03.09.09New iPod Woes
While I was healing I purchased a new (technically refurbished but otherwise new to me) iPod nano. I got a purple one that has 16GB of storage. So far I love this little gizmo. The screen quality is remarkable; the battery life is decent.
I do have a major complaint though: none of my existing accessories can charge this darn thing!
This is my 3rd iPod; the first was a display model version of a second generation iPod followed by a iPod mini (my wife also has a first-gen. iPod nano). As you may expect, over time we’ve purchased some friends for our iPods: car chargers, speakers, docks, etc. Why oh why has Apple screwed up on their design so that none of these existing accessories can charge this thing? The same dock connector port is present but apparently it is too much work to solder in support for the two wires that charged older models. For an otherwise wonderful machine, this design is flawed.
Bryan says,
A little web search revealed this doohickey. It shouldn’t be required, but perhaps it will be helpful.
http://www.boxwave.com/products/ipodchargingadapter/ipod-charging-adapter-apple-ipod-nano-4th-generation_3284.htm
on April 9, 2009 at 8:26 am
Josh Peters says,
Well, it doesn’t actually solve the problem, but thanks for looking. It seems that Apple stopped using the pins in the iPod connector that are designated for power in lieu of using the USB pins for that purpose. Sounds like a lazy engineering decision to just cut the cost of making their circuit boards to me, but it really hoses their established ecosystem of attachments.
on April 9, 2009 at 12:44 pm