Apple Having Support Problems?

[50548]

You are talking crap. It is only about industrial quality. Nothing else.
There are simply too many individual issues with the new MB and MBP here, and I do not want to repeat them. Mostly hardware, but some are related to using OSX and MSOS. You can read, so do that.

APPLE has been 'second to none' in the eyes of APPLE users, compared to who? I think MAC OS is fantastic, but it does not mean, that all those who switch now to APPLE have to accept hardware lemons to get this OS... Absolutely no excuse for over 25% crap products delivered to the customers...

Everybody knows that APPLE could have had a 40+ market share, but decided not to license out. We all would be happier now, but JOBS decided against that years back. So now we are talking about a less than 5% market share... JUst do your math: If they had a 40% share WW, we would hear millions screaming about their lemons...

It seems there's too much luck involved when buying an APPLE product right now.
When they finally get their QC act together I will gladly buy their product.

Cheers, and no hard feelings.

No hard feelings indeed, but please show me numbers and facts, not anecdotal evidence of some dozens/hundreds of people (as compared to millions of purchasers). I will take your point when you do that, thanks very much. And really, to say that 25% of Apple products are lemons is to be, at very least, extremely glib.

Besides, if Apple is able to replace/fix those that have problems, there is no reason to complain whatsoever...this is what guarantees and technical support are for.

 

[DeVizardofOZ]

No hard feelings indeed, but please show me numbers and facts, not anecdotal evidence of some dozens/hundreds of people (as compared to millions of purchasers). I will take your point when you do that, thanks very much. And really, to say that 25% of Apple products are lemons is to be, at very least, extremely glib.

Besides, if Apple is able to replace/fix those that have problems, there is no reason to complain whatsoever...this is what guarantees and technical support are for.

Especially the last paragraph of your rebuttal shows that you have not read ALL the threads about MB and MBp problems. I really would like to hear you, when you had your MBP replaced 3 times and still have problems... I have friends who just upgraded to MBPs all have one or more problems, ranging from screen, heat, whine, keyboard, and other problems, some of which they still have to discover. Sorry, buddy, but it truly looks like getting a good MBP is LUCK. I own a couple of laptops, my oldest ones are 9 years old (TOSHIBA), and never ever did I have problems like the ones described on these boards.
Proof my butt.... Wouldn"t it be nice if these threads had only happy APPLE fans? Dream on.

We are consumers, and should not accept getting a refurb lemon... but a new, preferably working product.

 

[gregorsamsa]

How about trying to keep things in perspective?

You are talking crap. It is only about industrial quality. Nothing else.
There are simply too many individual issues with the new MB and MBP here, and I do not want to repeat them. Mostly hardware, but some are related to using OSX and MSOS. You can read, so do that.

APPLE has been 'second to none' in the eyes of APPLE users, compared to who? I think MAC OS is fantastic, but it does not mean, that all those who switch now to APPLE have to accept hardware lemons to get this OS... Absolutely no excuse for over 25% crap products delivered to the customers...

Everybody knows that APPLE could have had a 40+ market share, but decided not to license out. We all would be happier now, but JOBS decided against that years back. So now we are talking about a less than 5% market share... JUst do your math: If they had a 40% share WW, we would hear millions screaming about their lemons...

It seems there's too much luck involved when buying an APPLE product right now.
When they finally get their QC act together I will gladly buy their product.

Cheers, and no hard feelings.

Yes, people have every right to complain when they receive faulty products, particularly so when they're paying good money, as they do when buying Apple. But whether Apple's QC has suffered significantly as they try to keep costs down due to the market pressures of increasingly feasible like-with-like comparisons with PCs, as well as meeting an increasing consumer demand, is debatable? Though there certainly seems to be a worrying increase in complaints about the new Intel Macs, I wonder how much of that is down to perception as more people use the internet as a channel to vent their complaints? Regarding the new Intel Macs, the jury here is still very much out (& will remain so for at least another 6 months). Not least because...

