Furious at Apple..

[john123]

Time and again, over and over for years, we've seen stories of buyers who discover major problems with their new Mac from day one. This tells us that quality control at Apple is weak, or the quality control department would have found the obvious problem before the customer did.

The solution is not for Mac users to blame each other, but for Apple to upgrade it's quality control and take it's advertisements as seriously as it wishes us to do. That's the path that keeps users happy, and Apple on top.

Actually, the solution would be a course in statistics, and the realization that anecdotal examples of problems are not tantamount to a "quality control problem" as you allege. The suggestion you made earlier—to raise prices to increase the (already high) percentage of perfect machines—would make a large number of users unhappy. It's fine if that's your agenda, but it isn't Apple's (or that of any other consumer electronics company that survives), thankfully.

----------

Amen. I've owned so much Apple equipment that its frightening to add up the total of what I've spent, and I have NEVER not once had to return an Apple product for any defect ever.

I'm on Apple laptop #20. I've not had to return a single one either. But, as per my critique of the poster above, our experience is merely anecdotal and therefore has no statistically relevant bearing on the debate.

 

[simonsi]

....This tells us that quality control at Apple is weak...

Hmmm, no not really - anecdotes do not equal data.

You cannot take the number of issues on a public forum and work out any indication of an error/quality rate - you are simply missing data on half the math required, you are literally saying:

3+something unknown=6 because you want the answer to be 6.

"data" drawn from public forums is simply statistically invalid.

 

[Felasco]

Will I and the OP still buy Apple products? Absolutely, but this taste left in our mouthes is never going to vanish.

For myself, I'm still trying to decide whether to buy another new machine from Apple. Like you say, the bad taste lingers.

The competition for me is not Windows, Linux or Chrome, but used Macs. It may perhaps be helpful to some reader to note that this problem of quality control and reliability can be completely solved by shifting from new to used Macs. It's counter-intuitive, but true. As example....

I could buy a new laptop from Apple. Or, for the same amount of money, I could buy 4 five year old Apple laptops.

If I buy the 4 used laptops and one of them dies, I can simply toss the dead laptop in my garbage can and fire up the next laptop. If I have a bootable backup on an external drive as I should, I can be back up and working again in 2 minutes.

No fuss, no muss, no worries, no downtime, no trips to the repair shop, no repair bill, no arguing with Apple, no being mad or worried or any of that.

Peace of mind is a pretty compelling feature, a feature not available from Apple.

Also, given that there is pretty much no chance all four used laptops would die, a user could buy just two used laptops, and save about $800, as compared to the price of a new laptop.

So, total reliability, for $800 less than the price quoted by Apple for a new laptop. That's pretty compelling competition.

Are the latest greatest features really worth $800 _AND_ the loss of total reliability?

 

[Felasco]

You cannot take the number of issues on a public forum and work out any indication of an error/quality rate - you are simply missing data on half the math required, you are literally saying:

Every post on any forum which honestly reports failures in brand new Apple products is a threat to Apple's brand as the quality alternative.

Every disappointed and mad buyer becomes a negative word of mouth machine which undermines Apple's brand and future, and potentially your ability to buy Apple products in the future.

Quality control is reasonably labeled weak so long as Apple is shipping it's failures to customers, shipments which could have been prevented by a brief inspection of the machine at the factory.

Posters can rationalize the shipping of lemons all they wish, but doing so does not help Apple or any of it's customers. What would help Apple and it's customers is shipping out fewer lemons.

 

[Felasco]

Actually, the solution would be a course in statistics.

Statistics has nothing to do with this, which is why I didn't reference it. Statistics would be relevant if we were attempting to compare the quality control of one vendor to another. In such a case, I agree anecdotal reports from people we don't know aren't that useful.

What is relevant to the user is whether they get a lemon or not, not what is happening to other users or at other vendors. What is relevant to all Apple customers is the fact that we can't buy with confidence, thus what should be a happy event is converted in to a worrisome one. Evidence....

When Apple ships a failed product, they shift much of the burden for THEIR mistake on to the customer. Customers are being entirely reasonable in resisting this shift.

If you have to make five trips to an Apple store (which may be a couple hours away) in order to resolve a failure by Apple, it is we the customer who will suffer the downtime, we the customer who will help Apple resolve THEIR problem for free, we the customer who buy the gas, spend our time on the phone and on the road, spend our time analyzing Apple's failure etc. Apple shifts all these costs for Apple's failure on to we the customer.

