Why Do We Accept Mediocracy from Apple?

Better yet, why do we pay for it? I myself am guilty of paying good money for a product that is far less than satisfactory in performance. I have had two different IPods now and I have had two different problems with each of them.

My first was a Mini. I marveled at its unbelievably tiny size and how so much music I loved could finally be all in one place. I feel that a burned CD should stick to some kind of a theme when you create one but the IPod lets me put everything in one place but yet categorized at the same time so that I don't have to feel disgraceful by having Guns N Roses so near to Men Without Hats. My hot love for my Mini died out along with the battery about a 1 1/2 years into our affair; along with my girlfriend's, my sister's, several other people I know, and from what a minimal amount of research on the web turned up, a few hundred other people, and I'm guessing there are many more. Wow, what a coincidence that we all seem to have the same problem with the same device from the same company!

Yeah the thing worked if you plugged it in, but I'm pretty sure that defeats the purpose of a portable music device. I could have gotten it fixed (so graciously might I add) from Apple for something like $60 for a new battery, but what do I do? I get another IPod. This time it is an 8 gig Nano generation 2.

For the past 9 months the two of us have been getting along great. It was half the size of the Mini but it could hold twice as much. I Rediscovered the joy of actually being able to jog or ride a bike while listening to music. I took my music with me up north on a couple camping trips, and fell asleep under the stars listening to a Harry Potter audio book. Everything was great until this past Saturday. Apparently the Nano couldn't handle the song I wanted to put on: it completely locked up and since then it has been dying an electronic death. It started with none of the buttons working at all but the screen would still light up when I plugged it in. I even thought I was back in business when I plugged it into my PC and ITunes registered it. This excitement died when I realized it meant nothing, as the buttons still didn't work at all.

Believe me, I have tried the reset many times (which I have done successfully in the past) and I even went as far as the restore option to wipe everything off and return to factory settings- nothing. I have not spilled anything on my Nano or microwaved it or anything else; it just seems that the inevitable has happened and it has crapped out. Why does Apple get away with this? Probably because people like me keep paying to be disappointed.