Mystery Solved Exactly One Year Later??

I swear it's a total coincidence!

One year ago today, I blogged about my iPod and how it would fail on me shortly into a bike ride sometimes despite having a full charge. Well, today it happened again!

I was biking downtown in -4° C weather this morning with my freshly charged device and it stopped playing about 10 minutes in! I'd had it in my hoodie's pocket, as I always do, so I decided to switch it from there to my pants pocket. My theory was that it was the cold temperature that was causing the malfunction. Over lunch, I was in a warm restaurant for about an hour and a half (with no option to charge the device up). Once I was ready to bike home (still about -1° C) I started my iPod playing again but then put it back in the pants pocket, where it would be considerably warmer than in my hoodie (less cold air around it, closer to my body and with hard-working leg muscles to insulate it). Sure enough, it continued to play music for me the whole way home!

Therefore, I think the problem is the ambient temperature. If the iPod is in a very cold environment, it seems to shut down. I don't know if that's by design or not, but it definitely appears to be happening. (Funny that I'd solve the mystery exactly one year after posing it, though!)