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Interesting. A decade ago I observed something similar to the article while traveling in Nepal / Tibet. Me and friend both had iPods (of different generations)
by healsjnr1 8y ago
Interesting. A decade ago I observed something similar to the article while traveling in Nepal / Tibet.
Me and friend both had iPods (of different generations) that got 'altitude sick'.
At two points in the trip we got about 5,000m. Each time both iPods went totally unresponsive. Both times we'd only be there for a few hours and once we descended they'd stay working again.
Obvious thing was something to do with the cold and battery, but both times the battery came at the same charged once they started working.
Can't remember exactly what the ambient temperature was (we were in cars both times) but it's puzzled me whether it was cold or altitude.
- goodcanadian 8y agoA quick trip to Wikipedia suggests that iPod Classics had a spinning disk for storage. The disk in hard drives "floats" on a cushion of air. When the outside air pressure gets lower, the internal pressure is relatively higher and the gap increases. A big enough pressure difference and the disc can jam and stop spinning altogether. I do not know if that is what affected your iPods, but I do know that hard drive failures at the summit of Mauna Kea (~4000m) are common and it seems to mostly be down to luck which ones work and which don't (once you have a working one, it tends to stay working).
- healsjnr1 8y agoWow, that's awesome. No idea if that's actually what was happening, but it fits the picture of why these were getting 'altitude sickness'