"Let's face the music and dance."  - Irving Berlin, 1936

Fred Astaire sang those words seventy years ago, and it seems appropriate for Apple as it heads into the "winter of its discontent" with its European customer base. Between chat-room scuttlebutt questioning the device's reliability and leaking news of questionable labor practices in its Chinese factories, the shiny new toy that Britons fell in love with two years ago is starting to lose its lustre.

According to Britain's YouGov Brand Awareness Index, the Apple i-Pod has been showing a steady and "very significant" decline in popularity. Some 50 million units have been sold in the U.K. since 2001, and Apple insists there are no problems with the product. Despite the decline, the iPod remains Britain's most popular portable music player.

This recent apparent fall from grace may be linked to bad publicity when last year, after coming out with the iPod Nano, Apple admitted that some of the models had screens that were scratched too easily. Other people have complained that the iPod Shuffle's lacks a screen.

 FirstGov's Sunpid Chahal says, "Apple used to stand for corporate reputation and quality, and people were prepared to pay more because they got it back in quality."

Apple's own Greg Joswiak disagrees, however: "A lot of products don't enjoy such a low failure rate - mobile phones can be up to 30%. The vast majority of customers are extremely happy and have never experienced a failure." He also points out that many people aren't exactly gentle when it comes to delicate electronic devices, adding, "Most problems are caused by mishandling. They are complex electronic components and they can be broken if dropped or mishandled."