New European iPods hobbled by the French
I was delighted to pick up my new 10gb iPod on Monday here in the UK but after the initial excitement wore off I noticed that it seemed rather quiet. It is fine at home but I have to turn the volume up to maximium to hear it in the street and I suspect it will be all but inaudible on a plane or train.
On investigation Apple confirmed the rumors I had read on a few boards that all new European iPods have had the volume restricted in firmware due to French legislation which limits the output of personal stereos sold in France to 100dB.
Apple have no plans for a workaround for European users who do not wish to be told how loud they can listen to their music by the French government.
I am hoping that enough people will kick up a fuss that Apple will have to offer us the unrestricted firmware but if not mine is going back.
# 1 Re: New European iPods hobbled by the French
If you can get hold of the US firmware you can just install that on your 'Pod. There is no hardware difference.
# 2 Re: New European iPods hobbled by the French
I would be very interested to hear if anyone has got this to work. I believe it may have worked on old iPods which had been updated to the 1.2.2 software specially issued for Europe but I have not heard of anyone doing this with a new (2.0) iPod.
Maybe a friendly US user of the new iPod would like to post an image of the installation CD so we can try (the version 2.0 software is not available for download from Apple)?
