Taking iPod to Apple Store

Make an appointment online as soon as the store opens. For example make an appointment at 10 am and get an appointment at 6 pm. Show up an hour early and tell the tech you are there and maybe youll see them on time.

Here's what happened to me at the Apple store in Cincinnati, OH. My brand new iPod was giving me all sorts of errors and would not upload all of the songs in my library - it kept timing out. It turns out, for whatever reason, that my front USB port doesn't work as good as my back port, which works fine. But I didn't figure that out right away. Anyway, I bought mine from Amazon (only $370 for 40 gb w/ free shipping and no tax - saved me $60 from going to the Apple store to buy it) but I heard you could still take it to the Apple store to have them look at it.

Well after walking in the store and asking someone, they told me to go back to the "genius" section and someone would be there. I did and someone showed up very quickly (I was the only one waiting and this was about a week before x-mas). The guy was super cool and we talked about Macs vs. PC's and he even asked if I wanted a job (jokingly) for all the people that will come in with problems with their Christmas iPod's on PC's (he was obviously a "Mac" guy and could tell I knew quite a bit about PC's - although not enough to try the back USB port). Anyway, he couldn't figure it out, so he asks where I got it and I told him it was a Christmas present that my parents sent me and didn't give me the reciept but I thought they got it at an Apple store (yes I lied because I didn't think they would look at it if I didn't buy it at an Apple store - yes they will it turns out - and I didn't want to have to ship it back to amazon and wait for them to ship another one). Well, he looks up the serial number (which they log at checkout - so don't try to lie to say you bought it at the Apple store if you didn't because they know). So he says that since it wasn't bought at an Apple store that they couldn't give me a whole brand new one with box, manuals and cables, but he could replace just the iPod with one that came in a small plain brown box. Since I thought mine was dead, I thought that was fine. I was kind of scared that it might be a refurb (I still don't know if it is or not), but the thing looks absolutely brand new and still had that plastic cover that tells you not to steal music. He also logged the serial number under my information and said I'd have a full 1 year warranty from then, so that eased my mind a little more. I took it home and still had the same problems until I tried the back USB ports.

Moral of my story:
1. Use back USB ports
2. Apple store employees are pretty cool
3. The Apple store can give you a brand new iPod (box, manual, cables, and all) if you bought it there and yours is broke (I have no idea how long after you bought it they will do this?)
4. The Apple store will try to fix an iPod even if you didn't buy it at an Apple store and will even give you just a new iPod if they can't fix it (and I don't know how they would know that I didn't buy it a year ago since it wasn't in their system and I bought it from amazon? - though mine was only a day old)
5. Though I've seen my Apple store busy sometimes, there usually is no wait at the Cincinnati one (unlike what bundee said - maybe he lives where more people have Macs?)

I have a question about taking your ipod to the Apple store;

My Ipod is being tweaky, skipping songs, showing the dreaded !(folder) symbol, so I plan on taking it to the Apple store where it was purchased.

Only problem, It was purchased a couple of months ago, as School Starting present, and thus, I do not have the receipt, yet i have the box and everything that came with it,

Am I in trouble or will everything be okay?

Awesome.

Thanks for the reassurance.