The good people at Mac Rumors (the best Apple rumor site, IMO) pointed out an excellent article in the New York Times Magazine on the iPod. The article speaks to both the commercial success of the iPod as well as its cultural impact. A very interesting read.

I should also note here that if you have been exposed to the Neistat Brothers’ film, “iPod’s Dirty Secret” (in which they play a recorded support call–possibly illegal–and show themselves spray-painting an untrue and anti-Apple stencil over posted iPod ads), keep in mind that these guys didn’t do their homework. After 18 months of very heavy use, their iPod’s battery drained out. After a single call to a Mac support person who turned out not to know all his stuff (hardly a new phenomena in the support industry), the Neistats concluded that (a) the iPod’s battery never lasts longer than 18 months, (b) it is not replaceable, and (c) you could only get a functioning iPod again by either paying Apple $255 or simply buying a new iPod, which they did.

In fact, the iPod’s battery lasts longer than that in most cases, even with heavy use; they just got a shorter-lived one. Many iPod users with the original 2-year-old iPod models are still reporting that their battery lasts 8 hours after that much time of normal use. Second, the battery is in fact replaceable, previously with third-party battery replacement kits costing as little as $50, and now through Apple itself.

Now that their errors have been pointed out after 50,000 people saw their movie, they belatedly posted that they tried a third-party battery (after their movie suggested no such thing existed), but they claim that it did not work–which tells as to how well one should research any third-party product, looking for reviews and user comments on which was best and how to install it. They also are now taking credit for providing a solution, while all they really did (at least, it appears they did–post hoc ergo propter hoc) was prompt Apple to provide battery replacement of their own, for (of course) a higher price than the third-party dealers. The Neistats still offer up their anti-Apple movie, now calling it a “documentation of our experience”–that note buried in a link.