Display of dark images/video

I was just saying that on my monitor the contrast is better so people wouldn't be confused when they realize the rendered blacks on the I-Touch are not as deep. In regards to cutting edge, sure, I have paid my $400 for it so I am entitled to my own opinion and most of all sharing with others. Cutting edge touch monitor has nothing to do with the black issue. Fanboyism belongs to another topic and/or board.

Andrew Butterfield wrote:
Of course they read it. Why wouldn't they? Knowledge is power.

Apple Discussions is a user to user forum filled with a mix of information, misinformation, & speculation. Some of it is articulate & well thought out; some is nearly incomprehensible or clearly illogical; some is little more than irrational ranting. In the aggregate it is more than any one person can assimilate, even if they did nothing else with their lives.

Do you imagine each store has some employee assigned to read everything posted about each of Apple's products, including ones like the Touch that arrive at the stores unexpectedly ahead of schedule?

Got my 3rd Touch today at the Apple store in Skokie, Il. No problem with the exchange; they were very friendly and knew about the issue. Unfortunately I couldn't test the new Touch in the store since it wants to be sync'ed first. Once I got home I loaded the gamma test pics and I can say that this one (a week 38) is definitely better. It still have a very limited viewing angle; and it still looks better when tilted slightly away for you, but this is a vast improvement over the last two. I'm going to watch a movie tonight and see how it fares in a "real world" test.

The original statement was that no Apple employees read the forums, and I definitely hope that is wrong. It would indeed be silly to design new models without checking what people spontaneously think about the old ones.

Clearly not all Apple employees read all the forums, but no one ever claimed that was the case.

A recurring mantra here is to use the feedback links to Apple, because "Apple" reads feedback but not discussions. Actually there is no guarantee that they read either. For all we know they may send all Feedback straight to the bin. The main advantage with posting your opinions as Feedback as well as in the discussion forums, is that you increase the likelihood that Apple reads it in at least one of the places. However, I see no reason to send only feedback and post nothing in the discussions.

The original statement was that no Apple employees read the forums

Mookler's original statement was "no apple employees read this" & the context of that post implies "this" refers specifically to this 400+ post topic. That's probably wrong -- I'm sure that some Apple employees have read it at some point, & maybe even a few have read it in its entirety.

However, I find it very unlikely that many Apple Store Geniuses or store managers start their work day by checking Discussions for the latest user comments on all of the products they might be asked about, or for what users are saying about any specific issue in this or any other Discussions category.

The real problem here is the lack of a consistent return/exchange policy for a defect that, so far at least, has no official objective test. That has to come from Cupertino.

Joel--

I exchanged mine there and actually posted my experience on this board. They was fantastic! Chris is the name of the genius I dealt with and he was great. Straight exchange.

Good luck.
Mike

Just a thank you to everyone in all these dark video forums. I had a week 37 and it was OK but I was nagged by what it could be if perfect. I went to the Apple store in NYC 5th Ave early AM (8AM - was empty! Go then for great, quick service), I did not even go to the Genius, I just went to the cashier, showed him my 16GB iPod touch, asked for a new week 38 model (w/ Macy Gray cover) and he swapped it NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Thanks and good luck to everyone else - make sure you are satisfied - don't settle for a good screen, get a great screen.

A day after my exchange of my 2nd week 37 for a week 38, here's my full "review"; cross posted from another forum:

Ok, I finally gave up on Apple making an official announcement.

I stopped by the Apple store in Skokie and they 1) were aware of the issues, and 2) exchanged my week 37 (my 2nd unit) for a new week 38 without hassle. I couldn't test it right in the store since it needs to be sync'd first, but as soon as I got it home I loaded the gamma test photos and can say this one is a definite improvement. The screen's still pretty dark (in dark scenes at least) and the viewing angle is really limited (moreso than before, actually) but the blacks don't go negative anymore, and there's more detail in the darks overall. I watched 12 Monkeys last night and everything looked good; overall I'd give the screen a 8 or 9 (on a scale of 1-10).

That said, I still find myself a little disappointed with the Touch. WiFi absolutely *eats up* the battery; Safari is buggy, and with no Flash support it makes browsing pretty limited -- webmail for example works only for 2 of my 4 accounts (.mac mail is one of the ones that doesn't work, oddly enough); there's no mail app of course; Safari can't seem to remember my home network's password, and as far as I can tell it never remembers website logins or passwords either; sync takes an excruciating long time, and the limited capacity means you need to sync often, exacerbating the issue; YouTube locks up frequently and the search results are wildly different than the same search on the website, making it hard to show someone something you saw online; the accelerometer sometimes is unresponsive, making me flip the thing back and forth in order to get it to turn correctly...