If you now reply that all companies do this, then I would ask, why should we pay a premium for Apple products if they are going to act just like all the other cheaper vendors? If we are supposed to be content with mediocrity, why not pay less elsewhere?

I know that someone will now hit the reply button to debate all this, which is of course their right. Just be clear though, you aren't helping Apple by rationalizing mediocrity. If Apple is going to be just like all the other vendors, there's no point in there being an Apple.

 

[ohbrilliance]

I haven't read all of these comments. While it's exceptionally unlikely for a random person to have had five faulty MBPs in a row, it's far more likely that one person in a million has had such an experience. Perhaps the OP is that unlucky one in a million? With millions sold, there are a few 'one in a millions' out there.

When it comes to returning on time, with a 90 minute drive and possibly busy schedule the OP may have had no convenient opportunity to return the laptop earlier. The rMBP I am on right now needs to be taken to Apple for a hardware diagnostic test on the wifi card (it drops out and requires reconnection at intervals spanning 15 minutes to half a day). I have 9 months left to do it, and am darn busy with work and other commitments (obviously not so busy that I can't browse macrumors) and can't be without a laptop for more than a few hours. So I keep putting it off.

 

[john123]

Statistics has nothing to do with this, which is why I didn't reference it. Statistics would be relevant if we were attempting to compare the quality control of one vendor to another. In such a case, I agree anecdotal reports from people we don't know aren't that useful.

What is relevant to the user is whether they get a lemon or not, not what is happening to other users or at other vendors. What is relevant to all Apple customers is the fact that we can't buy with confidence, thus what should be a happy event is converted in to a worrisome one. Evidence....

Sorry, but no. You said, "Time and again, over and over for years, we've seen stories of buyers who discover major problems with their new Mac from day one. This tells us that quality control at Apple is weak." That's inference about a larger issue or population from a sample—and an anecdote at that. That is statistics done wrong. With your discussion of two manufacturers (which no one brought up), you seem to be confusing a tiny branch of statistical work—i.e., whether two means are the same—for the larger field of statistics overall.

You've made a claim—that there is a "quality control problem"—without any empirical evidence to back it up. Now, if your definition of a quality control problem is "a non-zero number of units shipped with any defect whatsoever," then I guess you can make that claim. But virtually no one is going to agree with your definition of that as a "problem," and certainly even fewer consumers would be interested in your proposed solution of paying more to have a zero tolerance policy. If you aren't arguing for a non-zero threshold, then you're back in the realm of needing statistical inference to back up your claim. And thus we have my beef with you.

If you have to make five trips to an Apple store (which may be a couple hours away) in order to resolve a failure by Apple, it is we the customer who will suffer the downtime, we the customer who will help Apple resolve THEIR problem for free, we the customer who buy the gas, spend our time on the phone and on the road, spend our time analyzing Apple's failure etc. Apple shifts all these costs for Apple's failure on to we the customer.

Unfortunately, this too does not support your argument. You cannot infer what the percentage of issues with the population is from one person's anomalous sequential experience. To use a more crude example, if a coin comes up heads five times in a row, do you conclude that the coin is faulty? I surely hope not...

If you now reply that all companies do this, then I would ask, why should we pay a premium for Apple products if they are going to act just like all the other cheaper vendors? If we are supposed to be content with mediocrity, why not pay less elsewhere?

I know that someone will now hit the reply button to debate all this, which is of course their right. Just be clear though, you aren't helping Apple by rationalizing mediocrity. If Apple is going to be just like all the other vendors, there's no point in there being an Apple.

Actually, I would reply that you have the burden of proof but have not met that burden. Simply put, you've made a claim without warrants. Here again, you're claiming "mediocrity," without any evidence to support it. As an aside, it's interesting that you began your post saying we aren't comparing two manufacturers, but here you are again talking about the Apple premium vis a vis...other manufacturers. Very, uh, yeah....

 

[marivaux]

Well...I would say this. It's true that it's hard to get a sense of Apple's failure rates/quality control by reading internet posts--you'd have to go look for data. It's also true that it's hard to know whether anyone is telling the truth on a forum, about any subject--so you can't really tell whether someone had a real horror story or is just a cranky customer. It's probably not worth arguing about--both things exist.