Recent surveys continue to give Apple an excellent rating for overall quality when compared to other brands. (Only Sony's computers get similar ratings). Talking about "25% crap products" may feel good as a rhetorical release, but it doesn't really help the debate here.

Good point, however, about how Apple's market share could've been so much greater if only SJ had licensed out OS X. A great opportunity missed.

 

[DeVizardofOZ]

Yes, people have every right to complain when they receive faulty products, particularly so when they're paying good money, as they do when buying Apple. But whether Apple's QC has suffered significantly as they try to keep costs down due to the market pressures of increasingly feasible like-with-like comparisons with PCs, as well as meeting an increasing consumer demand, is debatable? Though there certainly seems to be a worrying increase in complaints about the new Intel Macs, I wonder how much of that is down to perception as more people use the internet as a channel to vent their complaints? Regarding the new Intel Macs, the jury here is still very much out (& will remain so for at least another 6 months). Not least because...

Recent surveys continue to give Apple an excellent rating for overall quality when compared to other brands. (Only Sony's computers get similar ratings). Talking about "25% crap products" may feel good as a rhetorical release, but it doesn't really help the debate here.

Good point, however, about how Apple's market share could've been so much greater if only SJ had licensed out OS X. A great opportunity missed.

Thanks mate, of course I vent my disappointment regarding the overall quality issues. In any case, it should not be luck to catch a good piece of hardware from a company like APPLE, right? It seems as if the hardware quality has in general decreased, I suspect partly because of the place where this hardware is now manufactured... CHINA. I have my own experience on a corporate level with a large mobile phone manufacturer...

I found that there is a general lack of understanding what quality should be, and especially how long it should last

CIAO

 

[50548]

Especially the last paragraph of your rebuttal shows that you have not read ALL the threads about MB and MBp problems. I really would like to hear you, when you had your MBP replaced 3 times and still have problems... I have friends who just upgraded to MBPs all have one or more problems, ranging from screen, heat, whine, keyboard, and other problems, some of which they still have to discover. Sorry, buddy, but it truly looks like getting a good MBP is LUCK. I own a couple of laptops, my oldest ones are 9 years old (TOSHIBA), and never ever did I have problems like the ones described on these boards.
Proof my butt.... Wouldn"t it be nice if these threads had only happy APPLE fans? Dream on.

We are consumers, and should not accept getting a refurb lemon... but a new, preferably working product.

Well, it seems like you are the one having hard feelings...so chill out, since we all try to be polite in this forum...otherwise, just go visit some other place where you can vent your anger on people.

As I said above, I am talking about facts and statistics...I am sure there a few cases where guys are just unlucky and receive one lemon after another...but this does NOT represent a trend nor a relevant percentage. You must have this impression because you go to an Apple Support forum and see 100 posts complaining the hell out of it...you just fail, and fail badly, to realize that there are some 1,000,000 users out there with no problems at all.

Anyway, before you start babbling again, check the link below...these are FACTS, not whines.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006502,00.asp

So please, before you spit out some fire, bring me some real facts, like percentage of failures and so on...the report I've read above shows Apple as having the LOWEST repair rate and HIGHEST trust of all makers. This, for me, is relevant; not random screams in Mac forums.

 

[EagerDragon]

Apple is now getting their parts from the same bin that PC makers use. Intel = cheap parts. Cheap parts = low quality.

Same thing with the batteries....

OS X can run on PPC and X86. Apple should target X86 to consumers and PPC for pro's.

That $100 million that Apple just wasted on Creative could have meant new supercooled mobile G5's if it would have been pumped into IBM (Power.org). Instead we have these halfbaked Wintel parts to deal with MUCH fewer problems with PowerPC based Mac's.

http://www.appledefects.com/?cat=6

http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro

If Apple could not get IBM to provide cooler and more powerful chips back then with the full set of customers behind them......... what makes you think that the pro comunity will be able to do so?

I have no idea what the pro vs the rest of us is but I am sure it is less than 100% of all users, as such it is less likely.

