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Dan's iPod Touch goes dark....

by: Dan -
More On: iPod Touch
Not quite a year into ownership of my 2nd Generation 8GB iPod Touch, it finally let me down completely yesterday. Ever since the update to iPhone OS 3.0, I have been having one problem after another with over heating and three separate screen issues. The worst was certain games would cause the Touch to heat up to significant temperatures and eventually freeze the device. As for the three screen issues, here is what has happened in order of appearance since OS 3.0 was added:

1. Screens was jumpy and vertical lines racing up the right side edge
2. The Touch would lock and the screen would go green or get gibberish all over it when overheating
3. The backlighting started going the middle of last week (around 10/28) and finally winked out for good on Sunday 11/1
 
While #1 happened periodically during a 3-month window, I took great pains to NOT play the game(s) for long periods of time that were causing issue #2. As a result, I wasn't having too many problems lately and actually cancelled a previous service that I started to schedule in September. Unfortunately, issue #3 took out the backlighting completely yesterday and I can barely make out the images on screen when angling the touch into the light.

At this point, I have scheduled a Genius Bar appointment with the Apple Store at Easton Towne Center in Columbus (GamingNexus HQ) to have them run a diagnosis on it to determine what is going on. I certainly have not abused my iPod Touch, but it does get some serious use with my duties reviewing games for GamingNexus and playing music while working. I am on it multiple times per day even on the weekends and evenings.

Currently, I am pretty disappointed that the iPod Touch backlighting failed, but I hope that Apple makes it right without too much of a fuss. I would like to see Apple at least replace it, but I would be much happier if I were allowed to upgrade to the new 16GB  32GB model that has the faster processor found in them. Tomorrow should prove to be an interesting day.

If anyone else has had backlighting, heat or screen issues, I would like to hear from you.