APPLE COMPUTER has moved to correct a flaw with its popular iPod that has rendered some of the the digital music players useless after just 18 months.

The company will next week be offering customers who have bought iPods the option of replacing the internal rechargeable battery once it has died. In the UK the replacement battery will cost £79, and in Europe it will cost €119, both including VAT.

Apple says the battery is supposed to last the life of the product, but some customers have complained that theirs has gone flat in the two years since it was launched.

The problem led to one irate customer, a 22-year-old New Yorker called Casey Neistat, creating a website called ipodsdirtysecret.com that features a video of him spray painting the phrase “iPod’s unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months” all over lower Manhattan.

Previously, the only option once the one-year warranty had expired was to buy an unapproved third-party replacement battery, and risk damaging the iPod, or to pay at least £199 for an entirely new player.

Apple was accused of cynically using the limited battery life to ratchet up sales of iPods. A spokesman for Apple denied this, and said: “If the battery fails there is now a replacement option whether the warranty has expired or not.”

The batteries used in iPods are similar to those found in laptops and mobile phone handsets, and are made to last for as many as 500 charge/discharge cycles. Constant use can bring the life of the battery down sharply.

The Apple spokesman said: “It’s difficult to say how long the battery will last, but we have not been inundated with customers whose batteries died after 18 months.”

More than two million iPods have been sold around the world since they were introduced in November 2001, making it one of the most popular consumer electronics devices in the past decade.

Apple will release a smaller and slightly cheaper iPod mini across Europe in spring, around the same time as it hopes to launch its iTunes music download service there.