IBM has no incentive to produce a cool and fast chip, our pro comunity also wants performance to create all those videos and edit all those photos.

There are a few snags, but they will iron them out. I am glad they did the switch to Intel. Do notice from my signature I do not yet own one, I am waiting for Leopard to take full advantage of the Intel chips. So this time next year I will be looking to get my 1 or 2 additional systems based on SantaRosa and Leopard.

 

[gregorsamsa]

Thanks mate, of course I vent my disappointment regarding the overall quality issues. In any case, it should not be luck to catch a good piece of hardware from a company like APPLE, right? It seems as if the hardware quality has in general decreased, I suspect partly because of the place where this hardware is now manufactured... CHINA. I have my own experience on a corporate level with a large mobile phone manufacturer...

I found that there is a general lack of understanding what quality should be, and especially how long it should last

CIAO

I agree, it shouldn't be luck. Also, whilst I'm trying to keep an open mind about these issues, I think it's pertinent that quite a few people have pointed to the China-connection as partly responsible for some of the hardware problems. I guess a company like Dell, who sell some very cheap computers, can always get away with imperfect products more so. Because people buying Apple know that they're paying a premium for a certain extra Apple quality, they're entitled to expect Apple to consistently deliver.

I'm definitely not going to excuse Apple for a seemingly alarming number of faults with their first batch of Intel laptops. There's an apparent problem here, however debatable the degree of it, & it needs sorting out. I'd be interested, however, in seeing some statistics about the percentage of faulty laptops from Apple, perhaps over a 12 month period, & how that compares with similarly-priced PC laptops.

Certainly, before I make my next computer purchase (a 15.4" laptop next year), I'll be paying careful attention to Macrumors, & particularly any postings about the quality, or otherwise, of the latest Mac computers.

 

[digitalbiker]

Anyway, before you start babbling again, check the link below...these are FACTS, not whines.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006502,00.asp

So please, before you spit out some fire, bring me some real facts, like percentage of failures and so on...the report I've read above shows Apple as having the LOWEST repair rate and HIGHEST trust of all makers. This, for me, is relevant; not random screams in Mac forums.

While I don't disagree with what you have said, I also think this PC Mag Poll may be a little misrepresentive of the current situation.

This is a readers poll from PC Mag users, I wonder how many are Mac users compared to PC users.

Second, they also state that Apple users are so fanatical and anti-pc that they are worried that they tend to exagerate the poll numbers in favor of Apple.

Third, the only less-subjective bit of information was the repair percentage numbers and the numbers they used were for last year (2005), so they would not reflect any problems with the new mac-intel machines. It seems like most of the issues currently being discussed are with the Mac-Intels.

 

[Surreal]

jeez, i thought the thread might cool off in a day or so, but there is no sign of that happening, is there?


well, i have wondered for some time, how many people have had problems with the 17" mavbook pros?


i have one...it's fine. i heard a few small scale problems about it, but nothing on the scale of the 15"

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Especially the last paragraph of your rebuttal shows that you have not read ALL the threads about MB and MBp problems. I really would like to hear you, when you had your MBP replaced 3 times and still have problems... I have friends who just upgraded to MBPs all have one or more problems, ranging from screen, heat, whine, keyboard, and other problems, some of which they still have to discover. Sorry, buddy, but it truly looks like getting a good MBP is LUCK. I own a couple of laptops, my oldest ones are 9 years old (TOSHIBA), and never ever did I have problems like the ones described on these boards.
Proof my butt.... Wouldn"t it be nice if these threads had only happy APPLE fans? Dream on.

We are consumers, and should not accept getting a refurb lemon... but a new, preferably working product.

I had my iBook G4 14in completely gutted due to be replete with defects. Apple returned it with a new logic board, DVD drive, hard drive, LCD Panel, and more.

AppleCare covered it all. You're not going to hear me whine that this is a problem when the warranty did its job.

Downtime from computing was zero as I have a second workstation. The time was 1 week from shipping to return shipping.

