Well, the article is pretty hateful against apple, but for the most part, its info can't be denied. I love mac, but as of late, the machines are just getting less reliable. Macs used to be extremely reliable. Heck, my G4 MDD is still running great. My G5 is still running great. My older macbook pro and white macbook are still running great. However, my mac pro 2.66 died within a year and a half. My macbook aluminum died in 6 months. My unibody mbp hasn't entirely died, but has had 2 failed harddrives and apple one time thought the logic board was fried. So overall, I'd say that the equipment now is definitely less reliable from personal experience. In general, Macs used to be most reliable, now they're just average reliability at best. In my opinion, it's all about the OS. The hardware is nothing special. But I'd still choose a mac over pc anyday until they can get an OS that can actually compare.
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Apple machines are less reliable
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Less Reliable? Unfortunately, yes.
FYIW:
Failures in past 3 Years -
MacBook Pro........DVD drive
G5 iMac..........motherboard & power supply (on separate occasions)
MacBook (mid '06)........ motherboard
MacBook (late '06) ........ motherboard
iPod Classic ........ Replaced
Its embarassing, since I have pushed my family to buy Apple.
I have to insist we buy applecare to cover ourselves.
FYIW:
Failures in past 3 Years -
MacBook Pro........DVD drive
G5 iMac..........motherboard & power supply (on separate occasions)
MacBook (mid '06)........ motherboard
MacBook (late '06) ........ motherboard
iPod Classic ........ Replaced
Its embarassing, since I have pushed my family to buy Apple.
I have to insist we buy applecare to cover ourselves.
Based on apple's mentally on "Applecare", I have reasons to believe that apple products are not as reliable as many people like to think.
If you look at reviews from apple website, how often do you hear people complaining about:
1. Time capsule RIP after 18 months.
2. Macsafe AC adaptor failure (melted macsafe plug, frayed wires, wires coming loose from the AC adaptor...etc)
3. Dented Unibody macbook Pro.
4. Fried logic board (motherboard) on their macbooks
5. dead hard disk.
and the list goes on and on.
You don't need statistics to proof the reliability of a product. Just look at customer comments and you will understand.
Apple care should come STANDARD with all apple. A customer should not have to shell out an extra 20 - 25% of the purchase price to buy extended warranty for a product that is known to break down after a year. You can have the best customer service in the entire world; however, customer service is meaningless if your company produce poor products.
If you look at reviews from apple website, how often do you hear people complaining about:
1. Time capsule RIP after 18 months.
2. Macsafe AC adaptor failure (melted macsafe plug, frayed wires, wires coming loose from the AC adaptor...etc)
3. Dented Unibody macbook Pro.
4. Fried logic board (motherboard) on their macbooks
5. dead hard disk.
and the list goes on and on.
You don't need statistics to proof the reliability of a product. Just look at customer comments and you will understand.
Apple care should come STANDARD with all apple. A customer should not have to shell out an extra 20 - 25% of the purchase price to buy extended warranty for a product that is known to break down after a year. You can have the best customer service in the entire world; however, customer service is meaningless if your company produce poor products.
I love my mac just as much as the next guy, but we have to keep in mind that as of late, Apple is using mainly the same hardware components as all other manufacturers. This is the reason that Apple has the same failure rate. Back when Apple would design and use their own hardware, they may have been more reliable... but now that they all use the same intel processors, same chips on the ram, same motherboard circuitry to link it all together, same optical drives, et cetera, theoretically all companies that use these common parts should have the same hardware failure rate. We don't buy macs for the hardware anyway (or at least you shouldn't, there are much less expensive options if this is the case) but rather for the software... we just love OSX a lot more than Windows.
I agree. On this site you seem to have a lot of either/or extremes....Apple is either the best or it sucks...and if you say it sucks you are labeled a "troll" because that is a convenient way to dismiss anyone who doesn't love Apple.
Apple is as equally poor in quality as any other manufacturer...but some people need to justify their expense or defend their personality that has somehow become entwined with a product name.
We didn't used to NEED extended warranties. Somehow people have become brainwashed into accepting them as the norm. My experience with Apple service and quality has been poor...and some have had good luck. All this shows is that Apple is as fallible as anyone. But there is such a cult about the brand it is kind of spooky.
As with anything mass-produced, there will always be lemons. It happens. Such is life. S*** happens.
I've had only one real issue right out of the gate with the Apple products I have owned.
Again, one person's experience is not indicative of another's.
I've had only one real issue right out of the gate with the Apple products I have owned.
Again, one person's experience is not indicative of another's.
Either he doesn't know how to read a chart, he has something against Apple, or he's purposefully sensationalizing.
