What is sad that we the owners get $15 or $25 while the lawyers who handled this are probably getting hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions).

Typical lawsuit result, most of the sttlement goes to the lawyers, mostly symbolic to consumers.

Thank you Consumerist for keeping us up to date and informed.

@bxbrett:

Answered my own question when I clicked the link to the original story and saw this:

"Apple has also agreed to $4.5 million in attorney fees and an award of litigation expenses of up to $200,000."

Hey op, simple solution: we all should become class-action lawyers. All joking aside, if we did away with class-action lawsuits or reduced the legal fees then who would sue the evil companies. Lawyers only do these cases for the money carrot.

@layton59: I only work for money.. that's their job... so let's get mad at them for doing their job?? Class action lawsuits are for the most part dumb but hey, if I was a lawyer and could do it, I sure as well could... wouldn't you?? I mean, I'm getting the 25 bucks from apple even though I could care less if my screen was a little scratched. Same principal.

When I ordered mine I learned of all the scratching in-transit. So I ordered one of these clear plastic cases and refused to take it out until I received it.

In those days, that case was three plastic parts: two for the main shell and one cap on the bottom holding both shell pieces in place. You would remove the plastic bottom and pull apart the sides. The case is very snug to keep it from bouncing around.

Showing it around one person popped off the bottom and SLID MINE OUT. I eeped and he goes, "oh, wow, that's a lot of scratches." Yeah, now it does: long vertical scratches all along the face. How I managed not to murder him is a mystery.

@bxbrett: the only people that win in a lawsuit is the lawyers.

I'll stick with my old school Creative Zen.

@bxbrett: For gods' sake, grow up.
Class action lawsuits are designed for cases where the infringement is too small for individuals to file suit yet over the aggregate, add up to worthwhile amounts. It also reduces the amount of time wasted by individuals, since thousands of people don't have to file their own suit.
Or, you'd prefer that our legal system is either clogged with tens of thousands of individual duplicate suits, or that companies get a blank check to scam consumers*, so long as it's under, say, $5,000 per person?

* I'm not saying THIS case covers a scam, fwiw.

@bxbrett: And this is why i plan on being a lawyer

I have three iPod Nano first generations and all have a ton of scratches, unfortunately the website will not recognize any of my serial numbers.

This is part of the problem with the legal system in America today.

Apple was perfectly happy to exchange these iPods for anyone who complained (I should know, I was one of them and so were several of my friends) and they fixed the problem for future models.

And yet some people still felt the need to sue. What good did that do? You got yourself $15 or $25? The company spent millions on the case, money that could have been invested in future products, etc, and you got $15? Oh, and the lawyers got themselves millions. Does the "moral victory" feel good?

Class action lawsuits make SENSE when the company is trying to avoid or deny responsibility for a problem. Sometimes you need to team up and force the company to do what's right!

But this was just a case of some greedy lawyer and some greedy customers seeing an easy payday.

Frivolous use of class action suit. It was cosmetic damage. No one was injured, the product worked fine. To keep scratches off my iPod, I bought a hard case. Problem solved.

What is deserving of a class action is Seagates 7000.11 series of hard drives.

@Vhalkyrie: Yeah, not to mention the fact that cosmetic scratches in no way affect the purpose of the product: to play music.

@AdvocatesDevil: That's funny, when I worked for Apple we flatly refused to exchange them (at that time they were claiming customer "abuse" and such). I'm sure it depends more on the store/manager than Apple itself. You just got lucky.

Except that if you had actually read the article you'd see that some were so scratched you couldn't read the screen.

Nanos also play videos, which would be hard to see on an extremely scratched up screen.

@friendlynerd: Good point...I didn't think about video.

I got one as a prize from the local TV station (that sits on my shelf rarely used) - I wonder if I can get in on this....

@friendlynerd: 1st generation Nanos displayed photos, but did not have video playing capability. That was added later. However, they did have very nice color menus that were rendered unreadable by the scratches.

The scratching is terrible and glad to see we're compensated for their lack of foresight. I called quite a few times to have mine replaced with no luck, they said they'd just replace them with ones that still could be scratched. Not to mention the engraving on the back would be lost. You expect a product to work a certain way, when that falls through you take action. As we did.

@dddoistutter: People don't buy ipod to play music, they buy them to look cool. Can't look cool with a scratched ipod.

@dddoistutter: 1st gens didn't play videos

@bxbrett: You're ignoring the fact that the lawyers have spent years working on this case, hundreds if not thousands of hours of work without getting paid (and frankly no guarantee of ever getting paid, and also not knowing how much).

When you divide the amount of attorney's fees earned by the amount of hours, plus consider that it's probably being split up among several different lawyers, it really isn't all that much money.

@AdvocatesDevil: I can't tell you how many scratched nano exchanges I denied when I worked at Apple during the same time. You had to be pretty careful with them, but I don't see it as significantly different from other glossy finished iPods. We all had to wear nano's and carry them around when they first came out, and ours didn't get all scratched up like the ones customers would bring in, so I can't really sympathize.

We would actually take broken nanos and take them in the back and work them over to see how much abuse it took to scratch one up. Pretty much the same as other things made of polycarbonate.

The announcement would bring to an end a three-and-a-half year legal battle between the iPod maker and unhappy customers.

Customer Reimbursement: $15.00 - $25.00

Lawyer Reimbursement:
$300 an hour * 80 billable hours a week * 3.5 years
= $4,368,000

Mind you, the $300 and 80 hours a week are very conservative estimates. That figure also does not include postage stamps or parking fees.

@rockasocky:

The lawyers are basically guaranteed payment. They did not start this suit if they thought otherwise. They rely on the fact that it would be much more expensive for Apple to fight it than to settle.

