Life Expectancy of ipod and components: battery, etc.?

i'll bet in 15-20 years, your kids wont want to use something as low tech as the 7th gen ipod!

Yes, it would be nice to pass a favorite gadget down to our children, like pocket watches were in the past. I just realized the other day that I've had the same undergrad calculator for over 20 years of daily use, and all the components are still 100% functional. Even though the current business model for electronics depends on constant consumer upgrades, maybe Apple will be the one to reinvent product packaging & design to allow upgrades without replacement?

Spares for the battery, headphone socket and hard drive can all be obtained for now, though I doubt it will be so easy in 15-20 years time. Just Google iPod repairs. I have swapped out batteries on two 30gb 5th gen. iPods but both have since been replaced when they had more serious (user induced) failures. The biggest dangers are mechanical shock (one was dropped hard enough to shatter the lcd matrix inside the screen), moisture (the other shared the inside of a rucksack with an opened bottle of shampoo) and extreme temperatures.

tt2