iPod Shuffle owners/buyers beware!

When Windows XP died on me today, it took the Shuffle with it. My Shuffle is completely unformatted now. I had *all* my work files on there. Fortunately, I’ve been backing this little bugger up every week because when I got it, I read on the Apple forums that people were having a lot of problems with the Shuffle crashing and losing data. Music? I don’t care about that. That’s easy to restore/re-steal/rip/burn/whatever. Data? That’s a different story, especially when calculating the work I’ve done since my last backup.

I thought about tossing the device, then I thought about repairing/replacing it. My iPod Shuffle is only a month old, but according to Apple, if it was out of warranty, they would be happy charge me a $99 replacement fee (or $149 for the 1 gig version… notice how these don’t coincide with the current Shuffle pricing?).

‘Tards.

I won’t get suckered by Apple again. In my eyes, their service actually sucks… unless you buy their “protection”. Don’t get me wrong. I think 98% of Apple’s products are top-notch, but they should just take their Apple Care scheme and consider it part of the hardware cost.

Like their other products, with the Shuffle you get a 1 year warranty, but what they don’t tell you is after 6 months they *will* charge you a $30 shipping & handling fee.

Ouch.

I’m not sure if this applies to bringing products into an Apple Store, which in Houston, are not convenient to visit. After having this conversation with my friend Jason, he would gamble that they would take it. He has seen TONS of people bringing in their entire system (or their iPods) so the “genius” can look it over. He also suggests that I should call the store and ask? He’s called the store in Austin several times and received great help (and saved a trip out there many a time as well).

I might just do that, but with this situation though, I’m pretty sure they’re going to tell me not to disconnect the Shuffle when the light is on (I didn’t… Windows crashes on its own, remember?) and that my device is wiped clean, so I would just need to run the updater since the iPod Updater will restore it like new. It’s way beyond data recovery, anyhow. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the device, but it’s ability to self-wipe is a MAJOR flaw!

So… if the OS is writing to the device and then the PC tanks… you lose everything on the shuffle?
Seems like it. That blows and that’s EXACTLY what happened.

Do other flash drives have that issue?
No, just the Shuffle.

Never had a problem with any other flash doing that… and this scenario has happened before (I’m running Windows, remember?). People have posted this scenario on the Apple forums. Do any firmware update that addresses it, or is it just a common problem? As documented on their forums, it’s common. The 1.1 firmware version is supposed to handle it better (I think), but obviously it doesn’t since mine was updated the first time I plugged the Shuffle in (to my new Mac… for all those who are thinking I shouldn’t use this or anything else with Windows). Does Apple Care? For $59.95, they might… or at least I’ll get a nicely printed certificate saying they do.