September 07, 2010

Botched iPod Touch Repair

I guess I should keep this blog entry short as I essentially botched the repair (i.e. it’s literally now a brick not even good for a door stop). So what’s the point of me even writing this? Well I think it’s worth warning the world of what can happen when you try and play MacGyver.

So what was wrong with your iPod Touch? Well basically a great big grey blob on the screen:


How did that happen? I don’t know. I looked after it quite well I thought.

What did the Apple guys say? Well first it was a 1st generation so it being out of warranty, I didn’t expect much. Anyway I took it along to my local Apple Store on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse and was told it couldn’t be repaired as the screen wasn’t removable. Not sure why as I later replaced it myself (albeit it's now a brick). They did however offer me 10% off a new one but at the time I thought nah, not paying 300 and odd francs for what is in effect going to be the cost of repair. To their defence, I later tought that's quite good of them. One thing I remember was how the guys Apple were quite bewildered about how big and perfectly round the blob was. Apparently they’d never seen anything like that before!


So what did you do next? Got back home and found DirectFix.com - a site offering replacement iPod components. They shipped me a replacement LCD screen for around $30 including postage. Great I thought. Should be easy enough. Apart from getting the cover off it was. There’s plenty of videos on YouTube. Photo below shows old and new side by side. Notice the funny coloured blob on the top (original) screen:


My conclusion: Don’t try it at home kids. One thing I liked about the 1st generation was its ability to charge over Firewire (using my Blaupunkt iPod adaptor in the car for example). It also looks like I won’t be watching any iTunes rented movies for a while on my television set. I used the Touch with an older, what’s labelled 'iPod' Universal Dock/model A1153 which has an S-Video connector. It worked well as I have an older CRT television and the Apple TV is no use with its HDMI and component outputs. Oh well. I enjoyed it.

Above: My iPod with the grey spot before I attempted a screen exchange.

9 comments:

Chegron said...

I have the exact same issue on my iPod Touch 1st generation. Only difference is the perfectly round spot is in a different position on the screen. I also thought I had looked after mine... perhaps there is a manufacturing defect?

I have the 32GB model so figure it's probably worth getting it repaired. Now I've seen that your DIY solution didn't work out I think I'll take it to the professionals.... but might contact Apple first to see if they will acknowledge a fault.

rob said...

Mine was the 32 GB version too. Can't remember the exact date, but was bought in the US when they first came out. As I said, the Apple Store guy here just offered me 10% off the price of a new one. If you do manage to get Apple to acknowledge it, let me know. Perhaps too late to get a replacement now I've botched it though! Still, it was fun trying :)

rob said...

In the end I bought myself a new iPod Touch. 4G 32 gig. It's very nice with being able to record video (albeit not as good as the iPhone 4) and FaceTime. Also nice to have all my applications back since selling my iPhone earlier this year.

Unknown said...

I have the same problem as you guys! I bought it 2 years ago and that thing came suddenly.Except that blob,my iPod Touch works perfectly.What may be the problem??Dead pixels??

Harwin said...

Same problem I was facing with my iPod Touch ...its not working perfectly and the main problem is of getting Ipod Touch Repair

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