Other Gadgets (general gadgets)

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
Apple settles suit over iPod battery life.

Music players bought before 2004 covered under tentative pact.

SAN FRANCISCO - Customers whose older iPods had poor battery life will get $50 coupons and extended service warranties under a tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit.

In 2003, eight customers sued Apple, claiming the iPod failed to live up to advertised claims that the rechargeable battery would last the product’s lifetime and play music continuously for up to 10 hours.

Thousands complained that the battery — which cost $99 to replace — lasted 18 months or less and that they could play music for only four hours or less before having to recharge it.

I got a claim check in the mail, and I think that I can turn this into a new iPod, since I doubt they are going to want to refurb or put a new battery (is it even possible?) in an early 3G. We'll see...

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by mmm3587
I got a claim check in the mail, and I think that I can turn this into a new iPod, since I doubt they are going to want to refurb or put a new battery (is it even possible?) in an early 3G. We'll see...

Pretty sure they introduced the battery replacement program before the 4Gs came out. Perforce, a 3G can have its battery replaced (in fact, I recall seeing a DIY kit). So they probably will give you a new battery or a refurb 3G.

Of course, all this assumes you have battery failure as defined . . .

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Pretty sure they introduced the battery replacement program before the 4Gs came out. Perforce, a 3G can have its battery replaced (in fact, I recall seeing a DIY kit). So they probably will give you a new battery or a refurb 3G.

Of course, all this assumes you have battery failure as defined . . .

According to the form, I just have to have had experiences of battery life below 5 hours and have taken reasonable steps to try to address it, or something like that. Shouldn't be too difficult. I think that I deserve a new battery for paying $500 for this thing with a bunch of accessories, even if I do use it every day.

[Alex_de_Large]

Now this is an an unusual review of a cell phone.

[Atticus Grinch]

Two years ago, I thought to myself, "Self, the guy who figures out how to get a cell phone to automatically connect to your land line when you're at home so you can make free local calls and use low-priced long distance services, making a cell phone merely a highly portable extension of a home's cordless phone system, will have found himself a killer app."

And I would have acted on it, too, if I'd had the benefit of being a phone monopoly.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/15/t...rid/index.html

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Two years ago, I thought to myself, "Self, the guy who figures out how to get a cell phone to automatically connect to your land line when you're at home so you can make free local calls and use low-priced long distance services, making a cell phone merely a highly portable extension of a home's cordless phone system, will have found himself a killer app."

And I would have acted on it, too, if I'd had the benefit of being a phone monopoly.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/15/t...rid/index.html

You don't have to go the the UK.

http://www.uniden.com/ELBT/index.html

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

And I would have acted on it, too, if I'd had the benefit of being a phone monopoly.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/15/t...rid/index.html

But if you were a US telephone monopoly that had an interest in a cell phone company, you might not have been so interested in acting on it.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
You don't have to go the the UK.

http://www.uniden.com/ELBT/index.html

Huh. Anyone have it? Does it mean you can answer your land line on your cellie (yo) if you're at home (within BT range) when it rings? And that you can answer your cellie (yo) on the Uniden when you're at home? Or (and I'm full of questions here) if you're wearing a BT headset and one of the two phones in your house starts to ring, it will pick up whichever one is ringing?

Cuz if so, that's kinda cool, yo.

And does it mean you can maintain your entire phone book in your BT enabled notebook, and said phone book will become available to all phones in the house, cellular or Uniden?

Cuz if so, that's way cool, yo.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
But if you were a US telephone monopoly that had an interest in a cell phone company, you might not have been so interested in acting on it.

Fair point. I think there was an early Thomas Nast cartoon depicting Cingular, Verizon, Sprint PCS and T Mobile feasting on the bones of Ma Bell.

ETA: Found it!

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

Does it mean you can answer your land line on your cellie (yo) if you're at home (within BT range) when it rings?

Yo. No.

And that you can answer your cellie (yo) on the Uniden when you're at home?

Yo. Yes.

Or (and I'm full of questions here) if you're wearing a BT headset and one of the two phones in your house starts to ring, it will pick up whichever one is ringing?

Yo. I don't think so.

Cuz if so, that's kinda cool, yo.

And does it mean you can maintain your entire phone book in your BT enabled notebook, and said phone book will become available to all phones in the house, cellular or Uniden?

Yo. No. Phone book info is private, yo.

Cuz if so, that's way cool, yo.

Holla?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
Yo. No. Phone book info is private, yo.

Hmmm. I don't have a BT phone so I don't get why this is so. If I use a PIM on my laptop, can I only sync it via BT with one device at a time? My friends with BT phones are always going on about how they can sync at home and at work, but I guess that's one device and two (computer-based) address books, as opposed to one address book and two devices.

Why isn't there something by which you can maintain a single master list of all your contacts, and all of your devices (cell, PDA, Uniden) can sync data from it?

Holla?

You know, Eskimos have over 400 emoticons for snow.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Hmmm. I don't have a BT phone so I don't get why this is so. If I use a PIM on my laptop, can I only sync it via BT with one device at a time? My friends with BT phones are always going on about how they can sync at home and at work, but I guess that's one device and two (computer-based) address books, as opposed to one address book and two devices.

Why isn't there something by which you can maintain a single master list of all your contacts, and all of your devices (cell, PDA, Uniden) can sync data from it?



You know, Eskimos have over 400 emoticons for snow.

Yo--most devices you can sync and transfer contacts and phone books and shiznitt. It just so happens that with the Uniden BT system, you can't, because they didn't want to enable that function yo.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
Yo--most devices you can sync and transfer contacts and phone books and shiznitt. It just so happens that with the Uniden BT system, you can't, because they didn't want to enable that function yo.

Word.

(This is not my best material.)

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch


Why isn't there something by which you can maintain a single master list of all your contacts, and all of your devices (cell, PDA, Uniden) can sync data from it?
.

There is on my Mac. It's called iSync (or Mail, Address Book, and Calendar). I sync to my ipod and to my cell phone. (BTW, if you use entourage, get e2sync, which will transfer all info to those programs from entourage)

I actually would worry about syncing from two sources, because they tend to overwrite each other.

Anyway, the monkey has a better idea on the uniden, but my sense was that it simply used bluetooth to use your cell phone as a second line. Basically the phone pretends to be a handsfree/headset, and can communicate with your cell phone that way, either to dial or answer. Further integration has not yet been supplied. The uniden claims to be able to sync with your PC (but not mac) through its own software, so it can get your contacts that way. I would think you might be able to transfer directly, too, but probably manually.

[Gattigap]

Question from an iPod late adopter:

iTunes is giving me problems when I try to load music from existing CDs. Each time I try to do so, two things happen:

* Speed starts out pretty high (10.something x) but quickly drops down to 3x or 2x or so.

* It loads the first few songs fine, but any larger task (loading an album, or 10-20 songs, etc.), the entire computer crashes, and I've got to reboot.

It's entirely possible that the problem is unrelated to iTunes itself, as the computer is probably in need of a good cleansing, but I thought I'd ask in case this particular problem was recognizable to anyone else.

Thoughts?