the exchange cycle has begun

[spiderman0616]

Dude. Breathe.

If you really think you are falling victim to a massive quality control fail with every Apple product you buy, then write to Steve. Write to Tim Cook. Raise the roof.

Or call the Apple store, tell them you deleted your survey by accident and ask how to get another one sent to you.

Believe it or not, I tried that--neither AppleCare nor the Apple Store knew how to resend that to me, so I'm kind of out of luck.

I doubt I'll try e mailing anyone, but I did decided on a different plan of action--hiding the scratch from myself. As much as I hate screen covers, I'm going to put one on to hide the scratch as well as to further protect the screen. I am also ditching the case I'm currently using. I ordered a smart cover and a back cover that is compatible with it so that it's protected on all sides and I don't have to worry about tossing it into the backpack.

I'm sick to death of dealing with these cosmetic issues and I'm now stuck with the one I have, so I may as well do what I can to prevent further damage.

 

[MaxxTraxx]

In my opinion, your just nitpicking small details!

 

[spiderman0616]

I've been rendered utterly speechless.

I did decided to e mail Tim Cook yesterday and politely told him about the issues I've been having--I did not expect a response.

Today in my voice mail I have a message from executive customer relations asking me to call them so they can help me out.

I'm pretty amazed--we'll see what happens when I call them after work. I'll update when I can.

 

[greytmom]

I've been rendered utterly speechless.

I did decided to e mail Tim Cook yesterday and politely told him about the issues I've been having--I did not expect a response.

Today in my voice mail I have a message from executive customer relations asking me to call them so they can help me out.

I'm pretty amazed--we'll see what happens when I call them after work. I'll update when I can.

There you go. The world makes sense again!

 

[spiderman0616]

There you go. The world makes sense again!

Yes it does! I'm not used to bad customer service from Apple. I know I'm not coming off as a good customer in my story, but I feel that I have not had a "new" iPad even with my initial unit. The Apple store keeps accusing me of putting dust and dead pixels in my iPads for some reason.

We'll see what happens.

 

[thekb]

Wow. Just wow.

Apple products are so beautiful, elegant and well-designed that they attract OCD customers.

Returning an ipad for a speck of dust that is only visible when the device is **SHUT OFF** is not just a little OCD, it is full-on Monk OCD!

I am a big believer in returning things when there is a problem. Those stickers that say "Don't return item to store if you have a problem" are hilarious to me. If something does not work, I return it and get refund. But there are limits to the pursuit of perfection.

Seek help before it's too late!!

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I don't expect 100% perfection, but as a graphic designer who relies on a top quality display with no imperfections, these issues were unacceptable, even though the Geniuses constantly made me feel like I was the one hallucinating.

So to be clear ... you don't expect 100% perfection, just so long as there are no imperfections??

 

[spiderman0616]

What bothered me at my last visit was that the genius told me to inspect the iPad to make sure I was 100% happy before leaving the store, and when I pointed out scuffs on the back of the iPad, he said "we can't exchange for every nitpicky little thing." These were not just little black dots, there were large black scuffs around the camera lens and along the edges. Apparantly that's an acceptable refurb for Apple. So, inspect the iPad to make sure you're happy, but if you're not happy, screw you. At that point I would have rather had my last one back with the big hunk of white dust under the screen, but it was made very clear to me that I was now stuck with the one I had.

I have not connected with the representative that called me yesterday, but will give her my story when she calls me back. At least with Apple, they reach out to you sometimes to find out why you're unhappy. It just would have been nice if Apple hadn't accused me of being the cause of all the dust and dead pixel problems I had been having. I will also mention again that I was told BY AN APPLECARE REP that dust under the screen is NOT within spec and that I should take it in to the Apple store for an exchange.

 

[spiderman0616]

So, I finally got to talk to the person who left me a message. She was from "executive customer relations on behalf of Tim Cook". We played phone tag for a few days, but finally got to speak. I had such trouble getting a hold of her, that last night I just wrote my whole situation out in an e mail to her.

More or less, I was given a sales pitch. It was like she just wanted to recite a commercial to me. She said, "iPads are terrific devices because it's like having the internet in your hand." Yes, she actually used that.

Anyway, I was very politely told that these things are not being used in the Hubble telescope, they're not going to be perfect, and she hopes I'm happy with the one I ended up with. In other words, they're not doing anything else for me. I now have an iPad 2 with a scratch on the front, a pixel that stuck on a very faint light blue color (not such a big deal), and has some minor dust flecks under the screen. I'm no better or worse off than I was before.

