Overheating iPod delays rush-hour train in Tokyo
Poor Apple. The company just can't catch a break these days. On Wednesday, Apple Japan began offering customers iPod nano replacements, giving in to local government demands to better address an overheating battery issue affecting Apple's first generation iPod nano players. Then Friday morning (making the English-language press only now) a busy rush-hour commuter train was stopped in Tokyo to investigate a smell. According to a spokesman, "When a member of staff went to investigate inside the train, a passenger came over showing him that the iPod she was listening to had burst apart." No injuries were reported and the exact iPod model is still unknown. However, we can be certain that the eight minute delay on Japan's notoriously timely railway system caused many commuters to question their ability to go on.
[Image courtesy of Maruhachi-kotsu]
[Image courtesy of Maruhachi-kotsu]
























With an overheating iPod, you can heat your pork to iPork.
The iPods do that when you try playing a Justin Bieber song. It's for the best.
Yet another Apple keyword news NOT on the .alt site...
@loocas Yet another person starting to wine as soon as he/she see's the word Apple.
@Bernd Well, you have to admit, it's getting a bit ridiculous.
@loocas
Get a life, moran
@iMichael
Imagine how late the commuter trains in India would be if they had to investigate smells.
@suicidebob
Get a dictionary, moron.
@suicidebob
I don't know what's funnier,you getting so pissed over a very true and valid post or the fact you spelled moron (note the second 'o') wrong.
@TinWard Apple's Karma is catching up with them.
@suicidebob
In his defense. He is correct. His spelling is not, hence the irony.
http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp130/MSELAINEYUS/get-a-brain-morans.jpg
@suicidebob I don't know where you got that my name is Moran, but anyways...
@centizen
Laughing does not make you superior.
@TinWard
No, it does not. When playing Justin Bieber songs on the iPod, it produces rainbows and butterflies. ROFL.
@iMichael This happens to all PMPs. This does not happen to Apple's iPods which are always designed in a magical way to do take care of customer first. We are preparing videos of other PMPs bursting. Stay tuned.
Wow you guys ran out of good news articles didn't you? 8 minutes delay for a nano replacement isn't that newsworthy in my opinion. Now I could see if it was like an hour... but come on.
In Japan, a train is considered "late" if it's not in by 2 minutes pas the posted time.
Anything over 10 minutes is considered a small disaster.
@2FR35H An 8 minute delay is huge in Japan, if I remember the Top Gear episode I watched yesterday correctly the average delay is something like 30 seconds. If they are delayed past 5 minutes they get a pass for work to say why they were late. Must be nice to have a transit system worth using.
@2FR35H
Considdering how great they are at keeping their timetables in japan this is actually newsworth, not because of the Ipod, but because of the delay itself. This probably doubles the delayed time of all trains in japan for 2010. ;)
@2FR35H - you should go to Japan mate... people really would freak right out if a train was this late!!
@TheRealCJ
Because in Japan, a ten minute delay is the difference from being between the twenty and twenty thousand queue marker for the latest doujinshi convention.
Gotta have all them love pillows.
@krs360
Because a ten minute delay is the difference in being the first twenty to the first twenty thousand to the latest doujinshi convention.
Gotta have all them love pillows.
@2FR35H
I suppose so.. Japan is definitely very different from USA
@2FR35H Go to New York and see how quick the pace is, Tokyo is probably 16X faster.
@Eric77lv
City of New York is fast... maybe a little bit faster than Tokyo. Tokyo is instead massive. It's like 16x more people walking in 3/4 speed of NYC. They, are, massive.
@num0 When you are having 16x the people walking at 3/4 speed, plus 200% packed commuter train every single day, 8 minute delay can be quite messy
JR actually has a "delay management system" to tell you which alternative route you should go to get around the delays, be it caused by an iPod, or another human being jumping off.
@Chris Li
Yeah, these days they've been planting lots of LCDs in their stations and trains(yes, on moving trains) so commuters can get the day's situations at-a-glance.
Anyway I still don't understand why people takes Tokaido in rush hours... It's a mystery.