Honestly, I was surprised to see Apple in among the leaders in reliability after reading this board and the problems posted and considering that Apple cares so much about getting it right in other ways. If you care so much about aesthetics and features, I could see more time being required to get it to be reliable as well. Yet the data show that Apple is among the top in reliability and only a few percent from the best. I'm no fanboy, it's just common sense. (Right now I don't even own a Mac, waiting for jan/feb).
To the MacRumors Forum Community,
I apologize for the inappropriate remark that I made earlier today in response to the original post. Thanks to moderator Annk, I know now that there were specific ways in which I should have reacted to this post.
However, the reason I made the comment was as follows:
1. When I looked at the previous post history of the original poster, I saw another thread he/she had started entitled "PC Better Than Mac!" in which the poster declares that Macs are "very annoying and slow". Given that previous statement from a few months ago, it seemed that this person had a specific agenda.
2. Given that past history, this person was evidently posting this "news" article in order to convey a specific message, not as a public service to provide previously unpublished information.
3. The article which the OP posted was itself incendiary. It refers to Mac users as "kool-aid drinking" and "brainwashed". Not only this, but the republished article refers to a report based on seemingly questionable statistics.
4. By republishing the Inquirer article in its entirety, ostensibly without prior permission, the OP violated Section G of The Inquirer's T&Cs.
5. The republishing of this article seemed to only serve the purpose of making a statement contrary to what I see as the spirit and perceived intent of this forum: to spread knowledge helpful to the Apple-using community. Republishing such an obviously biased article did not seem at all helpful. To me, it was like going into a Leica forum and posting an article about how Canon cameras are great, going into a BMW forum and posting an article about how Acura is better, or going into a photography forum and saying how poetry is better.
Please note that I am not saying that hardware manufactured on behalf of Apple is in some way blessed by being trouble free. I've had my share of hardware problems (two defective MBA, my current MBP with a couple of cosmetic defects, a defective iphone 3G and another defective 3GS). I have not bitten my virtual tongue on any of these issues and in most cases I've posted on this forum about them. However, Apple made good on every problem (except the cosmetic one which I didn't contact them about), in ways which I've never experienced in my 27 years of computer ownership.
The Sun machines I use in my professional life have a much higher brand-tax than Apple does. I wish that the service I got from Sun was half of what I get from Apple. And yeah, Sun hardware fails, too.
Thank you,
John
I apologize for the inappropriate remark that I made earlier today in response to the original post. Thanks to moderator Annk, I know now that there were specific ways in which I should have reacted to this post.
However, the reason I made the comment was as follows:
1. When I looked at the previous post history of the original poster, I saw another thread he/she had started entitled "PC Better Than Mac!" in which the poster declares that Macs are "very annoying and slow". Given that previous statement from a few months ago, it seemed that this person had a specific agenda.
2. Given that past history, this person was evidently posting this "news" article in order to convey a specific message, not as a public service to provide previously unpublished information.
3. The article which the OP posted was itself incendiary. It refers to Mac users as "kool-aid drinking" and "brainwashed". Not only this, but the republished article refers to a report based on seemingly questionable statistics.
4. By republishing the Inquirer article in its entirety, ostensibly without prior permission, the OP violated Section G of The Inquirer's T&Cs.
5. The republishing of this article seemed to only serve the purpose of making a statement contrary to what I see as the spirit and perceived intent of this forum: to spread knowledge helpful to the Apple-using community. Republishing such an obviously biased article did not seem at all helpful. To me, it was like going into a Leica forum and posting an article about how Canon cameras are great, going into a BMW forum and posting an article about how Acura is better, or going into a photography forum and saying how poetry is better.
Please note that I am not saying that hardware manufactured on behalf of Apple is in some way blessed by being trouble free. I've had my share of hardware problems (two defective MBA, my current MBP with a couple of cosmetic defects, a defective iphone 3G and another defective 3GS). I have not bitten my virtual tongue on any of these issues and in most cases I've posted on this forum about them. However, Apple made good on every problem (except the cosmetic one which I didn't contact them about), in ways which I've never experienced in my 27 years of computer ownership.
The Sun machines I use in my professional life have a much higher brand-tax than Apple does. I wish that the service I got from Sun was half of what I get from Apple. And yeah, Sun hardware fails, too.
Thank you,
John
What i dont understand is that people are assuming the known issues that apple passed through extended warranty are being counted by third party warranty. At least on the Resellers and apple stores i worked in the past if apple has an extended warranty for a product; The third party extended warranty never repairs the product and it is not notified that the computer was repaired.
for me this counts repairs from computers that are only covered by the third party company and not known issues of the manufacturers. Also we have to keep in mind that sometimes certified techs pass repairs through third party extended warranties even if the owner of the computer was responsible like making a dent on the laptop or when something was spilled on the computer.
for me this counts repairs from computers that are only covered by the third party company and not known issues of the manufacturers. Also we have to keep in mind that sometimes certified techs pass repairs through third party extended warranties even if the owner of the computer was responsible like making a dent on the laptop or when something was spilled on the computer.
