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27" Core i7 iMacs Arriving DOA or With Cracked Screens?

harlinator said:
I pay CASH bro! By the time you pay that AMEX card off how do you think you save any money after that UNGODLY interest they charge??
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You should spend less time bragging on internet forums about how many records you sell anonymously and a little more time learning some financial basics - it'll help you in the long term, once you've left school :)

Slightly more on topic - I agree with everyone else, they should quite obviously package these things better.
 
bobob said:
QC standards are specified by Apple, not China. If Apple wanted to set higher QC standards, they would have to pay China more to manufacture them. It has nothing to do with the country of manufacture, and everything to do with Apple's profit margin.
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charlituna said:
The factories are in another country.It is unlikely that Apple has someone there every single day watching the building of every single computer. Any more than any company would have.
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I'm pretty sure that's not quite how QC works in the modern manufacturing environment...

"Hey Chan - start making them good for a minute - Steve Jobs is in the house!"
 
Mine is definitely cracked, lower left. I took it to the apple store, they told me to go home and call the applcare line.

so, the new one is ordered.. should be coming some day... at least i can use the original (And have a nice time machine backup, which will hopefully restore well)..
 
Kind of off topic...

I finally saw one of the 27" iMacs in person yesterday. HOLY COW. It is a very impressive machine to behold. My condolences go out to anyone who got a cracked one.
 
Ordered my i7 with Apple yesterday as I was thinking only the early batches of C2Ds have issues. Pretty worried after reading that the quads are also having problems.
 
I'm not sure if I agree with all of the speculation about shipping problems, unless the box was engineered so poorly that it is failing.

Whenever I'm at Costco, I browse the new TVs, 50" and above in size. Underneath the display tables, they have the same new TVs still in box.

These are giant TVs, with bigger glass plates than the 27" iMac does. The packaging that they are shipped in is minimal and always looks fairly ragged.

Based on that, it shouldn't be too difficult to ship the 27" iMac, much larger items that are similar are shipped all the time. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon, Apple has to hate this kind of development as much as any. I'm even more apprehensive about receiving mine now.
 
Other issues

As I noted in a recent post concerning performance of the new quad core iMacs, none of the quad cores will install Windows under Bootcamp without some serious finagling. The problem is with the stock ATI drivers and the way they interact with the virtualized display hardware under Windows 7. Evidently, they interpret the minidisplay port as the primary monitor under Windows 7 and so yield a black screen after the last reboot. If you attach a second monitor, you get to the point where the desktop is being configured for first use, but the installer loses contact with the DVD drive and the install fails to complete. If you have Parallels, you can let the installer run to completion using the My Bootcamp option, then boot into Windows and install the Bootcamp drivers, which restore proper monitor function, but sadly ditch the audio, which functioned prior. Furthermore, connecting to the internet seems to be hit and miss, even though the ethernet and wifi drivers are properly installed. All in all, quite a scandal. It would appear that the folks at Apple didn't even bother to try Bootcamp to see if it worked before shipping these machines.

As regards hardware problems, my Core i5 is incredibly sluggish when booting, taking as much as a minute and a half to two minutes to boot, and this on a clean factory install with nothing else added, except for my six firewire drives. My Core2Duo Macbook Pro (2.53 GHZ) accomplishes this task in about 30 seconds. And forget trying to boot into anything other than 10.6.2 Because of the new hardware (chipsets, cpu and video card), neither earlier installations of Leopard on hard disk or dvd will boot. Thus torpedos much of my repair and diagnostic software, necessitating time wasting upgrades all around.

I have also found the power button to be problematic. There is virtually no give to it compared to previous iMacs and it is often difficult to tell whether or not a boot up has been initiated. The lengthy delay between pressing the button and hearing the boot chime (as long as 15 seconds) leaves me wondering often whether I started the boot process or not.

Don't get me wrong, this is a gorgeous machine and a veritable speed demon once it has booted. It just seems to have more rough edges than usual for an Apple product. I have long worried that Apple's commitment to their computer business was becoming diluted as they push to become a consumer electronics company. The snafus with the 27 inch iMacs doesn't do much to alleviate that concern.
 
Xtremehkr said:
I'm not sure if I agree with all of the speculation about shipping problems, unless the box was engineered so poorly that it is failing.

Whenever I'm at Costco, I browse the new TVs, 50" and above in size. Underneath the display tables, they have the same new TVs still in box.

These are giant TVs, with bigger glass plates than the 27" iMac does. The packaging that they are shipped in is minimal and always looks fairly ragged.

Based on that, it shouldn't be too difficult to ship the 27" iMac, much larger items that are similar are shipped all the time. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon, Apple has to hate this kind of development as much as any. I'm even more apprehensive about receiving mine now.
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Reminds me of when I bought my 42" plasma TV a couple of years ago. Took it home from the store and opened the box only to see a smashed display and two large dents in the back. I bet a good number of these are wrecked in delivery as well.
 