Apple has agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a class action suit

Like it says, the lawyers did not win a judgement, Apple settled the suit.

If the lawyers fought it to the end and won then you might now be getting replacement Nanos rather than
$15 - $25. Of course if they lost, then they would get nothing, that's why they settle.

Also, even if its being split among several different lawyers, its still $300 an hour.
The median household income is roughly $46,000, at 40 hours a week times 52 weeks that's $22.12 an hour (that's for the whole household, not one person).

My advice for the day is, don't cry for the
poor lawyers.

@Blueskylaw:

You were remarkably close!
From the settlement website....

"Plaintiffs' Counsel will request from the Court, and Apple has agreed not to oppose, an award of attorneys' fees of $4,500,000 from the Fund and an award of litigation expenses of up to $200,000 from the Fund."

@ludwigk: the 5th gen ipod was much worse than the nanos, imo. i sold quite a few of those & almost bought one myself, until i saw how easily they scratched. one friend kept his in some kind of custom-made lambskin pouch & he still managed to get scratches all over it.

i honestly think there were some bad batches in production, b/c the early 5th gens definitely had scratch issues. later releases were much better - unfortunately they didn't make it for the holiday season that year.

@Alex Valentine: Funny, I'm having the exact some problem Alex. It says mine aren't 1st generation nanos.

So, the Verification Characters I was required to enter were... are you ready?

G E T L Y F

Do you think Apple is trying to tell me something?

@WolfDemon:

110% agreed. They do finally have some new firmware (SD1B) on their site that supposedly fixes all the different issues. I patched mine already. The sad thing is I had to PIRATE the last one (SD1A) from The Pirate Bay. WTF++, especially with the earlier update that bricked certain drives because the firmware wasn't compatible.

I got my Ipod Nano and stopped by WalMart for a $4 Loepro SD card case out of neoprene. Fits snug, zippers shut, and now years later NO SCRATCHES. I guess if you take care of your stuff you don't get scratches, if you treat it like crap you get a $25 gift certificate.

I wasn't exactly careful with my 1st gen Nano. I was a groomer at the time and kept it in my pocket, which it fell out of frequently, it even got wet on many occasions and other than a few scratches here or there, I didn't have a problem. The scratching didn't seem excessive, just typical for the amount of abuse it endured. In fact, after purchasing a 3rd gen and an I phone I still have my 1st gen Nano, and its still looks pretty good for how old it is.

@Blueskylaw: So, if your infant child (and many, many others) is permanently crippled because a baby-seat manufacturer decided it'd be swell to increase market share by lying about how large of a kid could use their product, you'll simply shrug, titter and say, "Tee-hee: ya got me really good, guys!"?

So the whining cry babies got their way. They couldn't just buy a case or, learn to take better care of their iPods? I have had several iPods and, none of them ever got anything more than very minor scratches or blemishes -- including the iPod nano that I had. I knew how to take care of it. These people need to get a life. Are they going to sue the manufacturer of every product that they mistreat? I used to be a Mac Genius at an Apple store. I can tell you from experience that a lot of people treat their iPods and laptops like crap. Then, they expect the abuse to be covered under warranty. Well, surprise surprise... It's not! Grow the hell up people!

@3drage:

You're all a bunch of cry babies who didn't understand how to properly treat your iPods. I have NEVER had a scratch on an iPod screen before Apple switched to the glass screens. A good case that is appropriate for how you use the iPod and some regular cleaning go a long way. If you just stick it in a case and forget about it, that is almost as bad as never putting one on in the first place since dust and dirt can accumulate inside and scratch the iPod. You really need to get a life. Are you going to sue every manufacturer for your misuse of their products? Apple can't guarantee problem free usage because there will always be one major thing that they can't control: YOU!

@coan_net:
With this legal "justice" system of cry babies and whiners, I could probably get my class PowerBook 145 exchanged because the battery no longer works. It's only 18 years old now.

@friendlynerd:
The nanos in question for this cry baby whiner lawsuit are not the ones that play video. The ones that play video released in mid-2007 and, they have glass screens.

@Vhalkyrie:
Finally! The voice of a SMART consumer!

@Alex Valentine:
That's good. Give it up and get a life. Apple doesn't owe anyone a damned thing. If you can't take care of your iPods, that's your problem. Scratches happen when you rub the iPod against another object that is harder than the iPod surface. If you drop it all the time, put it in your pocket with keys, coins, etc., it's going to scratch. Putting it in a case and never taking the iPod back out to clean it will also cause it to get scratched from the dust and dirt build up inside the case. Has everyone simply lost the capacity for logical and reasonable thinking? I think I should sue Suzuki for the scratches on my bumper since they should have built the car to withstand my bicycle rubbing up against it when I have it on a deck lid mounted bike rack.

I don't get it... I got a 1st gen Nano free w/ my MacBook Pro and used it heavily with no case and it never got scratched up. I sold it for $65 on Craigs List when I got an iPhone and no longer needed it. I wonder if a lot of the people crying foul were other people that got it for free... wouldn't surprise me.

Meh. free rebate. im not complaining. I had a hard shell case on it and it still got scratched just from sliding in the case.

We just dug up my wife's old first-gen 2-gig black nano, but when I entered the serial number:

You have reached this screen because you entered a Serial Number for a First Generation iPod Nano that is coated, and is therefore not covered under the Class Definition for this settlement.

It looks like the first nanos were uncoated, but they began coating the first gen nanos in December '05.

@DenleySnail: Maybe you had one of the coated ones? See my post below.

@kreatre2009: You're obviously not an ipod owner. They scratch with the slightest touch of your finger. Also, apple does indeed owe anyone a damned thing. There's a lawsuit to prove it. What's with the negativity anyways?