FWIW, most if not all of Nick Farrell's articles are cut and paste jobs, so he's usually guilty of someone else's T&C's.
Furthermore, I would take everything Nick Farrell from the Inq. has to say or post with several grains of salt, as he is an admitted Apple hater.
The Inq. has seriously taken a nosedive over the past few years, and just seeing the amount of spin Nick Farrell places on any Apple article he comes across is just ridiculous.
This month is 3 years on mine~still cruisin', the case hasn't been opened since it left the factory.
And? My only two Apple products have had issues out of the box and Apple has been rude and unhelpful dealing with them. See how that works?
I wish the people who think Apple is the greatest were right....believe me I do especially since I paid so much for it...but it's pretty obvious there isn't a huge difference in quality amongst the brands.
Sorry about your luck. I'd buy another mini in a hot second if I needed one and wouldn't think twice about it...though my next system will be a PC/Linux machine..
Just goes to show that statistics can prove anything to someone as long as it goes along with your preconceived notions.
This data does not indicate that Macs are less reliable than they used to be. It offers no comparison to previous years.
It does not indicate Macs are average reliability. In fact, it shows Apple to be significantly above average. It is also not a random sample and does not include a margin of error.
I'm not saying that Macs are more reliable or less reliable, I'm just saying that the data does not support the conclusions that you (or the writer of the article) have come to.
The first line of the article "DESPITE BEING MORE EXPENSIVE, Apple machines are actually less reliable than cheaper machines made by Asus, Toshiba and Sony" is actually directly contradicted by the data. The data indicates that the higher the price category (netbooks vs entry level vs premium), the less likely the laptop is to fail. Since all Apple laptops fall in the "premium" category, the data indicates that they were more reliable than the average premium laptop.
You would have to be an idiot to not realize that this guy had an agenda when writing that.
It's Nick Farrell. Once you read "Nick Farrell" and "Apple", there is no reason to read anything else.
Compared to most PC's i would say macs are a lot more reliable. All computers have problems eventually 
If a PC vendor made a computer as beautiful as the MacBook Pro and it ran OS X beautifully too, and it was cheaper and "more reliable" then I'd use that. But no one does.
However, apart from the 8600M GT failing in my old MBP which wasn't even remotely Apple's fault, I've had no issues at all with any Macs I've owned over the past 3-4 years.
People are so devoted to the Mac because of the OS, not because we "pay a premium for reliable products".
However, apart from the 8600M GT failing in my old MBP which wasn't even remotely Apple's fault, I've had no issues at all with any Macs I've owned over the past 3-4 years.
People are so devoted to the Mac because of the OS, not because we "pay a premium for reliable products".
I'd have to disagree with you there. Reliability is a major part of the reason I buy Apple.
I took a leap of faith and bought a Macbook Pro even after all of the non-stop, stupid issues I had with my Powerbook G4.
I hope this laptop ends up being as reliable as the 2 laptops I owned before the Powerbook G4, and not a failbook.
The OS is a component of what keeps people coming back to Apple, but the design and manufacturing quality are also very high up there. I hope Apple will continue to improve or maintain their quality, even with obvious embarassments like the Powerbook G4 series.
I've owned Macs all my life and they have never failed me:
MacBook Pro: lasted 5 years and still going great
iMac: Lasted 3 years and still going great
iMac G3: Lasted 15 years and still going great
Mac Classic: Lasted 20 years and still going great
Macintosh Performa: 15 years and still going great
And none of these have had any problems, apart from a minor Superdrive issue with the iMac. Anyway, I think I'll stick with Apple
the study is about laptops in the past 3 years though.. and you have a total of zero that fit into that category
"projected" - say what? So they've studied 2 years, then extrapolated here?
The next logical question is - "so you've got a broken laptop - what now?"
I know i'd much prefer Apple Care/sorting it out at an Apple store, from multiple previous experiences with products both in and out of warranty. I'd imagine most on these boards would be the same if they itemised their dealings with Apple on this aspect.
Irrespective of laptop or desktop - it highlights the need for decent backup system, software, and ease of use.
The next logical question is - "so you've got a broken laptop - what now?"
I know i'd much prefer Apple Care/sorting it out at an Apple store, from multiple previous experiences with products both in and out of warranty. I'd imagine most on these boards would be the same if they itemised their dealings with Apple on this aspect.
Irrespective of laptop or desktop - it highlights the need for decent backup system, software, and ease of use.
I read a post about them not being as reliable as most other comps.. but being a recent switcher I prefer my mac over anything ive used .