Actually, the wink might not be necessary. I have been using PCs for many, many years. Most of my career is based on Microsoft operating systems. I was so "impressed" 😉 by Vista that I started looking into getting a Mac. Then I started reading about all of these freezing problems. That definitely delayed my decision to buy. Now, I am going to wait it out for a little while longer. If all goes well within the next month or so, I'm going to pull the trigger. So, add me to the list of people who will contribute to Apple's 4Q sales! 🙂
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iMac Graphics Firmware Update 1.0
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Actually, the wink might not be necessary. I have been using PCs for many, many years. Most of my career is based on Microsoft operating systems. I was so "impressed" 😉 by Vista that I started looking into getting a Mac. Then I started reading about all of these freezing problems. That definitely delayed my decision to buy. Now, I am going to wait it out for a little while longer. If all goes well within the next month or so, I'm going to pull the trigger. So, add me to the list of people who will contribute to Apple's 4Q sales! 🙂
After three weeks of being jerked around with Apple's tech support and an additional three weeks with Apple's recommended third-party re-seller (nearest Apple store is 4 hours away), I finally got fed up with being strung along with the iMac freezing issue. Contacted Visa. Gave them the story. Faxed Visa the required documents - receipt, detailed records of my phone conversations with Apple and 3rd party retailer, as well as Apple's press release admitting to selling faulty machines.
Funny thing is, all I wanted was a machine that worked. I pushed for an exchange but was not given one. Yet, Visa was able to secure a full refund from Apple for a machine that I purchased in August. 14 day return limit? I don't think so. Thank you Visa! F--- Y-- Steve!
Funny thing is, all I wanted was a machine that worked. I pushed for an exchange but was not given one. Yet, Visa was able to secure a full refund from Apple for a machine that I purchased in August. 14 day return limit? I don't think so. Thank you Visa! F--- Y-- Steve!
I'm not talking about the past 11 years and by the way market share for Apple still has not grown past 6% market share, while I agree that is up from 2-3% worldwide they aren't even the top 5. So this whole we have grown so much mass production thing doesn't hold water.
I have also owned Apple products over the last 20 years, and while your experience with their products appears to still be favorable I have just returned my fifth iMac 24" in one week.
What is also annoying is when people start to try the if we can't look good then try to make others looks worse by pulling Dell or MS into the picture. We aren't talking about Dell or MS we are talking about Apples QC dropping.
Clearly based on iMacs freezing, SR Macbook keyboards not responding, Yellowish Tint on MBP screens, Apple not even being consistent with what vendors they are using for hardware, if this is what they need to do to even try and keep prices competitive then I don't expect stock to stay high for long.
Am I upset about the iMac issue, no not at all, they lost I didn't. I don't have blind loyalty, I will just move on to something else. There isn't anything that great about Apple that can't be replaced by something else. They lost 5,000 dollars this weekend and repeat business, not me. Not to mention the amount of people I will tell about this just in passing, the same for people that had/have freezing iMac, same with MB and MBP issues. That not the way to win over new customers, thats my point when it comes to your comment about people being happy about fixes.
When you own 95% of the market like MS you can screw up alot, when you own 5% you can't you have to prove you are better all the time, you can't rag on the competition then do the same thing when you release Leopard. Or rag on Dell then have hardware issue across the line.
Just simply my opinion on this which isn't worth any more then yours.
ive been using apple products for a long time too. i agree with your statement about blind loyalty. i wasn't able to get my mac replaced. they kept replacing PARTS. logic board, ram, and now the bezel.
they damaged the aluminum bezel and now have to replace that. it's been a pain in the @ss to lug around a 24" imac to and from the store every 3-5 days.
fix or not, there are a lot of blind followers that'll keep apple going even in situations like these.