However, I would say that it does reflect an ignorance of statistics to say that it is "impossible" or that someone "must be a liar" to get five lemons in a row. Each time you spin the wheel, as it were, you have an equal chance of getting the lemon, even though the overall chances of getting a lot of lemons are small. But, for that reason, it does happen. That's why, if you flip a coin a thousand times, you'll sometimes get ten "heads" in a row. MOST people will either have no problems or one problem, but a small number of people will have a lot of problems. Obviously, if there are more lemons to be had, there will be more "hits", but (in this case) we don't know the number of lemons.

Everything discussed on a forum that relates to people's experiences is anecdotal, so you could, um, plausibly argue that most discussions are a waste of time from the point of view of gaining factual information (other than verifiable technical data, etc.) Wisely or unwisely, we do tend to form opinions about companies when we hear a lot of complaints or have enough personal experiences, since a lot of the time the data is unavailable. It would take a lot of data to convince me that Verizon's customer service is excellent and that I've had random bad experiences, but it's possible.

So, anecdotally, unverifiably, I'll share an experience with Apple's customer service. Though most of our Apple laptops haven't had significant problems, one of my wife's laptops was a serious lemon (long story, but it turned out that it had been made with the heat sink left out, which created other problems, etc.) Apple refused to replace it for a long time, which suggested to me a reluctance to make exchanges in order to satisfy a beleaguered customer. They finally agreed to do it after talking to someone in another office (customer satisfaction or whatever it's called) because their repair service claimed not to be "authorized" to exchange it and after an hour on the phone where we had to prove our technical knowledge of what was going on and speak of our prior loyalty to Apple, etc.

So that suggested--to me--a less-than-friendly policy about defective products. Obviously, companies have to develop strategies for dealing with frivolous exchanges, but there's a balance. If you promote the high quality of your expensive products, I'd say that you should be extra-considerate with your customers.

On the other hand, that was a few years ago and other times Apple has been just fine with problems, so I'm not really saying anything about the overall customer service experience over time--just sharing policies that were quoted to me at one point that I regarded as frustrating.

 

[Felasco]

As we all know, Apple is a creative, energetic, competitive company. They aren't satisfied with a comfortable stagnant status quo when it comes to their technology, and so every year they attempt to release new models that are better than last year's models, and most of the time they succeed.

We all embrace, appreciate and benefit from this creative, ever striving for improvement mindset that is driving Apple's technology, and that's why we use Macs.

This very same mindset at Apple can be applied to ever improving the customer experience, to creating ever stronger bonds of loyalty between Apple and it's users.

Here's a specific example, which demonstrates how easy it could be to begin enhancing that relationship, and thus how far behind the ball Apple is in regards to this issue.

According to Apple's 2013 Annual Report, referenced on this page...

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/3...-numbers-on-employees-retail-stores-and-more/

...Apple currently has 80,300 full time employees.

One wonders if it has occurred to anybody at Apple that it would only take one more employee, hired at minimum wage, to....

1) Scan the threads at the leading Mac forums and....

2) Publicly apologize to those customers who have had a bad experience.

Where is Apple?

Here's a thread called "Furious At Apple" and Apple is no where to be found, missing in action, unavailable for comment, seemingly not interested that one of their customers is very unhappy for a very good reason, and is thus here busy eroding Apple's brand for all to see.

One more employee. At minimum wage. That's all it would take to have an Apple representative to join this thread and at least express Apple's regret at this situation. Everybody reading this thread would then have to agree at least that Apples cares and is trying, even if Apple can't fix every problem, or agree with every user on every issue.

But wait, watch. Somebody who thinks they are supporting Apple will now hit reply to propose a hundred reasons why continually improving the customer experience, and this simple idea specifically, will never work and they will claim we should be happy with the stagnant status quo.

When were Apple users ever happy with the stagnant status quo? If we had that mindset, we'd be Windows users, right?

Apple suggests that we "think different". I'm expressing my agreement. Apple needs some thinking different in this arena, they need some vision.

Apple is not Apple if it measures itself against the PC makers, and complacently says "good enough" just because maybe they are a little bit better at building good relationships with those who...

Fund the company.

 

[simonsi]

...That's all it would take to have an Apple representative to join this thread and at least express Apple's regret at this situation. Everybody reading this thread would then have to agree at least that Apples cares and is trying, even if Apple can't fix every problem, or agree with every user on every issue.