I'm hoping that some of the issues will be addressed with firmware updates or 3rd party apps, but that's not looking good right now, IMHO. Apple put Safari on so that you have a way to log into a network, allowing you to use the wifi iTunes store really, nothing more... so I don't think Flash will be coming anytime very soon (despite what the rumors say). And they've gotten really aggressive against hacks, so 3rd party apps will likely be broken every time a new update is released (at best) or possibly brick the whole thing (worst case scenario). I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect that -- minor bugs aside -- the Touch functionality is pretty much as Apple intends it to be.

I do think I'll keep this one though. It does make a good music and decent video player at least.

Paul,

Very similar experience to you. I was active on this thread for some time, before taking a break out of frustration. I was one of the forerunners in annoying Apple about this issue. I went through two bad week 37 touches before calling it quits and getting a full refund. As reports trickled in about the improved week 38 touches, I decided to end my saga and buy a week 38 16gb touch from the Apple store on 5th ave, nyc. For the record, mine came in the old Corinne Bailey Rae box, though I fail to see how that makes any difference. She's easier on the eyes, anyway 😉

I feel the same about the screen. It's vastly better in handling dark scenes at a normal viewing angle, but the viewing angle is definitely limited, especially horizontally. This is not a top-notch LCD, in that there is still a good amount of black crush to go along with undesirably shallow black levels. Which leads to glowing blacks (very noticeable when you're watching original aspect content with black bars) and loss of detail in darker scenes. But hey, this is a 3.5" portable media player. It gets the job done well, and I can't complain much about the screen. It can only get better from here and is definitely a great start for the touch line.

I have the same quibbles with Safari and YouTube. Safari almost invariably crashes if I surf while listening to music. Or rather, music playback crashes while using Safari. That's not something I could foresee myself doing very often, as it just isn't very practical or realistic. YouTube is unfortunately very unstable, but I make sure to allow iTunes to submit all of the error reports to Apple. I'm sure that as firmware is upgraded, it will become more stable and efficient.

I wish Apple wasn't being so bullheaded about the applications available on the touch. I really wish there was at least a Notes application. The other ipod models all had some sort of text viewing ability. I wish Apple would be a bit more gracious and provide that. And Google Maps wouldn't hurt either. Those two (already implemented by way of iPhone) features would greatly boost the value of my touch from a fancy media player to a neat, multipurpose bail-you-out-of-a-tough-spot gadget.

It's a nice device to own, overall, and I'm pleased with it, even through all the pain I endured arguing with arrogant Apple store employees.

I think this'll be my last post on this thread, thank God. 🙂

I actually sent mine back to CA for an "engineering review". I think they are going to just swap it.

Mike,

Thanks for the update. I've scheduled a visit for Friday morning. I'm glad to hear they did not give you the run around. I've gotten both good and bad service from this store in the past.

-Joel

I wish Apple wasn't being so bullheaded about the applications available on the touch.

Which would you rather have, a limited set of applications that work perfectly or an expanded set that don't? There is nothing wrong with wanting it all, but in practical terms Apple is already pushing the limits of what is possible with existing technology & developmental methods, arguably beyond what is "cutting edge" into the "bleeding edge" zone ... and consumers seem to love it.

It almost seems masochistic. At the same time we demand stability, we demand things likely to increase the risk of our suffering the effects of instabilities. We aren't the most rational of creatures ....

Many of the features people are asking for on the Touch are already available on the iPhone.

I didn’t have any problems when I returned my Touch to the Apple store last night. I did make an appointment with a Genius and I would recommend doing that. I also called before I went to make sure they had Touchs in stock. I brought my Macbook Pro with me and synced it right there at the bar and ran the greyscale test and color check for dead pixels. This one looks great!! The greys are so much better and no dead pixels or problems. It is a week 38 – Macy Gray. So far, so good. The Genius didn’t really say anything more then what he had to about the screen problems. He definitely gave me the impression that he knew more about it then he was willing to admit, but they deal with a wide range of issues so maybe it was just my perception. I am sure like any other business Apple wants to keep manufacturing problems quiet. It doesn’t do their stock price any good. Plus I could easily see people being so impressed by everything else that the grey issue wouldn’t even be noticed. So anyway if you have the grey problem, make an appointment, check to make sure they have stock for a replacement and take it back. I would recommend that you load the http://techmind.org/lcd/greyscale.html to show when you are there. The problem is very obvious with that. One last note. I did spend some time looking at the iPhones and other Touches that they had on display and none of them had the grey problem.

Ron, great to hear you got a good 'un.

Don't forget my little test video here;
http://www.geekanoids.co.uk/2007/09/updated-version-of-ipod-touch-iphone.html

Good luck all.