I agree with the delivery issues. I doubt they installed them with broken glass. But is the issue showing up in all 27" models or just the i7s?
 
Sounds like it is just poor handling by the delivery company. A smashed screen isn't a poorly designed feature. ;)
 
PeterQVenkman said:
Sounds like it is just poor handling by the delivery company. A smashed screen isn't a poorly designed feature. ;)
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Never heard of LCD or Plasma screen TVs being broken by the "poor handling" of a delivery company and I've set up a LOT of large screen TVs in the last 3-4 years. Lets use a bit of deductive reasoning folks- the same packaging scheme that worked for the first G5 17" iMac might not work in a larger and much heavier 27" iMac. Beef up the material and perhaps the computers will be better protected. I want an i7 Mac very bad too as my home iMac is pretty old and slow but um... Apple, lets get on the ball here. I have to wait for the Rev B anyway and this is making the wait less painful. I feel bad for you guys who've received faulty units- that really blows.

I hate to say it, but as a long term Apple user, I think their focus is headed in the wrong direction. Sure the performance of most of their computers is great but it seems that is a secondary objective now. It seems that Apple is more about dazzling people with flashy design. Let the excellent OS and the fastest Intel chips speak for themselves and give us the best computer you can make with no sacrifices. Hell, add an inch if you have to (and Blu-ray:p)!
 
Most of the people posting on the Apple support forums are saying things like:

Outer box, inner box and all packing were in excellent shape. When I finally unwrapped everything I discovered the lower left hand corner of the glass was cracked in three places.
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I just received my new i7 27" and the screen on the lower left is shattered as well. There's no apparent damage to the styrofoam or box so it looks like that's a weak spot in the screen and how they are being packed in the boxes.
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I agree that the packaging was insufficient. My box was totally undamaged too, so the screen crack either happened when it was put it (which you would hope would never even be shipped) or just by the force of being dropped or something.
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This suggests that the boxes have not been mistreated/poorly handled so if it is happening in transit either Apple have a defect with the glass or have insufficient packaging.

The thread is an interesting read on the issue.
Source: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2235367&start=0&tstart=0
 
This problem should not be happening on a premium product. Famed for its packaging like a work of art - Apple needs to get a grip on all this because recently we've had 10.6 problems and the cracking white MB's and now this.
 
MacClassic said:
I hate to say it, but as a long term Apple user, I think their focus is headed in the wrong direction. Sure the performance of most of their computers is great but it seems that is a secondary objective now. It seems that Apple is more about dazzling people with flashy design. Let the excellent OS and the fastest Intel chips speak for themselves and give us the best computer you can make with no sacrifices. Hell, add an inch if you have to (and Blu-ray:p)!
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I think that's an overreaction. Unibody construction screams "best computer you can make with no sacrifices." Apple could have stuck with traditional manufacturing like the Dells and HPs of the world. Instead they invested a lot of money to develop a manufacturing process that would result in strong, seamless computer bodies. Aluminum. Glass. You don't typically find these things from other PC makers. So Apple has a packaging glitch with the 27" iMacs. They'll fix it, they'll replace the damaged computers, and all will be well.

I think the common accusation that Apple is neglecting their computer business is unfounded. My current iMac (the last gen aluminum model) is the best built computer I've ever had (and the new ones are even better). The new MacBooks are a big leap over the older MacBook I have. I remember story after story predicting that Apple was going to let the iMac rot, and then they released the new models (which are impressive indeed). They're still the all-around best computers on the market. And they're still on top in customer satisfaction - and that's no fluke.

Though yes, they need to get over themselves and offer Blu-ray, numeric keypads on the wireless keyboards, etc. Some of these omissions are just silly. I was surprised they included an SD slot on the new iMac.
 
LagunaSol said:
I think that's an overreaction. Unibody construction screams "best computer you can make with no sacrifices." Apple could have stuck with traditional manufacturing like the Dells and HPs of the world. Instead they invested a lot of money to develop a manufacturing process that would result in strong, seamless computer bodies. Aluminum. Glass. You don't typically find these things from other PC makers. So Apple has a packaging glitch with the 27" iMacs. They'll fix it, they'll replace the damaged computers, and all will be well.

I think the common accusation that Apple is neglecting their computer business is unfounded. My current iMac (the last gen aluminum model) is the best built computer I've ever had (and the new ones are even better). The new MacBooks are a big leap over the older MacBook I have. I remember story after story predicting that Apple was going to let the iMac rot, and then they released the new models (which are impressive indeed). They're still the all-around best computers on the market. And they're still on top in customer satisfaction - and that's no fluke.

Though yes, they need to get over themselves and offer Blu-ray, numeric keypads on the wireless keyboards, etc. Some of these omissions are just silly. I was surprised they included an SD slot on the new iMac.
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I need the i5 iMac! It takes far too long to compile the practice exercises in my Obj-C on this eMac! :mad:

Oh and I would use the power of the i5.
 
I'm glad I held off on one of these... What a downer to open up a beautiful but broken machine. Hope they resolve this one very soon.
 
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