That would be as meaningful as having a robot do it. "Everybody" would certainly not have to agree any such thing....

It still presupposes one of two things: Apple has an empirical product quality issue and/or Apple is relatively bad on product quality compared to others.

I don't think either of those is the case. I certainly don't think it is remotely indicated, let alone proven by the title of a thread in an internet forum.

 

[Felasco]

john123, if we head in the direction you're going, rationalizing the stagnant status quo, we get to keep playing the lemon lottery year after year. Where's the benefit to us or Apple?

If we consistently challenge Apple to apply it's smarts, creativity, vision and energy to ever improving the customer experience, they just might succeed in doing that. You win, I win, all customers win, Apple wins.

----------

That would be as meaningful as having a robot do it. .

See? This is what I mean, the endless "the user is always wrong" quibble when it comes to improving Apple's relationship with it's customers. This is part of Apple culture too, a part that needs to be left behind.

 

[orion10]

<snip>
One wonders if it has occurred to anybody at Apple that it would only take one more employee, hired at minimum wage, to....

1) Scan the threads at the leading Mac forums and....

2) Publicly apologize to those customers who have had a bad experience.

Where is Apple?

Here's a thread called "Furious At Apple" and Apple is no where to be found, missing in action, unavailable for comment, seemingly not interested that one of their customers is very unhappy for a very good reason, and is thus here busy eroding Apple's brand for all to see.

One more employee. At minimum wage. That's all it would take to have an Apple representative to join this thread and at least express Apple's regret at this situation. Everybody reading this thread would then have to agree at least that Apples cares and is trying, even if Apple can't fix every problem, or agree with every user on every issue.

But wait, watch. Somebody who thinks they are supporting Apple will now hit reply to propose a hundred reasons why continually improving the customer experience, and this simple idea specifically, will never work and they will claim we should be happy with the stagnant status quo.
<snip>

I can think of one good reason...

Apologizing to people who are represented by avatars is not good business practice. Forums are for users to discuss issues and problems. If a customer has a specific problem that it wants a business to address, that person should take it up with the business's customer service department.

I had a screen problem with my iPad mini 2. I went to customer service who said that I needed to get it replaced and then had to have a heated discussion with an Apple store person to get my replacement and had to have it examined inside the facility by the employee using a penlight before I took it home as verification that the screen was okay. The OP is pretty darn lucky to get 5 machines out of Apple imo. Would I buy another product from Apple? You betcha!

 

[Barney63]

We know that forums are used mainly to solve problems, just because there are a handful of users that have experienced problems (and on the whole have been sorted out by Apple) I don't think it equates to bad customer service. I actually think Apple go a long way in trying to make every customer happy.
That certainly can't be said for a lot of companies.
Just google any company with the word "complaint" in the search and you will see what I'm talking about.
I have an iPhone 5 that went faulty out of warranty, but Apple Care decided to fix it FOC, that is a sign of excellent customer care to me.

Barney

 

[Felasco]

Apologizing to people who are represented by avatars is not good business practice.

Sorry, just more silly quibbling and rationalizing of the stagnant status quo.

There is no reason in the world why an Apple employee can't join a thread and type, "Dear user, we really do regret your situation, and do apologize for any mistakes we may have made in servicing your order."

It doesn't really matter what they say, it matters that they show up, and are seen to be showing up.

Forums are for users to discuss issues and problems.

Ah, I see. With anybody but the people who caused the problem, right?

If a customer has a specific problem that it wants a business to address, that person should take it up with the business's customer service department.

You're completely missing the point.

An unhappy Apple customer, who appears to be an entirely reasonable, intelligent and informed person (ie. credible) is here publicly weakening Apple's brand and prospects for future business.

Apple would not be doing us a favor by responding to this public discussion, Apple would be doing Apple a favor. Apple would be demonstrating it's professional competence and good faith effort to make a wrong right. All of this is good for Apple.

I had a screen problem with my iPad mini 2. I went to customer service and then had to have a heated discussion with an Apple store person to get my replacement. The OP is pretty darn lucky to get 5 machines out of Apple imo. Would I buy another product from Apple? You betcha!

