I had purchased an iPod Touch in late 2007. I was very pleased with it. I started to convert all my CD’s to AAC (the Apple format for music files), added some games. I took it with me on a trip to Iowa where I knocked on doors for a guy with a funny name and big ears.
Then, as luck would have it, it was time to do laundry one day, and yours truly did not quite check all the pockets for items that don’t mix well with soap and water.
Oops.
Not to worry, I further complicated my initial mistake by drying the same pants containing my freshly washed iPod Touch.
Score: Oops two. iPod zero.
Some Google searches basically said to give up the ghost – I had washed and dried the iPod Touch to the iPod afterlife. I still persisted, however. After letting it dry out for about a month, I tried connecting it to iTunes, and voila! The screen came to life! The iPod Touch lives! Long live the iPod!
And look here – iTunes is recommending that I upgrade to the latest version of software – 3.01 – or something like that! I paid for the upgrade, and then……
Oops three. Apparently, some hardware device in the iPod Touch was now defunct (not surprising), and the new software crashed when it did not find the device – at least that was my theory.
Did I give up? NO! I mailed the device to a company that said they might be able to repair the device. Sadly, they could not, and mailed it back to me.
Last chance – I brought it to a Genius Bar – they listened to my tale of washing and drying machines and agreed to give me a ten percent discount towards the purchase of a new iPod Touch. End of the road, right?
WRONG!
As I was home this week, I decided to give it the old college try. After letting the iPod Touch charge overnight, I launched iTunes and immediately got the recovery mode option – would I like to restore the iPod? Yes was my answer, and after a couple of reboots, the iPod Touch was alive. There was one casualty, however. The WiFi feature had died. But it was still functional for music, movies, games, etc. Any online app would not work, although these did not work without connecting to a WiFi network anyway, so not much was lost.
To summarize – adding iPod Touch to laundry – not genius-like. Not giving up? Give me some credit for hanging tough after even the geniuses at Apple advised me to buy another.