Well going to the Apple Store did the trick. I guess that is the real difference between mailing something and talking to a real person. I do have to give the online service some credit, when they received my ipod there was a pinch of metal that had separated from the top by the WiFi plate. If they had seen that they would have good cause to think I'd tried to open it. And since it was over mail they couldn't just ask me like the nice lady at the Genius bar.

The weird thing is I have no idea where that bent edge came from. I'm actually 95% sure it wasn't on my iPod when i mailed it to Apple. I even took the time to look over everything before I sent it because I didn't want them to find something silly and reject it. I do know one thing however, wherever the bend came from it wasn't because my iPod was opened. So even if the evidence was against me, I truly was eligible for a fix/replacement.

Yesterday when I found out they had rejected my iPod I must admit I was pretty mad. While I haven't babied my iPod, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary either. I haven't dropped it or anything like that. Sure I kept it in my pocket without a case and the screen was slightly scratched, but I did nothing that should cause it to stop after 8 months use. Not only that, I had spent the extra money on AppleCare because I had been burned with an iMac dying just a few months after it's complimentary 1 year warranty. To find out I had spent my money on AppleCare and wasn't going to be taken care of really annoyed me.

My trip to the Apple Store went well though. It was a good 3 hour round trip, which is why I didn't want to go there in the first place. But if you take out the travel time everything went great from the moment I walked in the front door with a broken iPod till the moment I walked out with replacement model.

I'd like to thank the nice girl Genius who helped me out. She did see and ask about the separated edge, but when I said I had never tried to open it she said she'd take care of me.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the experience. I wish the mail in thing had worked because that would have saved me 3 hours of time and a few gallons of gas. However I can't fault them too much because the iPod did look suspicious. I spent one day frustrated over that misunderstanding but am now quite satisfied. AppleCare pulled through. While I hope I never have to do business with them again because I don't want my stuff to break I won't dread the experience if it comes up.

The letter they sent was just a repair sheet with a checkbox checked. The reason it failed was.

iPod was not in its originally assembled condition, as the enclosure was either disassembled or opened; therefore, technicians were unable to perform any diagnostics.

Apparently having dust under the screen makes Apple think you opened your iPod. Sorry to tell you Apple, but the thing isn't dust proof. I wouldn't dare opening an iPod that I bought the extended warranty on. That would be stupid.

I can tell you how the dust got under there because I remember it clearly. It ticked me off when it happened. There was a bunch of dust on the dock connecter. I wanted to get it out so I blew on it, thinking the dust would come out. Instead of coming out it went in. I ended up feeling like an idiot I'll admit, but blowing on your iPod shouldn't void the warranty.

I guess the next step is taking it into the Apple Store so I can reason/argue with someone until I can convince them that I didn't open the stupid iPod and it really did break.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for choosing AppleCare Service.

Your IPOD TOUCH has been inspected by Apple technicians, who have determined that it has been subjected to accidental damage or misuse, which is not covered by the warranty or an Apple service contract. Therefore your product is being returned to you unrepaired. You should expect to receive it within two business days along with a letter that gives details of this assessment.

A letter? Seriously? They send me an email telling me they are sending me a letter. That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I don't remember any accidental damage or misuse. We'll see what the letter says...

Friday night my iPod Touch died. I had plugged it in before going to bed and iTunes beeped at me with a sync error. Apparently it was having trouble talking to the device. Whenever I'm having trouble with my iPod I reboot it. So I turned it off and then back on again. Once it turned on i got the screen you get when you have a new iPod. A picture of iTunes with a standard iPod chord running to it telling you you must sync.

Now iTunes gave me a different error. I'm part of the Developer Program so I tried restoring it with the Xcode tools as well. No luck. It was obvious my iPod was not going to recover from whatever had doomed it.

I ran it by the local Mac story on saturday morning, they said to do warranty work I had to go to an Apple store or mail it to Apple. I didn't have time to make the hour and a half drive to the nearest Apple store so I decided to go the mail route.

This is my first experience with Apple Care. I've never purchased it before because I've never had problems before. However since my 1.5 year old iMac started freaking out and I was told it would cost me $900 to fix it I've thought maybe spending some cash on Apple Care isn't a bad idea.

To do the mail route you login to Apple's support site and request service. The first step in the process is diagnosing the problem. Lets see my options. There's about 6 main categories, each with about 5 sub categories. Some of the main categories include battery problems, display problems, other hardware problems. That sounds promising. Nope, nothing related. Stuff about broken buttons.

By now I'm getting frustrated, there clearly is no option describing my problem which is "Trying to restore the iPod in iTunes fails". I finally settle for "Home button does not bring user to home screen", only because it has space to describe the problem.

I describe my problem and submit the service request. Within an hour I got an email from Apple stating that my request had been processed and I should receive an empty box from in two days that I could then use to send the iPod in.

This at least went very smoothly. Tuesday I got a box. I put the iPod in it and called Fed-Ex on Wednesday morning. They arrived about midway through the day to take the box and I'm now waiting for Apple to receive it.

So far the experience has been almost great. Apple was prompt and I feel like for a mail in service things couldn't have gone more smoothly. The only real worry I have is I'll get my iPod back in a few days with a note saying "There is nothing wrong with your home button. Have a nice Day." I know there's nothing wrong with my home button. Why doesn't your stupid website have an Other option with a space to write down my problem.

Anyway. We'll see how they fix it. I'm assuming they'll get it, realize it's dead and send me a refurbished unit. Wouldn't hurt my feelings since I somehow managed to get some dirt under the screen. You can't really see it on white screen, but dark screens (like when it's turned off) really show the dust particles. However I'd definitely settle for just getting my iPod back in good working condition.

Well it's naked day today. I'm taking part in the festivities by making this website totally CSS free today as per the rules.

I always find it interesting to see how a site looks without it's styles. Obviously this isn't the optimal viewing experience, but it does help you understand how your (x)HTML is affecting the design of your page.

Are you using heading tags in the wrong spots? Do you have tons of inline style information? Naked day exposes all your warts.