I also got another survey from the Apple store somehow, and filled it out expressing my displeasure. I've pretty much taken every avenue I know how to take. Time to give up.

 

[andrewlgm]

So, I finally got to talk to the person who left me a message. She was from "executive customer relations on behalf of Tim Cook". We played phone tag for a few days, but finally got to speak. I had such trouble getting a hold of her, that last night I just wrote my whole situation out in an e mail to her.

More or less, I was given a sales pitch. It was like she just wanted to recite a commercial to me. She said, "iPads are terrific devices because it's like having the internet in your hand." Yes, she actually used that.

Anyway, I was very politely told that these things are not being used in the Hubble telescope, they're not going to be perfect, and she hopes I'm happy with the one I ended up with. In other words, they're not doing anything else for me. I now have an iPad 2 with a scratch on the front, a pixel that stuck on a very faint light blue color (not such a big deal), and has some minor dust flecks under the screen. I'm no better or worse off than I was before.

I also got another survey from the Apple store somehow, and filled it out expressing my displeasure. I've pretty much taken every avenue I know how to take. Time to give up.

I feel for you. I'm also an extremely unlucky individual when it comes to tech. My first apple purchase was a white, unibody macbook which when starting up, depending on which angle the screen was bent, the airport card would show up as not installed. So I had to restart the computer with lid completely open for the airport card to show up as installed. Weird. So I took it in, Genius guy said it sometimes happens, they would fix it, but I scheduled to drop it off the next day as I needed to back up. Ended up not getting it fixed as it stopped giving me trouble. It's been a year now. While in the store, in the hands of the genius guy, he bumped my laptop against a macbook pro, and scratched the white lid badly. And my white unibody macbook also is a little misshaped. When it is completely closed, the lid in the back does not close completely level and as the same length as the bottom.

Second purchase: iPad 1. Also had issues with Wi-Fi. It would not work anywhere but my home. It was absolutely perfect, no dust, no scratches, nothing, except that it was useless outside of my house. I took it into an apple store, it worked there exceptionally well, but the genius guy believed me anyway and exchanged the device for me. I saw him open the box of a new product and hand me out an iPad. I left the store jubilant about how apple truly is amazing. I get home, remove the plastic around the new iPad, and look at the thing's back - and there it is. A 2cm scratch. Beyond that. Product is perfect.

Bought an iPhone 4 refurbished from ATT. It came with a 2 year applecare plan already on it. Called apple to question this and they transferred the plan under my name.

Two weeks ago I went to an apple store to buy the updated airport extreme. I asked the seller if it was compatible with time machine. He guaranteed me yes. I get home and set the whole thing up, and time machine cannot find the connected hard drive to the airport extreme. I spent about 2 hours following guides on how to make it work; it eventually did, but it would always fail. Called apple and was told this feature was NOT supported on an airport extreme, and if I wanted this I would have to purchase a time capsule. For $100 more. $300 for a router with a hard drive? I don't think so. That's when I hung up. Next day on my way to work, went into another apple store, returned the product and filled up my survey online. I already got a call from a rep wanting to discuss my experience and what they can do to make it better. I didn't call back.

 

[TokiWartooth]

So, I finally got to talk to the person who left me a message. She was from "executive customer relations on behalf of Tim Cook". We played phone tag for a few days, but finally got to speak. I had such trouble getting a hold of her, that last night I just wrote my whole situation out in an e mail to her.

More or less, I was given a sales pitch. It was like she just wanted to recite a commercial to me. She said, "iPads are terrific devices because it's like having the internet in your hand." Yes, she actually used that.

Anyway, I was very politely told that these things are not being used in the Hubble telescope, they're not going to be perfect, and she hopes I'm happy with the one I ended up with. In other words, they're not doing anything else for me. I now have an iPad 2 with a scratch on the front, a pixel that stuck on a very faint light blue color (not such a big deal), and has some minor dust flecks under the screen. I'm no better or worse off than I was before.

I also got another survey from the Apple store somehow, and filled it out expressing my displeasure. I've pretty much taken every avenue I know how to take. Time to give up.

first world problems....

 

[bluez3]

I gave up looking for the holy grail of a perfect iPad. To put things in perspective and perhaps ease your mind on this, look at it this way, iPads, iPods and iPhones are disposable technology. You saw first hand how if there was a problem, the solution is to swap it out. It's not like the MacBooks or iMacs. They wont take into the back and dismantle it to correct the problem. They send it back to some processing facility elsewhere. Even if you do get a perfect idevice, guess what, you're not keeping it forever anyways. You'll either sell it in a year to get idevice n+1 or if you need to do a battery service through apple in the future, you are gonna lose that perfect idevice when they swap it for another with fresher batteries in it.

