Today I’m cross with Apple. Perhaps yesterday’s evangelising was tempting fate a little – my Airport Express has just died, after a mere eighteen months.

No more blissful, wirelessly-streaming music, no more instant wireless networks wherever I roam. Now I just have an expensive shiny white plastic paperweight.

My crossness is compounded by the realisation that this is by no means an isolated incident. Macbidouille and Hardmac have collated upwards of 800 near-identical cases of dead base stations. Other bloggers are just as cross as me.

The failure point appears to be a power board which combines both cheap components and poor design, which perhaps goes some way to explain why the dead units are all from 220 / 240v markets.

More worrying is the apparent locking on Apple’s own webiste of support / discussion threads relating to this problem. Baaaaaaaaaaad PR, Steve. Bad PR. And not very sporting. Even reviews on Apple’s own online store, and on Amazon, mention the problem, but the official line appears to be that once your twelve month guarantee is up, that’s it.

Well I’m not sure it is. British law contains phrases such as fit for purpose and merchantable quality. I think I’ll take a trip down to the Apple Store on Regent Street and have a chat with them. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll be writing to Apple. I might even sue – thanks to www.moneyclaim.gov.uk I can do it quickly and easily online. Watch this space.