via Gizmodo

The new iPods have had a slew of problems since their releasemore than any other release we can remember. From massive interface lagging (which has thankfully been fixed) to problems with video out (which Apple is still sort of working out), the iPod has officially lost its infallible grace.

And now chalk up another problem. The Nike+iPod peripheral that tracks your distance while playing music doesn't let you play music.

The irony doesn't escape us. We found the bug ourselves after ten minutes of being sure we'd gone loony, button mashing play, menu and that center thingie like no tomorrow. If you begin a workout and then choose a playlist (or any set of music), the playlist won't actually play. Users have discovered sly workarounds, like changing the sex of the inspirational Nike robo voice to get the music playing. We've found that if you have music playing before entering the Nike menu, that works just as well...assuming you don't want to change your playlist, because that's totally screwy, too.

And for what could be a quick firmware fix, the problem has bothered users for over one documented montheither the one happy user on the linked thread got lucky or we're just unlucky. Either way, it's unacceptable.

The iPod justifiably succeeded based upon a simply principle that all of our readers already know: if a device performs one important function perfectly, users will forgive a lack of other functions.

And now, without all that many new functions, we're seeing a product line slowly whither from cheaper components or shoddy software testing or general arroganceor a combination of all three.

Since Apple has smoothed out the laggy interface, the new Classic and Nano really do feel like an improvement on what had become a bloated and aging design. But when an iPod can no longer play music, we have a serious problem.

End

Thoughts?

I'm happy that some media outlet of any kind has addressed these issues. I know some users here have returned the classics because of this. The iPod is a great device, it has many iterations that are great devices, but this new batch just isn't up to par with the rest of them.