In the summer of 2005, I did the unthinkable, and left my iPod, chock full of tunes, photos and company data, on an airplane, when traveling from Chicago to Baltimore. Not having backed up my data in a while, I was challenged to find out a way to rebuild and not lose anything important, and starting over, with a new iPod, took quite a bit of time.Not two years later, the newer iPod, a 60 gigabyte iPod Photo, has met a similar fate, once again having to do with air travel. This morning I flew from San Jose to San Diego, and upon reaching the hotel, plugged in the iPod to my laptop. After leaving the room for a few hours, I came back to find both the PowerBook and iPod were stuck in time. The seconds in my menubar weren't moving, and the iPod wasn't doing squat.
While the iPod isn't lost, it is most definitely dead, offering up only a sad iPod icon, and asking me to contact Apple support. It won't mount on my laptop, or play music. Although I've been better about backing up since the first incident and did a full backup to my laptop a week ago, this is in no way convenient. The iPod has served as the best way for me to easily transport data from one location to another, serving as much more than a portable jukebox. Now, it's a paperweight.
The question is, what to do next? Do I send it off to Apple to be repaired, uncertain as to when I'll get it back and for how much? Do I buy a new one, and junk the old one? Or do I stop with the iPod cycle and try something new? None of the options sounds cheap, and none is preferred to somehow magically fixing the one I've got, but here we are. Sigh.