It's been purring since now for 15 months and counting. I use it for Cocoa Development until revision B of the Mac Pro arrives.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Yes, people have every right to complain when they receive faulty products, particularly so when they're paying good money, as they do when buying Apple. But whether Apple's QC has suffered significantly as they try to keep costs down due to the market pressures of increasingly feasible like-with-like comparisons with PCs, as well as meeting an increasing consumer demand, is debatable? Though there certainly seems to be a worrying increase in complaints about the new Intel Macs, I wonder how much of that is down to perception as more people use the internet as a channel to vent their complaints? Regarding the new Intel Macs, the jury here is still very much out (& will remain so for at least another 6 months). Not least because...

Recent surveys continue to give Apple an excellent rating for overall quality when compared to other brands. (Only Sony's computers get similar ratings). Talking about "25% crap products" may feel good as a rhetorical release, but it doesn't really help the debate here.

Good point, however, about how Apple's market share could've been so much greater if only SJ had licensed out OS X. A great opportunity missed.

OEM licensing OS X would not be a panacea. I supported NeXTSTEP/Openstep for NeXT and Apple. We had a nightmare dealing with OEMs who pushed us into the trash heap.

When the merger happened they showed no more interest knowing that we could move the OS to Intel since we had it running on Intel.

Motherboard manufacturers cut corners. OEMs cut all sorts of corners on their I/O cards.

Corralling all necessary OEMs to stick to a specific spec would be a nightmare.

Vista is a classic example of diluting your OS. Five years and counting.

Apple is both a hardware and software company.

The price for their latest Mac Pro shows how price competitive it is with the rest of the industry.

Having built several clone boxes none of them from the case design, integrated motherboard design, controller design, heat transfer requirements, etc comes close to the Mac Pro. It doesn't include Hardware RAID out of the box. Big deal.

When the clone industry can produce cases in general that compete for structural integrity, motherboards with as few cables, easily maintanable cases that are easy to keep dust free then Apple might feel concerned about it's claim to having the most complete experience.

OS X has shortcomings in areas for Engineering (CAD/CAM, FEM, etc. All 3rd party concerns), Games (3rd party concerns, OpenGL 2 concerns that Apple will fix), Vertical Solution concerns (assuming Apple wants to attack the business sectors they will have to address this lack of productivity tools for Finance & Accounting within iWorks) and some other deficiencies.

They are covering their bases and growing their base, quarter by quarter.

When ROME is finally built are we all going to whine that you can save $50 here or there with a clone?

I expect no less.

 

[Macinbest]

They are indeed having support problems...

I sent my iMac in for repairs at a service center on July 24th (they changed the power supply, HD, superdrive), and I didn't have the computer back until August 25th!!!! 32 days!

Called the store many times and they were waiting for apple to ship the parts... called Apple and I was forwarded to their Dispatch dept. and indeed nothing had been sent..

I wonder... could I possibly complain enough to get my AppleCare reimbursed or something as a compensation.. I mean 32 days without my main computer... coding on a 12" ibook 600 has been rather aggravating.

 

[DeVizardofOZ]

Well, it seems like you are the one having hard feelings...so chill out, since we all try to be polite in this forum...otherwise, just go visit some other place where you can vent your anger on people.

As I said above, I am talking about facts and statistics...I am sure there a few cases where guys are just unlucky and receive one lemon after another...but this does NOT represent a trend nor a relevant percentage. You must have this impression because you go to an Apple Support forum and see 100 posts complaining the hell out of it...you just fail, and fail badly, to realize that there are some 1,000,000 users out there with no problems at all.

Anyway, before you start babbling again, check the link below...these are FACTS, not whines.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006502,00.asp

So please, before you spit out some fire, bring me some real facts, like percentage of failures and so on...the report I've read above shows Apple as having the LOWEST repair rate and HIGHEST trust of all makers. This, for me, is relevant; not random screams in Mac forums.

Really no hard feelings. You are right, and the professionals who do test and write reports
are making their reports up... Statisics, as we all know can be made to look one way or the other. The fact, that APPLE is acknowledging quality issues just proves that they themselves are not happpy with what's going on since the intro of the new MB and MBPs.