MacinDoc
macrumors 68020
I think that reading these boards could give you a misleading picture of Apple QC. The most recent Consumer Reports and PC Magazine large-scale surveys of computer users (each survey involved tens of thousands of users) showed that for desktops, Apple QC was significantly higher than any other manufacturer, and for laptops, there was no statistically singificant difference between the top manufacturer (Lenovo) and Apple. The PC Magazine survey even concluded that Apple's QC was improving year over year. The problem is that now with increased awareness of various problems some people have had with Apple products, the PERCEPTION is that QC has fallen, even if the statistics show that the opposite is true.
This is not to say that there are not defective products out there, of course there are, but there are not as many as you would think after reading these boards. I currently have a MacBook in the shop for problems, but I've purchased 7 Macs since I last had one that needed service. Sorry to hear about your experience, but I can assure you that it is not the norm.
czachorski
macrumors 6502a
Exactly. Few of the Apple detractors will acknowledge that though, preferring to base their opinion on anecdotal evidence and a biased perspective from web forums. When in fact, those other choices have the same if not worse probability draw of getting a bad machine, and are virtually guaranteed to have a worse user experience with the software and OS. I would suggest that basing decisions on bias and anecdote, rather than statistics and probable outcomes, is just as "blind" as anyone who blindly follows Apple.
Hawkeye411
macrumors 68000
= NICE 
Dimwhit
macrumors 68020
BKKbill
macrumors 6502
My, but the latest newbie crowd is tough. Demanding this threatening that. This is one time patience would have paid off. Notice the biggest complainer got rid of his iMac but is still with macrumors spreading his gospel. I had the same freezing problem. That is in the past hopefully. Now I just have to learn another way of doing some things.
wazgilbert
macrumors regular
waz$ ioreg -l | grep ATY | grep Mem
| | | | "ATY,MemVendorID" = <0100>
| | | | "ATY,MemRevisionID" = <0900>
Another non-requirement here on a "non-freezer"
didn't even see the update, got 10.5.1 without frills.
Cheers!
| | | | "ATY,MemVendorID" = <0100>
| | | | "ATY,MemRevisionID" = <0900>
Another non-requirement here on a "non-freezer"
didn't even see the update, got 10.5.1 without frills.
Cheers!
It's really great that the iMac no longer has crashing graphics. It still has slow, low-end graphics of course but you can't have everything.
wazgilbert
macrumors regular
I don't really think that 1900x1200 native 3D resolution with all the stops pulled out running 30-40 fps, or over 80 with the glitter turned off 'low-end'.
It's not high-end either, but low-end is a bit harsh, what do you call integrated graphics FFS? Poverty-spec?
Very happy to hear that this issue has finally been resolved, I too would be very mad if I just paid a lot of money for a new mac that had graphics issues Apple was aware of but had not fixed
mossback
macrumors member
I'm in the exact same boat. In addition, I know two friends who are also strongly considering/ready to buy new iMac's but are waiting a little while longer for all the smoke to clear on this. I want to be sure this whole issue is solved before buying.
Considering most computer buyers do a fair amount of research online and that doing a Google search on iMac's reveals a good number of links related to this freezing issue, it's safe to say quite a few people may be holding back purchases as a result.
It seems like those of have who have been waiting may finally be able to pull the trigger soon.
nick
guzhogi
macrumors 68040
I was looking at a November, 2007 copy of Consumer Reports and while Apple had the best technical support, Apple products had the highest amount of people going in for repairs. It's my understanding that this means that Apple users are going in for repairs more than any other PC manufacturer, but the experience is better. Many of the Macs & Apple products that I've used (both @ home & @ work) needed to get repaired when I've had them. There was an iBook G3, MacBook Pro, quite a few power cords, eMacs, along with some other stuff. Apple has a lot of really great products & ideas, it's just that they weren't made very well.
The other main problem I have with Apple is their control freak nature. iPhones & iPods don't have user replaceable batteries, at the moment, they don't really offer 3rd party developers to develop for them and if you want to use Mac OS X, you have to use an Apple computer. Before anyone flames me about that, just let me say that I understand that w/ the iPhone being so new, they want to make sure the basic OS is as good as possible. Plus, for computers, it's impossible to make an OS 100% stable if everyone has a different setup. But some people (me for one) would be willing to have a crash once in a while if we can choose our own components, software, etc.
czachorski
macrumors 6502a
The article you are referring to had a 3 point spread from worst to best, which is exactly the margin of error according to CR "differences if 3 or less are not meaningful". This is the first time in 4-5 years that Apple has not been at the top of the repair list in the CR readers survey, which may be a sign of decreasing QC. Meanwhile, however, a similar survey by PC Magazine recently have Macs the tops in repairs.
