27" imac... apples most flawed product at release?

[sparkie1984]

now im not slating apple, i love their stuff!

but reading the forums, the current imac has, yellow tinges, flickering, arriving doa, some were smashed, noisy hard disks, faulty superdrives etc etc....

can anyone remember apple releasing a product which had so many issues at launch?

this is purely out of curiosity mind, was thinking earlier about it and thought id ask the veteran mac owners if there was another situation like this?

if so how did apple handle it?

 

[Btom]

Add one more issue we didn't pay attention to.

now im not slating apple, i love their stuff!
but reading the forums, the current imac has, yellow tinges, flickering, arriving doa, some were smashed, noisy hard disks, faulty superdrives etc etc....
can anyone remember apple releasing a product which had so many issues at launch?
this is purely out of curiosity mind, was thinking earlier about it and thought id ask the veteran mac owners if there was another situation like this?
if so how did apple handle it?

sparkie1984,

You may want to add another issue, just mentioned by our Mothership: Magic mouse draining batteries of the Bluetooth keyboard. Many new users didn't notice fast draining of the batteries on their first cordless keyboards, but the older crowd didn't let go.

Tom B.

 

[cjmillsnun]

sparkie1984,

You may want to add another issue, just mentioned by our Mothership: Magic mouse draining batteries of the Bluetooth keyboard. Many new users didn't notice fast draining of the batteries on their first cordless keyboards, but the older crowd didn't let go.

Tom B.

EDIT: I see it's mainly to do with the older keyboards

 

[sparkie1984]

sparkie1984,

You may want to add another issue, just mentioned by our Mothership: Magic mouse draining batteries of the Bluetooth keyboard. Many new users didn't notice fast draining of the batteries on their first cordless keyboards, but the older crowd didn't let go.

Tom B.

i was under the impression that was any mac though? my keyboard is a 2 battery, so presume all 27" imacs come with the 2 battery one, which i believe is ok with battery life?

i just wondered if there was another product at launch which had so many problems??? as my view of apple is that their products are generally sound.

 

[fa8362]

Definitely not. Defective batteries that catch fire is a far worse problem than a yellow tint, etc.

 

[sparkie1984]

ouch! what had defective batteries??

 

[tomacintosh]

i was under the impression that was any mac though? my keyboard is a 2 battery, so presume all 27" imacs come with the 2 battery one, which i believe is ok with battery life?

i just wondered if there was another product at launch which had so many problems??? as my view of apple is that their products are generally sound.

The standalone Apple Wireless Keyboards (sold before the 27" iMacs got released) were 3 battery versions. There seems to be a bug causing the batteries to die in about a week if used with a new Magic Mouse. Apparently it's a Bluetooth firmware bug whereby the Magic Mouse prevents the Keyboard from entering sleep mode.

 

[sparkie1984]

The standalone Apple Wireless Keyboards (sold before the 27" iMacs got released) were 3 battery versions. There seems to be a bug causing the batteries to die in about a week if used with a new Magic Mouse. Apparently it's a Bluetooth firmware bug whereby the Magic Mouse prevents the Keyboard from entering sleep mode.

oh i see!!

weird how it doesnt affect the 2 battery versions!

although my mouse is down to 60% after a weeks use! shame it isnt rechargeable.


have apple had a computer with as many issues in the past though?

 

[Badger^2]

now im not slating apple, i love their stuff!

but reading the forums, the current imac has, yellow tinges, flickering, arriving doa, some were smashed, noisy hard disks, faulty superdrives etc etc....

can anyone remember apple releasing a product which had so many issues at launch?

this is purely out of curiosity mind, was thinking earlier about it and thought id ask the veteran mac owners if there was another situation like this?

if so how did apple handle it?

How does your 27" iMac look?

Or are you posting because you are about to order one?

Did you even do any research before posting? The battery issue was pretty huge.

You know, theres a whole list of "mac lemons" over at LEM.

 

[sparkie1984]

How does your 27" iMac look?

Or are you posting because you are about to order one?

Did you even do any research before posting? The battery issue was pretty huge.

You know, theres a whole list of "mac lemons" over at LEM.

my imac doesnt flicker at all and is fine apart from yellow tingeing and some weird clicking noises (not hard disk)

im not complaining or anything. i was just asking a question as to whether apple has had problems in the past!

why do half the people on here think everything posted is worthy of a hostile reply! i guess you could take my question as just idle chit chat. being new to the mac world i wondered if apples had similar problems in the past and has redeemed themselves.

im not listing a definitive collection of problems. merely asking a question

 

[powerbook911]

I think it's a good question sparkie.

I haven't witnessed this much uproar myself. It certainly makes me nervous about the machine the machine that will soon be heading my way.

Some of the first generation, actually it seemed like most, had this negative black issue on the screen, where blacks looked negative instead of black. I went through about five phones to get a good one, but the 3G seemed to end that.

I think sometimes it seems it takes until the next revision when parts might change, until there is a fix across the line so to speak. We can only hope this captures the attention more and urges a more immediate action.

 

[archipellago]

my imac doesnt flicker at all and is fine apart from yellow tingeing and some weird clicking noises (not hard disk)

im not complaining or anything. i was just asking a question as to whether apple has had problems in the past!

why do half the people on here think everything posted is worthy of a hostile reply! i guess you could take my question as just idle chit chat. being new to the mac world i wondered if apples had similar problems in the past and has redeemed themselves.

im not listing a definitive collection of problems. merely asking a question

you have to remember that Apple don't sell THAT many computers.

