Geek & Mild by Sean Sperte

September 30, 2005 Dye, Brasso, Dye!

So I bought myself (big shout-out to The Wife™ for the approval) an invisibleSHIELD for my iPod nano. The demo video on their website sold me. Watch it, if you’ve got time.

A couple of days go by and it finally came in the mail. I was expecting something more for some reason, but the package was literally just a standard-sized envelop with the shield inside. It came with a little tiny piece of paper that said to go to a specific URL for application instructions. I had already done my homework, though, so I wasn’t surprised to find out that in order to apply the shield you must use a soapy-water mixture.

Since the testimony of others who have done this seemed to be favorable, I decided it would be no big deal to endanger my nano for the cause. After all, I am protecting it, right?

Let’s rewind for just a second, though, because earlier that day I had been reading up on all the complaints from nano owners about the scratch-prone casing. I, for one, am among those who feel the nano scratches entirely too easily — I believe mine was scratched up mostly by air particles and the hot and cold air mixture here in Seattle. It’s insane. I found one particular blog with a potential remedy to the problem: Brasso.

Apparently a small application of Brasso rubbed in thoroughly will remove the scratches from the screen. Wow! This guy’s story seemed legit and he has pictures too. Perfect! I thought it’d be a good idea to remove any scratches I had on my nano before actually putting on the invisibleSHIELD! Of course, I had The Wife™ double-check the guy’s blog for validity and she gave me the go ahead to buy the $4 can of Brasso. I went to work on my nano.

A half-hour later my pure, white iPod nano was now more of a yellowish, white nano. Granted, the scratches were all gone. Okay, so maybe I didn’t rub the Brasso out all the way … No, that wasn’t it because another half-hour later and it was still off-color. Okay, time to check the blog again. I read and reread the guy’s entry and it didn’t mention anything about discoloration. Since he had a black nano, though, it was safe to assume he didn’t notice any. I commented on his blog and kept trying to rub the Brasso off.

SITE NOTE: A less-than-informed commenter (not the author) on the blog happened to spew off some inappropriate words towards me claiming I was lazy and rude for commenting about my experience, hence the reason I have not linked to the entry. Feel free to Google it out, if curious.

I resolved to assume the best, put on the invisibleSHIELD and hope the white would somehow return, or the yellow wasn’t as bad as I thought.

My experience putting on the shield went much like the story from the Rainy Day Magazine entry. It took me three tries to get the front shield placed properly. It was really hard justifying getting soapy-water all over the front of the iPod. The back shield went on easier — either by design or because I had already learned the method of application. Drying time was 2 hours, but by then it was already midnight, so I just went to bed.

I was depressed, though, because I had a yellowish white iPod, and though it was now protected, it was ugly. Why did the Brasso dye the acrylic? Should I have rubbed even longer and harder? I already felt as if I was rubbing off the casing. I supposed it wouldn’t matter anymore, since I would no longer have to baby it anyway because it had the shield on. I would just throw it around now, and not care about it.

I woke up the next morning and checked the status: Still yellowish. The shield was great though. I could barely notice it was there except for feel. Visibly, it was truly invisible. So, I had a protected, scratchless, yellowish iPod nano. The Wife™ was very sympathetic, but I wasn’t being consoled. It was a sad day — until I got to work.

It was about halfway through my morning when I noticed the iPod was — how should I say this? — “wigging out.” It was randomly changing tracks, rewinding and turning off and on the backlight — all without me touching the thing. I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too. The water.

Great, so now I had a protected, scratchless, yellowish, disfunctional iPod nano!

I called the store I bought it from and asked if they’d take it back. Of course, they said no. It was a shot in the dark. Then I thought I’d better try all the problem solving solutions that normally work:

• Rebooting. Didn’t work — it just flicked the backlight on and off again. Odd. I realized the problem was definitely hardware then. Nevertheless, I tried
• Restoring the software. It seemed to fix the problem for about 20 minutes.
• Smacking. Hey, sometimes technology needs a little jolt. I had the protector screen on it anyway, right? I smacked it, no help.
• Can-of-air. Okay, so let’s try drying it out — if that’s really the cause of the disfunction. Again, no help.

So that was the low-point. I started to consider selling the thing on eBay for parts. It was ruined already, so I removed the protective shielding to see if maybe the yellow tint would somehow come off with it. You know, it actually did, kind of.

It was at that moment I had a thought: AppleCare. Of course, AppleCare doesn’t cover customer abuse or cosmetic issues, but mine was (ahem) “wigging out.” Maybe, just maybe, they’d swap it out — or at the very least, send it in for repair. I thought I’d just try.

I made an appointment at the Genius Bar online and headed to my local Apple Store. On the way I prayed (yes, I pray about these things) that they’d not ask any pointed questions, and that I wouldn’t have to lie about it. I certainly wasn’t out to rip off Apple, but I did feel somewhat ripped off myself for buying a product that had scratched so easily. I rehearsed the possible scenarios in my head:

• Best case: Easy swap-out.
• Most likely: Send it in for repair (which wasn’t so bad since I had a shuffle that I could use in its stead).
• Worse case: “Sorry, fella, nothing I can do about that.” After that, I was eBay-bound, for sure.

I arrived and had to wait a few minutes so I compared the nano color to the display models. I was surprised to find that my nano wasn’t too much different. It just looked more used (yes, more used than the display models, which get handled a lot).

They called my name and at the bar he read my description of the problem (to himself). “So, we gotta nano that’s ‘wigging out,’ eh?” he chuckled. I answered and handed him my nano. He played with it for a little and I narrarated the problems. “See, it doesn’t even reboot if you hold down the menu and select buttons,” I pointed out. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll see what we can do.”

What happened next totally reminded me of the scene in Meet the Parents where Greg is trying to get a ticket home and the lady behind the airliner desk is just pounding the keys on the keyboard, almost insanely. The guy took literally 5 minutes entering in data.

I finally broke down and asked, “so we gonna send it in?”

“Nah, I’ll just swap it out here,” he said.

Inside I was leaping up and down and I think I heard the Hallelujah praise chorus. I had to continue the ignorant, uninformed customer facade though: “Oh, but I didn’t bring my box and stuff it came with …”

“No, the only thing we swap is the unit itself,” he interrupted.

“Oh, okay, cool,” I said. “So do I have to pay anything?”

“Nope, it’s covered under the warranty.”

Sweet! I walked out with a brand new (“replacement part”) iPod nano! Somewhere, some poor Apple technician is opening up my iPod wondering what’s wrong and is probably going to find just condensation.

So, the moral of the story? I don’t really know — but I haven’t taken the new iPod out of the plastic wrapping yet, and don’t plan on doing so until I can get a none-water-needing-to-appy case for it. Until then, I’ll use my shuffle.