I have a Mac. Because he docked the iPod to his computer first, it's now formatted for a PC, my Mac won't recognize it, even to restore factory settings. I consult with Apple tech support, who tell me to find another PC with iTunes, so I can restore it to factory settings, so it can be formatted to my Mac.

So last night Breen and Patrick help me to do this on their PC. Today I plug it in to my Mac, which still doesn't recognize it. Call Apple tech support again, who walk me through re-formatting it via disk utility - once that is done, it should automatically start synching.

Except I need a more recent edition of iTunes for this iPod. So I go to the Apple page and download the newest iTunes, which takes 1/2 hour, even though I have DSL.

I go to install that, and am told I need an updated version of my operating system to support the new iTunes. So I go back to the Apple web page, and download the newest update for the operating system, which took OVER THREE HOURS (which is why I normally don't do upgrades, because they take multiple hours to complete, and if I start them and walk away from the computer, it falls alseep and the download stops, and I generally don't have 2-3 hours to sit around keeping this thing awake).

But I've got a trip coming up and I want to get this done, so I hang around the computer until the thing downloads, and then wouldn't you know, it won't install. After a few attempts, it's back on the line with Apple tech support, who I told UP FRONT that I have a Tiger OS and that I had downloaded the Mac OS 10.5.2 upgrade, which won't install. After ANOTHER HOUR on the phone (half the time spent on ignore) the guy helping me finally realizes that I don't have Leopard and that is why this Leopard upgrade won't install (you'd think they could have put a warning on it before you start downloading, for computer idiots like myself, saying "This will not work if you do not have Leopard"). I SHOULD have downloaded Mac OS 10.4.11, which works with Tiger and will still, allegedly, support the latest iTunes.

So I go to download 10.4.11, and my computer tells me it will be another 2 hours.

I just about pitched the whole thing out the window at that point.

I know I shouldn't complain because this is really the first problem I've had in the three years I've owned this computer. And all the calls to tech support finally justified purchasing the Apple Care extended warranty. And generally, Apple products are much more intuitive and user friendly for the computer challenged, which is why I decided to go with a Mac and an iPod.

But this constant upgrading IS frustrating - last fall, MAD TV did a spoof of the Feist iPod commercial, changing the lyrics to the song so they were all about how quickly the technology goes out of date after you purchase it. Too, too true, and from my techno-illiterate mind, an unecessary irritation. I had a lot of other things I needed to get done today, but have instead wasted the day tethered to my computer, all because I wanted a less cumbersome way to carry music when I fly. . .

Ah well, at least blogging my frustrations are a good way to kill time waiting for the blasted update to download. :)

Peace,
C.