It is old wisdom that there's less or no talk about a perfect product, while the bad smell of quality issues lingers on for some time. But the APPLE forums a different in that plenty of people have been and are very happy with the value they got for their money... and speak out. How, however, can those understand the feelings of someone who received three lemons in a row, when she/he himself never had any problem???

All I want is to have better than 80 % chance to get a good product.

Take care.

 

[gregorsamsa]

OEM licensing OS X would not be a panacea. I supported NeXTSTEP/Openstep for NeXT and Apple. We had a nightmare dealing with OEMs who pushed us into the trash heap.

When the merger happened they showed no more interest knowing that we could move the OS to Intel since we had it running on Intel.

Motherboard manufacturers cut corners. OEMs cut all sorts of corners on their I/O cards.

Corralling all necessary OEMs to stick to a specific spec would be a nightmare.

Vista is a classic example of diluting your OS. Five years and counting.

Apple is both a hardware and software company.

The price for their latest Mac Pro shows how price competitive it is with the rest of the industry.

Having built several clone boxes none of them from the case design, integrated motherboard design, controller design, heat transfer requirements, etc comes close to the Mac Pro. It doesn't include Hardware RAID out of the box. Big deal.

When the clone industry can produce cases in general that compete for structural integrity, motherboards with as few cables, easily maintanable cases that are easy to keep dust free then Apple might feel concerned about it's claim to having the most complete experience.

OS X has shortcomings in areas for Engineering (CAD/CAM, FEM, etc. All 3rd party concerns), Games (3rd party concerns, OpenGL 2 concerns that Apple will fix), Vertical Solution concerns (assuming Apple wants to attack the business sectors they will have to address this lack of productivity tools for Finance & Accounting within iWorks) and some other deficiencies.

They are covering their bases and growing their base, quarter by quarter.

When ROME is finally built are we all going to whine that you can save $50 here or there with a clone?

I expect no less.

Good points, some of which I don't disagree with. Yes, "Vista is a classic example of diluting your OS," but I'll still be surprised if it doesn't achieve record sales on release. Though Apple's userbase continues to grow (& rightly so!), the crunch time for Apple in sustaining this will surely come when the shops are full of competitively-priced, Vista-enabled PCs.

Licensing out OS X wouldn't necessarily mean compromising its security; the compromise would come in some of the non-Apple hardware OS X ran on. Much has changed since the days of the original Apple clones that proved to be an expensive failure. Today, technology generally is much less expensive. Customers would appreciate the kind of choice that, after all, hasn't done too much harm to sales of Windows PCs. (I'd probably still buy Apple, but some others may buy a cheaper Dell running OS X).

Granted that the Mac Pro is competitively priced, those recent comparisons with the more expensive Dell workstation overlook that the Mac Pro graphics (Geforce 7300 GT) cost approx $100; the Dell's Nvidia graphics are closer to $1,000. (A point for objectivity's sake).

Like most Mac owners, I believe Apple are still by far the best for overall quality & service (though I think they're currently lacking at least one more consumer-aimed computer). I'm just interested in any ideas that could further expand the OS X userbase, & sustain it long-term.

PS: ROME has already been built: M$. But that empire so overreached itself it now looks as if it's beginning to crumble.

 

[limo]

I have always had great support by Apple until my most recent incident. I needed a new LCD installed in a MacBook Pro. Their repair facility had my computer 20 days before the repair was completed. The CSR's kept telling me it should be ready in a day or two. Never an explanation why a part would take that long to get or anything. Just the same response every time.

 

[Horst]

Just my 0.02 regarding Apple's customer service :

I buy Apple computers in the hope never to need any support by the manufacturer. Two times I had issues ( broken hinge on TiBook, 1st. gen. ACD 23" with severe color tint ) and Apple wouldn't even acknowledge such a problem exists. Needless to say, those faults are well documented as inherent design flaws of the products mentioned.