12m worldwide out of a worldwide market of 280m units, and that the resurgence of Mac is relatively new.

Also Mac users tend to believe they exist in an exclusive club in which they are priviliged to be and so in the main downplay issues.

Macs get such good satisfaction ratios for these reasons, even people who have had mainboards replaced up to 5 times count themselves as highly satisified.

Me, I've only had major hardware issues with Macs...nothing else, and I'd be willing to bet that you'll have some kind of issue that prevents you using the machine inside 2 years (needing support)

and as you are in the UK.... gawd 'elp you!

 

[thestumper]

Depends on how far you want to go back with Apple

- The Apple III was a bit of a disaster
- The Mac LC has some teething pains
- System 7 caused problems with the older 68030 machines (the whole 32bit clean debacle)
- The 68040 transition wasn't exactly seamless.

Just based on personal experience, this has been one of Apple's more troubled product releases, but we didn't have the internet when some of the above issues surfaced; you got your info from news groups and such... while we were walking to school uphill both ways in freezing temperatures

I also think the timing was particularly bad; if this refresh would have hit in the summer months, it wouldn't have sparked as much debate, but the fact that these iMacs hit a hungry audience right before the holidays did nothing to improve Apple's position. The focus was that much finer.

I've been through three iMac 21.5's at this point (well, 2 + a repair) and the latest one still has the tint, but not nearly as bad as the first two attempts. I'll probably be keeping this one until Apple hashes it out. AT least it's nota PC...

 

[fa8362]

Me, I've only had major hardware issues with Macs...nothing else, and I'd be willing to bet that you'll have some kind of issue that prevents you using the machine inside 2 years (needing support)

and as you are in the UK.... gawd 'elp you!

Different stokes. I've never had an issue with 9 different Macs (aside from a dead laptop battery long out of warranty). Winblows PCs on the other hand...well, let's just say you couldn't pay me to own another one.

 

[archipellago]

Different stokes. I've never had an issue with 9 different Macs (aside from a dead laptop battery long out of warranty). Winblows PCs on the other hand...well, let's just say you couldn't pay me to own another one.

your childish 'Windblows' remark sums it all up really.

9 different macs?

man, I feel your pain.

 

[fa8362]

your childish 'Windblows' remark sums it all up really.

9 different macs?

man, I feel your pain.

Nothing childish about it. Winblows sucked for 25 years. In contrast, the Macs were and are a joy.

 

[HLdan]

If only it was just the 27" iMac that had so many flaws. Almost all of Apple's Rev A products have issues. I've been on the Mac since Mac OS 8 and I can tell you of a long list of Rev A Macs that had a lot of annoying issues that were "fixed" in Rev B.

 

[Btom]

EDIT: I see it's mainly to do with the older keyboards

Apparently not always

I have the new two battery keyboard en MM. About a week, that's how long the rechargeable batteries last.

Tom B.

 

[MacHamster68]

the last major problem apple had was with the bad capacitors effecting all iMac g5 and eMacs with motherboards produced between end 2003 and end 2004 , some good ones slipped through and again it took apple to about 2006 to offer extended repair scheme for the problem, so customers could get the boards replaced if the caps didn't blow up within the first year ..mind you there are still a lot of them around which can blow up every day , because the owners didn't know about the repair scheme , or didn't bother as theirs had been working , or because they sold them on


but apple was not alone in the bad cap trap , dell hp and other too , dell was even on the brink of bankruptcy due to their recall of effected systems , did cost them about 300million dollars


so be aware if you buy a older iMac g5 from that period ,which has black and gold caps inside with a + on top , they will blow sooner or later

 

[SaSaSushi]

but reading the forums, the current imac has, yellow tinges, flickering, arriving doa, some were smashed, noisy hard disks, faulty superdrives etc etc....

In respect to the above mine's flawless, thank you. I am sorry for those with issues.

The first aluminum iMacs saw many with problems as well. There was a glitch in the Radeon 2600HD that caused (far worse than flickering) freezing and artifacting. It took Apple several months to issue a firmware fix that took care of it. Some had unusable machines in the meantime or machines that would run normally and freeze entirely without warning, causing loss of data, etc. Many of the LCD panels had bad left to right gradients. I returned one for this reason.

So, to answer your question: no.

I think this is the best iMac yet.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Nothing childish about it. Winblows sucked for 25 years. In contrast, the Macs were and are a joy.

I would just ignore archipellago. He's a Windows-lover that hangs out here to just to bash on Apple.

Bryan

 

[fa8362]

I would just ignore archipellago. He's a Windows-lover that hangs out here to just to bash on Apple.

Bryan

Agreed.

 

[tomacintosh]

Agreed.

Agreed +1

 

[gospel9]

I am not touching a PC even if I was paid to do so. Seriously guys stop this windows bullsht. I rather live with constant flickering and yellow screen than running Windows.

Unfortunately the iMacs are also Apple's only worthy Desktops on the market. We don't have many options... so we are stuck here waiting for the problems to go away...

 

[DakotaGuy]

I believe that Apple had some real issues with the iBook frying motherboards near the end of the G3 line. I don't remember the whole issue, but it seemed to be a big deal around here at the time. When they replaced it with the G4 processor it seemed to make the iBook reliable again.