iPod nano recall attracts 'over a million', Apple swamped

Apple's seven-year-old first-gen iPod nano -- you know, the one that Steve Jobs pulled out of his jeans coin pocket -- has proved difficult to prise from tech lovers' fingers, with a million people taking up last year's product recall.

Or at least that's what one Apple customer service rep let slip to a nano owner, who told us he was warned his iPod replacement might take "a few weeks" -- because the programme was proving far more popular than the fruity one had bargained for.

"We were expecting to get 25,000 or 30,000 back but we've had over a million," the Apple rep told our source. "(We) had to start up a factory line to make the replacement bits," the rep added.

Apple had issued a recall and replacement programme for select first-gen iPod nanos last year, due to a risk of battery overheating. The number of units sent back is surprising, given this nano was launched in September 2005, which makes it positively decrepit in tech terms, where even upgrading yearly is too sluggish for some.

"Apple has determined that, in very rare cases, the battery in the iPod nano (1st generation) may overheat and pose a safety risk. Affected iPod nanos were sold between September 2005 and December 2006," it noted in a statement at the time of recall. "This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect. While the possibility of an incident is rare, the likelihood increases as the battery ages."

At the time of writing, Apple had not responded to a request to confirm the numbers -- but we're smitten by this tale of true love through the tech ages for the trusty little MP3 player.

Are you still using your original iPod nano? Or maybe you passed on a replacement to your mum? Let us know in the comments below or pen an ode to the iPod nano over on our Facebook wall.