iPod Mini Woes Updated

So, Apple have sent me the empty packaging for the return of my goosed iPod Mini. Once packaged I have to call UPS to arrange a pick up and keep my fingers crossed that they repair and return it for free. Goodness knows how long this is all going to take.

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I was well aware of the problems they had with earlier generations of iPod batteries but I hoped they'd sort them out by now. The deal arranged to settle the class action brought against Apple should have been the end of it but as I wrote previously their forums are completely awash with problems relating to batteries in their latest range of iPods.

The thing is rechargeable batteries are my thing, it's what I do. The company I work for turn out about 60 million Li-Ion battery packs a year primarily for mobile phones, laptop computers and other forms of consumer electronics. The customer return rate that we would expect to see is around 1 in 100,000 packs. Now I don't know how many iPods Apple are selling but I'm pretty sure it is nothing like the numbers a mainstream mobile phone would sell (10s of millions). The complaints on Apple's own forums would indicate that they are seeing a much larger failure rate than the technology should suffer. So what is the problem?, and believe me, they still have a huge problem.

It's certainly not the quality of the cells they are using. Li-Ion cell quality is based entirely on geographical origin. The best quality cells (and highest cost) come from Japan. Sony, Panasonic, Sanyo etc lead the way. Next in the quality ladder comes Korea with LG and Samsung the biggest players in cell manufacture. Lastly come cells from China. In a word, pish. Poor quality control but the lowest Li-Ion priced cells you can get. The biggest supplier is BYD who currently make most of Motorola's mobile phone battery packs (take from that what you will) but rumour has it that will change soon. Anyway, I digress, Apple use quality Japanese cells that should not be seeing these level of failures.

So what is the problem? A couple of things have come to my attention from reading a bit deeper into the iPod. Firstly, the self discharge (where a battery will discharge to empty even though the iPod is switched off) is a direct result of keeping the hard disk ready for operation. Apple did this to make sure the iPod was instantly available to deliver music the moment it's activated. Fair enough, nobody wants to wait while the hard disk spins up and positions the heads but the power drain is knocking hell out of the battery and seriously shortening it's life. A more sensible solution would have been to give the user the option to put the iPod into a deep sleep to save the battery at the cost of a longer boot up time.

Secondly the battery charging regime. To cut costs Apple no longer include an AC adaptor (at least with the iPod Mini, not sure about the other models) to charge from a wall socket. Big mistake. The main source for charging is with the supplied USB cable from a powered USB2.0 port on the owner's computer. Unfortunately the computer just isn't capable of delivering the required charging current. You'll be lucky to get more than 0.5A through a USB port. So the battery takes much longer to charge even though Apple claim that 1 hours charge should take the battery capacity up to 80% full, bollocks, I've never seen that in my experience. Maybe I did have a duff iPod right from the start but I'm not so sure.

I spoke to the EE (Electronic Engineer) today and he wasn't surprised with the problems I, and many others, have experienced with the battery life, charging and performance of the iPod. The battery is virtually identical to those that are in 100s of millions of mobile phones around the world. I plug my phone into the charger, it charges for an hour and that's it for an entire week. Apple need to seriously rethink their design and implementation of the iPod power supply.

Lesley has her eye on an iPod for herself but I'm really reluctant for her to consider buying one at the moment. Further updates to follow (batteries are really, really interesting... honest :)