Well, I'm kind of new to this support communities as this is my first time to make a discussion here.
So, as most of all iDevice users knew that a late-2009 iPod touch 2nd gen 8GB MC model was referred by stores as the 3rd Gen 8GB.
After all these years, I've finally had time to solve the issue a few weeks ago. I bought the unit on April 2010 which was claimed by a guy from the authorised reseller at my location as the newest 3rd Gen iPod touch. At that time, I trusted this guy (salesman) and start to use the unit throughout the years and finally I got stuck on iOS 4.2.1.
Later on, I thought that probably Apple hadn't release the 4.3 version for the iPod touch 3rd Gen, so I waited dumbly until the release of iOS 5.1.1. Recently, I brought my unit back to the same store, trying to find out why did the store misleaded me.
Another guy from the store explained to me that before June 2010, they didn't know from Apple that iPod touch 8GB MC was different from its siblings with greater capacity. They only knew it officially from Apple in June 2010. He also stated that the official basis from Apple for the store to compare between iPod touch 3rd Gen 8GB and the 2nd Gen was the MC and MB numbers, not the A12XX and A13XX (in apple support webpage).
So I want to ask anybody who knows the real thing behind these statements.
- Did Apple made the statement that the MC model would be different with the 32 & 64 GB models since the launching in late 2009 (I really mean at that time in September 2009 until the June 2010)?
If there was another time when they officially announced that the MC model would be different, please give me the date (this is an important fact to me).
- Is the official comparison basis from Apple to distinguish between iPod touch generation is true (The MC and MB numbers), or did that guy lied to me again ?
If there was another official way such as in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353, should all Apple authorized reseller use this page as their basis ?
- When did this page released with the inclusion of the late 2009 iPod touch lineup ?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353#iPod_touch_late2009
I really need any truth that would help me to understand things. Thanks in advance (I really thank everyone for answering my questions truthfully 🙂 )
Best Answer
Since I was once working as salesman in an Authorized Reseller in Australia, let me enlighten the essential parts :
Apple had implicitly mentioned in the press release that the MC model would not have the same spec as its sibling, which means the MC model is not the same with the 3rd Gen model.
So what is a MC model ? MC model is a 2nd Gen iPod with a modified bootrom so it was meant to be UN-jailbreakable. But as you see, maniacs out there were able to jailbreak it too (this really bugs me). You may notice that the MC and MB models are quite different but they were the same since both of them were A1288 iPods.
Since the time when Apple made the press release, many stores advertise the MC model as the 3rd Gen. This is absolutely wrong ! Although my store didn't notice about the differences until iOS 4 was released, we took the liberty of advertising it as The New iPod Touch 2G 8GB in February 2010. Actually, Apple ever advertised in fine text that iPod touch 8GB won't support all features on iOS 4 in March 2010. The salesman at your store should've told you this before.
About the method, well, beats me. Most stores have their own way to distinguish such as the part number (MCXXXX and MBXXXX), however since part numbers are different in every sales region, Apple used a more common way which is the model number as shown in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353#iPod_touch_late2009. However, you won't be able to check the model number unless you buy the iPod, opened the case, and use a magnifier on its backpanel. A lot of online websites made profit from this thing, since people bought the product and they complained 6-12 months later (assuming the purchase was done in late 2009 - early 2010), and they were terribly dissapointed.
If you carefully notice that the link in the webpage for the 4th Gen iPods was HT1353#iPod_4G while for the 3rd Gen iPods was HT1353#iPod_touch_late2009. See Apple designated the iPod touch which was released in 09/2009 (at the same time with the press release) only in 32GB & 64GB capacity. So what is the designation for the 8GB ones ?
They were just iPod Touch 2G 8GB - MC model, any other name for this iPod would be considered unlikely to be accurate.
The store where I worked once also experienced the same problem back in May 2011 where users who bought the product before our new advertising was launched. Well, we apologized because it was my store's mistake and told the customers why wouldn't they bring the problem back to us earlier ?. Well, that's not the important thing (as long as the customers were happy, it was enough for me). The customers demand the true iPod touch 3G 8GB in exchange for their old The New iPod Touch 2G 8GB. But there was no such thing called iPod Touch 3G 8GB, so we made a deal with them. We let them keep their iPods and offered them the new iPod 4G 8GB for only A$49 (about 20% of normal price at that time). since there wasn't a 3G 8GB. Fortunately, there were only 3 customers at the time and we revoke one of them because the iPod unit wasn't functional. They accepted the deal and we sold 2 iPod Touch 4G 8GB for A$98.
Now since you would likely to demand compensation from your local Authorised reseller, tell them how we settle things here in Australia. Your local store might've misled you when buying your product, so you have the right to demand compensation even it's been 2,5 years since the released of the iPod touch 3G. I think that refund might be an overdo since it's been quite some time, so I suggest you demand for 80% discount for purchasing the new iPod touch too :).