Consumer Electric Simply

Just last week I received a letter in the mail informing me that I was a member of a class action lawsuit against Apple’s hip iPods. Apparently the portable music devices had experienced battery failure on a massive scale, the letter said, and I could do one of two things. I could accept the settlement offer and sign away my own right to sue Apple individually about the battery, or I could opt-out. If I signed, Apple offered to give me a $50 gift certificate to the Apple store. After speaking with my lawyer, I signed the sheet.

Was that the right thing to do? I think it’s safe to say that we have all been, or will all be, holding a similar letter regarding another product at some point. If we don’t immediately discard what appears to be junk mail, the class action notice can be sound so complicated as to induce panic. In this panic, the second wave of valuable letters hit the trash cans. Of all our options, this is probably the least advised. You stand to lose nothing by participating in a class action lawsuit and could gain a great deal, especially if you value justice and corporate responsibility.

So what is a class action lawsuit and why are they contacting me? Class action lawsuits are supposed to give common, everyday people the ability to take on large corporations with reasonable expectations for justice. After all, one middle class guy alone would be squashed by Apple’s top-notch lawyers. He might not have lost very much, maybe he has to recharge his iPod a couple extra times a day, but you can be sure that Apple saved millions of dollars between this battery and the next best option. They took a shortcut, and the battery failed. The class action lawsuit allows Apple (and this is just an example) to pay a little bit back to a whole lot of people.

I was lucky, because Apple was already settling the case when I received the letter. There were no big legal battles, nothing drawn out. If the case goes to court, class action members must sign in or out at the beginning. If you don’t sign, you’re still in the lawsuit, and bound by the terms of judgment. Only by specifically opting out of the class action lawsuit can you disassociate yourself from it. If you opt out you will not receive any of the rewards at the end, but you reserve the right to file your own lawsuit later. The time period available for making this choice is small, which leaves you very little time to seek legal council. If you can, do so! Lawyers can be expensive, but the costs should be covered should your side with the settlement and an initial consultation can be invaluable in making your decision. This should not be a gamble but a carefully informed choice.

Receiving a letter in the mail or reading a published announcement about a class action lawsuit is the easy part. What happens if you have a problem, you observe that your neighbors have the same problem, and the company in question won’t respond? This is the point when you call a lawyer and begin your own class action lawsuit. Your lawyer will call theirs and I guarantee, a company that does not respond to your individual phone calls will hear their lawyer. Filing a class action lawsuit is not the easiest thing to do, but sometimes it is the only way to establish justice for consumers. When my iPod battery failed three years ago I did not consider class action as an option, but I am very grateful that some brave individual took it upon himself to pursue the lawsuit. I now have more confidence in Apple for offering an easy settlement for their defective product and more confidence in the judicial system.

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An Apple iPod tattoo?

Now before you mothers out there get all freaked out, it’s not what you think!

The latest rage is to dress up your Apple iPod with your own personal Apple iPod tattoo. That’s right. The iPod, not the child!

Most iPod owners looking to tattoo their iPod make up their own image in Photoshop. But not everyone is geared up to using Photoshop or even spending their time going through the steps needed to get your tattoo ready.

Enter the HP people. The HP web site has some very cool Apple iPod tattoos ready made and ready to be printed out and applied!

You can put that special someone on your iPod, a scanned sketch for you artists or your favorite pet. Actually you can use anything that can be made into a computerized digital file to create your personal Apple iPod tattoo. We have another iPod article posted at our web site if you do want to do everything on your own to add that special touch.

But HP is making it very easy to personalize your iPod player by helping you to display cool graphics, unique pictures or your favorite album cover art on your iPod with their easy to print, easy to apply, and easy to remove tattoos!

And HP will make sure you’ve got the tattoo supplies you need as well. HP Tattoos use specially designed paper to fit your iPod to make it very, very easy to tattoo your Ipod!

HP has a gallery of iPod tattoos which includes some of the hottest artists today and their album covers as well as other designs. You can click on the different tattoo images and HP will show you what it will look like on an Ipod! How great is that!

And don’t forget the HP Activity Center as well where you can find tons of other images that you can use to create your iPod tattoo. Your only limitation is your imagination.

But HP also has a section where you can upload your own file from your computer and create your own special tattoo. You simply browse your computer for the file in GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP or TIF format and you can even edit it online to get exactly what you want.

Note that maximum file size you can use is 4MB but that will give you a great looking tattoo to print out. You will also need Adobe Acrobat to see the finished image. If you don’t have your own free copy you can download Adobe Reader at www.adobe.com.

Once you are ready with your finished image you can Download and Print. You can also download project instructions that will walk you through the printing process as well.

Personalize your apple Ipod tattoo your way. What a great idea. Your Apple iPod never looked better!

Lee MacRae runs a website called “Pass The Ipod” where he shares his personal love of everything iPod. Visit http://www.passtheipod.com/

Find your HP tattoo at http://zmamgmwspro06-f.tay.hp.com/activitycenter/us/en/music/tattoo.jsp

You have full permission to reprint this article in any way you wish as long as you leave the article fully intact and include the author bio box and all links and email addresses.

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Small is in when it is only 1.62 inches long and weighs only half an ounce - and lets face it - “small is in”. With the whole purpose being to easily load it with an assortment of songs, it then plays them in a random order. The first iPod to use flash memory, the iPod shuffle weighs only 22 grams, or .78 ounces, while holding 240 songs in the 1GB version, or four minutes per song, with listening power of 12 continuous hours. Apple claims its iPod shuffle is “the biggest thing in small”, available in 512 MB or 1 GB. The iPod shuffle is made to clip onto just about anything: coin pockets, purses, bags, or hats. In the world of digital electronics, it is the small size that matters the most anymore. And the iPod has the small market cornered in the mainstream market - more than any previous iPods.

The opposite side of the iPod shuffle is that it has several less features than the iPod - the trademark, scroll wheel, playlist management features, games, address book, calendar, notes capability of earlier iPods, the iPod shuffle cannot be used with iSync, its incapable of playing Apple Lossless and AIFF audio files. But it has a better bass sound quality than the larger pods. The iTune allows an iPod shuffle playlist to be viewed and changed while the unit is not connected, and when the unit is connected the next time, it can be updated with the changed playlist.

The question then becomes, why buy the shuffle with its limited disk space? The complaint against other iPod systems is the lack of durability, so you couldn’t take it to the gym regularly and keep it for long, yet the consumers interested in the shuffle are those same type of people. Its advantage is its low price. The target for the iPod shuffle and the iPod mini was the lower-end market. Eventually, any heavy physical activity would decrease its usage, yet the price was low enough that a person could actually purchase another one if needed.

As the name suggests, the benefit of the shuffle is that every time you listen to it the songs you downloaded are played in a different order. There are ways to get around this if it is not a benefit you are excited about. For instance, you can set the play list on your computer before sending it to the iPod, but you cannot control the songs being played from the shuffle itself. Arguments against the shuffle stem from the “shuffle” feature itself, the fact that you cannot control the play list from the device itself like other iPod systems. However, the price and durability appear to be above average for “flash drive” players.

Shuffle seems to be a good fit for fast paced individuals who are on the move, and are physically active while listening to music on the go. With this sort of clientele, accessories that are available to keep the iPod shuffle on the go with its user is a case that protects it from the weather and elements, a shuffle dock that allows it to connect easier to the computer, decorative and protective sleeves, belt clips, AC and DC power plugs, earphones, and FM transmitters. The battery takes about 1 1/2 hours to charge 80%, while a full charge will take about 3 hours.

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