@num0 Em .. .any other alternative from Yokohama to Tokyo city center ??
Possible alternative is keikyu (only valid if you are connecting to Toei) but do remind that JR is heck cheaper if you are on commuter pass. Alternatively, Shōnan-Shinjuku if you heading Shibuya or Shinjuku for work,
@blindguymcsqueezy
Exact quote from that Top Gear episode (Nissan GT-R vs bullet train), minus spelling errors:
"87% of normal trains in Japan are on time. But, for them, being late is anything over a minute behind time. So if it's a late train, it's a minute. But in the UK, to be late is going to be over 10 minutes late.
"And if trains are late, you get a free rail _____, so this is late, we don't pay, and we get a little pass that explains to your employer why you're late!"
later in that same episode...
"The average delay of the Tokaido Shinkansen two years ago [2007, episode released in 2009] (that's the one we're on)... six seconds"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVMjF8Ez1tw
@Chris Li
Keihin-Tohoku and Yokosuka also gets near Tokyo. Bit slower though.
@Chris Li Toyoko line Yokohama to Shibuya in 35min and quite cheap
@gilesdesign haha not that used to yokohama ... but I think when you consider not everyone live in Yokohama station but somewhere beyond....
Agree though JR is not always the best answer (I hate doing monorail and change to Yamanote and always ride on keikyu ex-Haneda, but always do NEX if ex-NRT, even with Narita Sky Access it is not a lot faster unless you go to Ueon / Tokyo station)
2 names Microsoft Zune HD or Sony Walkman X series.
@ngko
Those aren't really names...
I mean, if you had said Sarah and Jessica, or Al and Michael, well... THOSE are names. But what you listed sounds more like... oh wait, I see what you did there.
@ngko
Why are you giving us names of unrelated music players?
@ngko
How true :)
Isn't it strange how you only hear about apple palyers going up in smoke? Seems like they need to stop paying their designers too much and actually invest in some engineers.
And yes, I know about the Sony battery issue on laptops about 3-4 years or so back - but unless I am mistaken the problem was contamination in the actual batteries - and they did issue a recal - somethign I'd doubt apple would do anytime soon... - they rather try to legally gag people.
There was a case in the UK where apple offered to replace some i-music-junk that went up in flames under warranty on the condition that they sign a nondisclosure agreement... - it's been a few years, but I'm sure the story can be dug up in Google - it was in times online at the time.
@DetlevCM
Probably cause there's not many of those other music players out there.
@DetlevCM
Actually the reason you don't hear about it is because Apple has 79% of the market share. Obviously the more devices that are out there, the larger the number of failures.
It's pretty simple statistics...
@DetlevCM
Probably the same reason we get the "eating dinner off an iPad" posts. People only read if it's Apple
@JJV
So a device bursting apart is acceptable?
Yes, components have a lifespan before they 'fail', but this sounds dangerous.
If Apple can't or simply won't properly test and engineer their products, they shouldn't release anything. Period. And that goes for everyone.
@DetlevCM why do you hear apple's products going bad? try selling the same number of walkmans or zunes than the ipods. It would be stupid if you didn't get HALF of the mishaps that ipods have, it's called error margin, if you sell 100 walkmans with a 2-3% margin then you'll more likely get perfect devices. sell 1000000 ipods with 0,5 - 1% error margin and WHOA you got yourself errors. even though you actually have better margins than the walkmans. i won't talk zune, as they had the y2k kind of bug a couple of years back.
@drkztan Yeah but Zunes don't blow up. There should not be a percentage of products that blow up. Period.
No doubt they were Sony batteries...
@RichyS
No no, these are speciel Apple-branded batteries ;)
@RichyS
Which is why except from that one recal you never hear about any issues. hmm.
Besides the poin that appel is not recalling their time bombs.
I'm glad my Zune HD doesn't burst apart. ;)
@Godik7
Snap. I'm also glad my iPad or the 5 or 6 iPhones I've owned haven't burst apart either.
@suicidebob
5 or 6 iPhones? We've only just got to the fourth year of iPhones. They're not lasting very long are they?
icrap.
If this was a zune it wouldn't make the news.