It's official: if we hear any more smack talk about the iPod's battery, we're going to turn green and swell up and all our clothes will rip and fall off with the exception of our tattered pants, which will have mysteriously turned purple. We've been over the Neistat Brothers' publicity-seeking act of vandalism before, so we're not going to go through all that again, but now that the Neistats are finally getting the national mainstream press coverage they so obviously wanted in the first place (we've recently seen articles in the Washington Post and the New York Post) and faithful viewer Phil points out that Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP is even considering filing a class action lawsuit over the issue, we figure a public service announcement is in order to clear up at least some of the misconceptions about the iPod's battery life.

First of all, we're not saying that the Neistats' message is off-base, just that it seems intentionally misleading and controversial, presumably for the sake of boosting the buzz for their filmmaking efforts. Sure, if your iPod is a year and a half old, it's entirely possible that you'll eventually find that you can no longer get it to hold a charge of longer than about twenty minutes. We know, because it happened to us, too. And there is absolutely no question that Apple isn't handling the situation as well as it should; the tech support experience the Neistats went through is something that belongs in the Wintel world, not Apple's. That said, no matter how clearly the Neistats state that they "are in no way affiliated with the pending class action against Apple Computer, Inc. or the law firm of Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP," their video almost certainly instigated it.

Well, we mentioned this in passing in a previous scene, but in light of potential legal action, we feel we should mention it again. Ready? We managed to get a two-year-old iPod, one that couldn't hold a charge overnight even when it was turned off, running again at about 70% of its original charge capacity simply by installing a firmware update.

It's true! No replacement battery, third-party or otherwise; no hardware replacement or adjustment of any kind. All we did was search through Apple's support forums and tech notes, which told us that one of the iPod software updates (we forget which; maybe 1.2.6?) addressed a battery life problem, and that several people who had lost most of their battery capacity got it back after doing a restore of their iPods to the new firmware version. It seemed to work for some people and not for others, but after a bit of research, it seemed that most people had luck if they performed the restore after letting their iPod battery discharge to the point where it was completely and totally dead-- meaning, there wasn't even enough charge left to display the battery warning icon when a button was pushed.

So we played our iPod right into the ground, and when it was dead, dead, dead, we plugged it in and did the big, scary restore. (A restore actually wipes all the music and data off the 'Pod, but since the magic of FireWire lets us fill our 5 GB iPod in about ten minutes, it was really no big deal.) When we were done with the update, we threw a little music back on the 'Pod, let it charge for a few hours, unplugged it-- and played it for about six and a half hours straight. And it's been fine ever since. Well, actually, the capacity does keep lessening over time; it's probably down to about five hours, now, but that's to be expected with a battery. It's just that a lot of the "dead" iPod batteries out there probably aren't dead at all-- just resting. Beautiful plumage.

Since we originally mentioned that procedure, we've heard from three AtAT viewers who have resuscitated "dead" iPod batteries the same way, based on our suggestion. So it's not just us. Again, it may not work for everybody, but clearly it works for some people. If you've got an iPod that's similarly afflicted, you might consider trying a restore with the latest iPod software updater after running the battery all the way down-- at least before you plunk down $50 for an install-it-yourself battery or $100 for Apple to do it for you. Or before you join this class action suit that's brewing. Or before you videotape yourself vandalizing Apple's marketing materials.

What we really don't get is why Apple's tech support personnel are apparently not telling people to try this. If it really does fix the problem for even a small subset of afflicted users, it might have been enough to keep the Neistats from going all stencil-happy, and even enough to stave off this potential lawsuit. Whatever. If you've got iPod battery woes, here's hoping this works for you. If it does, Merry Christmas. Use the money you saved on a new battery to buy yourself a shirt.