Enjoy it, and recognize the money you paid is essentially the initial installment offering of several that will be made to the church of Apple, and the iPad you got is just the coolaid flavor for now, till we all pony up our annual offering to get a taste of the next new flavor.

 

[spiderman0616]

I feel for you. I'm also an extremely unlucky individual when it comes to tech. My first apple purchase was a white, unibody macbook which when starting up, depending on which angle the screen was bent, the airport card would show up as not installed. So I had to restart the computer with lid completely open for the airport card to show up as installed. Weird. So I took it in, Genius guy said it sometimes happens, they would fix it, but I scheduled to drop it off the next day as I needed to back up. Ended up not getting it fixed as it stopped giving me trouble. It's been a year now. While in the store, in the hands of the genius guy, he bumped my laptop against a macbook pro, and scratched the white lid badly. And my white unibody macbook also is a little misshaped. When it is completely closed, the lid in the back does not close completely level and as the same length as the bottom.

Second purchase: iPad 1. Also had issues with Wi-Fi. It would not work anywhere but my home. It was absolutely perfect, no dust, no scratches, nothing, except that it was useless outside of my house. I took it into an apple store, it worked there exceptionally well, but the genius guy believed me anyway and exchanged the device for me. I saw him open the box of a new product and hand me out an iPad. I left the store jubilant about how apple truly is amazing. I get home, remove the plastic around the new iPad, and look at the thing's back - and there it is. A 2cm scratch. Beyond that. Product is perfect.

Bought an iPhone 4 refurbished from ATT. It came with a 2 year applecare plan already on it. Called apple to question this and they transferred the plan under my name.

Two weeks ago I went to an apple store to buy the updated airport extreme. I asked the seller if it was compatible with time machine. He guaranteed me yes. I get home and set the whole thing up, and time machine cannot find the connected hard drive to the airport extreme. I spent about 2 hours following guides on how to make it work; it eventually did, but it would always fail. Called apple and was told this feature was NOT supported on an airport extreme, and if I wanted this I would have to purchase a time capsule. For $100 more. $300 for a router with a hard drive? I don't think so. That's when I hung up. Next day on my way to work, went into another apple store, returned the product and filled up my survey online. I already got a call from a rep wanting to discuss my experience and what they can do to make it better. I didn't call back.

You should call them back--sometimes they help you out because I think they get in trouble for bad feedback.

----------

I gave up looking for the holy grail of a perfect iPad. To put things in perspective and perhaps ease your mind on this, look at it this way, iPads, iPods and iPhones are disposable technology. You saw first hand how if there was a problem, the solution is to swap it out. It's not like the MacBooks or iMacs. They wont take into the back and dismantle it to correct the problem. They send it back to some processing facility elsewhere. Even if you do get a perfect idevice, guess what, you're not keeping it forever anyways. You'll either sell it in a year to get idevice n+1 or if you need to do a battery service through apple in the future, you are gonna lose that perfect idevice when they swap it for another with fresher batteries in it.

Enjoy it, and recognize the money you paid is essentially the initial installment offering of several that will be made to the church of Apple, and the iPad you got is just the coolaid flavor for now, till we all pony up our annual offering to get a taste of the next new flavor.

Yes--I'm not giving up on Apple stuff. Despite all these cosmetic issues, I love actually USING the product. Once I'm doing something on it, I forget about all my other issues. I have decided (as I just posted in another thread) to put a screen protector on it, a back cover, and I am going to start using a Smart Cover. It will be protected on all sides, the tiny pixel problem, the dust flecks, and the scratch will be hidden by the screen protector, and the Smart Cover with the back cover that I just put on it will look bad ass. I'm just going to be excited about that and enjoy using my iPad. When the 3 comes out, I plan on selling the whole shebang to someone else and using the money for the new model.

 

[macpluslaptop]

next time, you make the first nick

Everything shiny and new (tech, cars, appliances) will degrade as soon as you get it home and start to use it. Ceiling fans attract a layer of unsightly dust, plastic discolors, stainless steel isn't shiny anymore, etc. etc. Of course something defective needs to be replaced, but cosmetic issues will always break your heart. So be proactive next time you buy something, and make that scratch. It will release a lot of the tension you experience just waiting for one to appear.