Yes, and it's folks like you who keep us all riding the lemon lottery. You're satisfied with having to go to the Apple store and get in to a big argument just to get what you've already paid for, and so that's what you get. That's what we all get.

When we're no longer satisfied with such procedures, then things will start to change for the better.

Think different.

Have some vision.

Be a real Mac user.

 

[156457]

--delete--

 

[simonsi]

...You're satisfied with having to go to the Apple store and get in to a big argument just to get what you've already paid for, and so that's what you get.

How does your proposed minimum=wage-earner-apologee process change that?

Have you ANY idea of the ongoing quality improvements generally in electronics, computers and Apple products specifically year on year?

A jump to an unattainable quality perfection in many technologies simply isn't possible without pushing the cost to a place you would not find acceptable. Apple has a good quality process and a good process to sort out those exceptions, exceptional exceptions continue to occur in any system with such large numbers of items (i.e. product sales numbers such as Apple's). As I and others have pointed out, statistically you will get the 1-in-a-million cases when you have sales in excess of a few million (I think the math is on page 4)....

Imagine if the manufacturers of VCRs were still trying to get to the 100% quality point before launching them on the public...

 

[john123]

One wonders if it has occurred to anybody at Apple that it would only take one more employee, hired at minimum wage, to....

1) Scan the threads at the leading Mac forums and....

2) Publicly apologize to those customers who have had a bad experience.

Where is Apple?

Where is Apple? Dealing with problems and customers on a case-by-case basis, rather than wasting time with silly ideas and public message boards that tend to highly people looking to type bombastically and cry out for attention.

----------

There is no reason in the world why an Apple employee can't join a thread and type, "Dear user, we really do regret your situation, and do apologize for any mistakes we may have made in servicing your order."

Yes there is. IT'S STUPID.

----------

An unhappy Apple customer, who appears to be an entirely reasonable, intelligent and informed person (ie. credible) is here publicly weakening Apple's brand and prospects for future business.

And this is why it's stupid. Like the rest of your claims in this thread, you lack any evidence to back them up. You just keep spouting nonsense. You have no metrics for brand equity (just like you have no metrics to support your allegation that there is a "quality control" problem).

 

[Felasco]

How does your proposed minimum=wage-earner-apologee process change that?

I don't propose that idea to be the final solution to all problems.

I do propose it to be a very simple and easy small step in the right direction.

By resisting such a small, easy, constructive step at every turn, some of our fellow posters are illustrating the mindset at Apple which is obstructing further improvements in the customer experience.

Here's evidence of that mindset.

Obviously my simple suggestion does not require any brilliance. If you and I can have such a simple idea in the course of a casual conversation, then surely the very smart people at Apple could have such an idea as well, and probably already have.

So we might ask ourselves....

Why does Apple not feel the need to apologize for shipping broken products to it's customers?

Should they apologize? Well, let me ask you this...

If I took $2600 of your money and handed you a broken product in return, would you expect me to apologize? Even if I couldn't resolve the situation in exactly the way you might prefer, wouldn't you at the very least expect me to say, "I'm sorry I shipped you a broken product"?

If posters should now claim that they wouldn't expect an apology from me, then this thread has dissolved in to the realm of fantasy, and we should probably admit defeat and walk away from this discussion.

If posters will admit that they would expect an apology from me, then all I'm suggesting is that you apply the very same standard to Apple.

You'll be helping Apple by doing so.

By expecting each year's products to be technically better than those from last year, we challenge Apple to do it's best work, and help it become the number one computer maker.

The very same helpful expectations can be applied to ever improving the customer experience as well. When enough of us expect the customer experience to be continually improved, it will be.

----------

And this is why it's stupid. Like the rest of your claims in this thread, you lack any evidence to back them up. You just keep spouting nonsense. You have no metrics for brand equity (just like you have no metrics to support your allegation that there is a "quality control" problem).

Given that my posts are so utterly lacking in value, the logical and credible next step for you would seem to be to stop reading them. I'm fine with that, no problem.

 

[Brian Y]

Why should Apple apologise because one guy on the internet is overly anal about a sodding computer? Replacing a $2k machine five times over tiny things, including a rubber gasket which, with some patience, could be put back into place.

If I was Apple, I'd set an "anal replacement limit" of two. Two machine replacements for anal things, and you get a refund and GTFO the store.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
I think this topic is just about done at this stage given how the conversation is repeating itself over and over.