My iPod was murdered by a TuneFlex

[vandlism]

So my dad and I both have a fifth gen iPod and TuneFlex for our cars, and we just happened to be meeting up at the same office for work. I had left in the morning with a fully charged iPod that played music happily through the Griffin TuneFlex until I got to work. My dad's iPod was also being used, but his wasn't charging at all in the TuneFlex, though the green led light was on, indicating that it at least recognized the iPod as present. He asked me to check both his and my iPod in his TuneFlex to see if I could figure out why his iPod would not take a charge. Note: my car and TuneFlex are gone by this time, and I can't try his iPod in there.

I drop his iPod in the TuneFlex and the screen brightens up, but alas it has a red battery icon and takes no charge. So I swap his out with my fully charged, music on pause, iPod. It restarts. This was surprising at first but the main menu came up and lo and behold, it's charging. That's good news, so I proceed to replace the iPod again with my dad's. Again, it takes no charge. I check the connector, drop the iPod back in a few times and each time the green light comes on instead of an amber led or a charge icon on the iPod. I decide to check again with my iPod and this time I get a screen that says that my battery is very low and that I must wait a few minutes. I found this odd because I know my iPod was fully charged and thought it had been a case of mistaken identity, that this TuneFlex believed my iPod to be my dad's.

This is the anticlimactic ending - my iPod only shows a white screen that eventually fades away. I plug my dad's iPod into a wall charger and it begins charging, so it doesn't appear to be a problem with his iPod. My focus now turns to my own thirtygigger and I plug it into the wall charger to attempt a restart, a resuscitation, anything really. It is now that I realize that my iPod is very warm to the touch, despite not being used and it being in a crippled state for a good 10 minutes. No combinations of buttons or hold switch flips make the screen glow its playlists again. A moment. Now, what happened? Could my iPod's battery simply have shorted out?

I have, in fact, contacted Griffin but have not heard much of anything yet. I should add that I have really enjoyed the TuneFlex up to this point. It's a great solution for those of us with AUX jacks.