Firmware update
This is my first Mac. 2+ months with no problems. I had no freezing although the firmware update was available so I installed it. I see no reason to ever return to Windows although I'll still have to use it at work. These forums are filled with passionate Mac users but sometimes I think people go overboard. I remember reading the arguments for and against the glossy screen. I almost didn't buy my Mac because of all the negative posts about the glossy screen. I took a chance and have no regrets. Once you turn the iMac on the screen is not an issue and the picture is awesome. Compared to the way Microsoft deals with problems I feel that Apple does a great job. Yes, this fix took 3 months but better to have it right then go through a series of fixes. Keep up the great work Steve!
This is my first Mac. 2+ months with no problems. I had no freezing although the firmware update was available so I installed it. I see no reason to ever return to Windows although I'll still have to use it at work. These forums are filled with passionate Mac users but sometimes I think people go overboard. I remember reading the arguments for and against the glossy screen. I almost didn't buy my Mac because of all the negative posts about the glossy screen. I took a chance and have no regrets. Once you turn the iMac on the screen is not an issue and the picture is awesome. Compared to the way Microsoft deals with problems I feel that Apple does a great job. Yes, this fix took 3 months but better to have it right then go through a series of fixes. Keep up the great work Steve!
Was severely torqued after burning 15 day return policy trusting a fix was coming, that took forever. Been up and going 2 days with heavy use, no problems. It seems to work.
That does suck. I have to say the Apple Store here and all the employees including the manager were great, even the manager said he would open every iMac in the store until I found one that worked exactly the way I wanted.
All I can assume right now is that the store got a bad shipment, at least I hope thats it, I would still like to add another iMac to my home but I have to say im a bit nervous about this current model compared to ones ive had in the past.
Well I agree with that. I returned this last one and im going to either wait a week or try another Apple Store, i'm lucky in that regard I have two of them within 30 miles. Like I stated in my last post the store and the manager were great, maybe just a bad shipment.
If you are talking about me you're mistaken. I still have two iMacs, one Mac Pro and a Macbook in my house. Not to mention three ipods and three iPhones and an iPod touch.
So while I maybe be new to this forum, I am certainly not new to owning Apple products in fact I also supported a client base years ago over my 21 year career with IBM.
However with all that being said I think even the most faithful Apple fan would be a bit annoyed having to return 5 iMacs in one week due to LCD problems. Yet I will state it again the store and manager were great, have to assume it was a bad shipment for now.
BKKbill
macrumors 6502
No wasn't referring to you think much patience on your part was shown more than what I would have had. Only took one back and thought that was a pain. It was more toward the newbie with five posts that did nothing but bad mouth everything apple and is now in time-out.
No problems here !!
no freezing problems but screensaver in the new mosaic mode was a little jerky....... just installed firmware upgrade .. all went well and screensaver is smooooth .. or should that be snappy 😉
a newbie to the forums and a switcher.... very happy so far ....great OS and great machine. way to go Apple!!
no freezing problems but screensaver in the new mosaic mode was a little jerky....... just installed firmware upgrade .. all went well and screensaver is smooooth .. or should that be snappy 😉
a newbie to the forums and a switcher.... very happy so far ....great OS and great machine. way to go Apple!!
Well in the end I think because the manager seems more embarrassed then anyone, I tried to at least be nice. He did offer me the lower end Macbook pro 15" with Applecare at the same price, still not sure if I should have taken him up on that.
Offer is still open he said I could think about it for a few days. iMac offers alot for the money not sure I want to give up the harddrive space and not really sure how much of an impact having a 128meg card would be over the 256 in the iMac.