That's Apple Germany, mind you - I would never even try to contact Apple US for possible issues with the computers I bought and use over there, as customer protection in the US is virtually non-existent.

I'm a professional user, and received exceptional online and phone support by other companies for 300$ products, but no service whatsoever for 20k+ of Apple products.
I know Apple is not catering to pros, but still ....

 

[deniseeliza]

I don't believe Apple would (or should) license out Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. This is because Apple is a hardware company that uses Mac OS X to sell hardware. I wouldn't want it to be licensed out anyway, because then we would have to deal with registration key nightmares. Right now, there's nothing but your conscience and a license agreement you probably threw away keeping you from installing one copy of Mac OS X on every Mac you can get your hands on. Not that I do that, but I sure like just popping in my disk and reinstalling whenever it strikes my fancy.

On to the support issue, I think since the beginning of technical support there have always been those who complain that quality has really gone down and back in the good ol' days, you never had any problems, ever! And now, by golly, it's a coin toss whether you get a machine that even turns on!

Right, gramps, and back in your day, you walked to school uphill both ways in the snow with no boots and you liked it.

And 25% of new machines being lemons? Last quarter, Apple reported they shipped 1,327,000 computers. If we call a quarter 90 days, and assume that 25% of them are dead, that's more than 3,600 computers sold defective every single day. Are you kidding me? You really think a major hardware company would sell 3,600 defective computers every single day and get away with it?

This is what's really happening: Apple is selling more machines than ever. Apple's customers have greater access to the internet than ever. Even if the rate of failure stays the same, you have more customers with more internet savvy to come whine and moan on bulletin boards.

Yes, you deserve a perfectly functioning computer and you have the right to complain when your computer is broken. So call Apple or go down to your local service provider and get your machine serviced under warranty. That's what it's there for. It's also the number 1 best way to help Apple get clued in to potential issues with their products. They're not going to issue a recall because a bunch of bulletin board users complain to each other over and over again until they convince each other that there isn't a single MacBook Pro in the world that functions properly.

 

[DeVizardofOZ]

Please do your numbers again...

I don't believe Apple would (or should) license out Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. This is because Apple is a hardware company that uses Mac OS X to sell hardware. I wouldn't want it to be licensed out anyway, because then we would have to deal with registration key nightmares. Right now, there's nothing but your conscience and a license agreement you probably threw away keeping you from installing one copy of Mac OS X on every Mac you can get your hands on. Not that I do that, but I sure like just popping in my disk and reinstalling whenever it strikes my fancy.

On to the support issue, I think since the beginning of technical support there have always been those who complain that quality has really gone down and back in the good ol' days, you never had any problems, ever! And now, by golly, it's a coin toss whether you get a machine that even turns on!

Right, gramps, and back in your day, you walked to school uphill both ways in the snow with no boots and you liked it.

And 25% of new machines being lemons? Last quarter, Apple reported they shipped 1,327,000 computers. If we call a quarter 90 days, and assume that 25% of them are dead, that's more than 3,600 computers sold defective every single day. Are you kidding me? You really think a major hardware company would sell 3,600 defective computers every single day and get away with it?

This is what's really happening: Apple is selling more machines than ever. Apple's customers have greater access to the internet than ever. Even if the rate of failure stays the same, you have more customers with more internet savvy to come whine and moan on bulletin boards.

Yes, you deserve a perfectly functioning computer and you have the right to complain when your computer is broken. So call Apple or go down to your local service provider and get your machine serviced under warranty. That's what it's there for. It's also the number 1 best way to help Apple get clued in to potential issues with their products. They're not going to issue a recall because a bunch of bulletin board users complain to each other over and over again until they convince each other that there isn't a single MacBook Pro in the world that functions properly.

_________________________________________________________________________

because, no matter what I hear around the board, all of you forgot to consider, that there must be a large number of faulty products WHICH DID NOT SLIP THROUGH THE SLOPPY CQ AT THE FACTORY. Therefore 20-25% lemons is indeed possible and much too high a percentage in any manufacturing process.

Best