Why I will be switching back (to PC)

[Jo-Kun]

My Mac History:

Performa 5200: never a problem.
B&W G3: never a problem.
Ti Pb: Problem = someone stole it :S otherwise never a problem.
G5: order arrived in one week, I ordered direct from the guy wh imports them in belgium... maybe that's why it was so fast dunno, no problem with it at all...
Classic: no problem because the only thing it has to do is be cute & anyway it does work

i've been with mac since OS8 upto OSX Panther (skipped the first OSX & waited for Jaguar to arrive because most programs still had to go trough classic)

and yes I've been with Windows from 3.1 to XP pro (and the only decent version was Win2000Pro... all the rest did make my pc's awfull beasts)

it's not so common to have problems with apple's hardware, as far as I know from all the Mac users I know, and being in the graphical buisness that's a lot, I only know of one problem with a Rev A G5 wich was ordered the day they were released... so really first edition, that blew up 4 processors in total, one logic board and one powerbrick. for the rest all other mac's & iPods I know wich are in use today at people I know all work 100% fine... and thats about 80 machines, maybe more...

so I think you have a lot of bad luck in your case...

 

[Fabio_gsilva]

I'm sorry for your awfuly bad luck... Keep on trying. Sometime things will have to work right for you!!

I'm just buying my first Mac, a Mini... Man, I'm really praying God to protect my Mini all the way through Miami to Brazil, São Paulo... It will be a real delusion to have a huge problem like you did...

Best regards!

 

[CanadaRAM]

I will admit what i wrote was a bit of a rant but i needed to vent after two months of crap and some seriously taxing phone calls today to apple. I now see that was a mistake to do that here, as I was hoping for some support or advice but it seems most seem to think I am fighting some sort of pc war, or faking a post or some other agender, seriously at the end of the day PC / Mac / Sun whatever its just a computer and it serves a job.

Simple: You didn't ask for support or advice. You said: "I can't say I have had a single postive experince with Apple. <...bad experiences..> I have to say I will be advising my clients not to touch an apple. "

That is an open invitation for people to disagree with your position.

You want support or advice, ask for it.

But don't complain if you reap exactly what you sowed.

 

[DeSnousa]

Apple Australia and resellers in general are terible. I truly believe the surplus stock is what we get in Australia. I bought an iBook from a reseller down the street. I was told 1 week a month later it arrived but guess this it was a used iBook from an apple confrence (1 day it was used for). I rejected and they told me its this or another month or 2. I felt angry untill they offered a 512mb stick and a carry bag, which i accepted. Still pissed me off and proof of yet more bad services.

I really am sorry, i fell for you, but when you do get it, it is worth it. I know yours has been going on for months now all i can recommend it complain. Another option i was thinking of if there is a megamart store near your. They've become a reseller now. I went to buy an iPod and saw tons of empty boxs waiting to get bought. I believe megamart has a policy on over ordering. Call them up and check it is worth a go. Also call up the consumer watchdog and complain to them.

Good luck hang in there.

 

[pianodude123]

well thats ok that you dont believe me.

if you want to talk to chris at apple australia my current service rep or the apple center at hurstville in the south of sydney i will give you there numbers and my refernece numbers and you can call them and ask them for yourself.

Wow does any actually read the posts in here.

Seriously I love OSX and still do I think its great, its why I bought a mac after all. But i need a working computer and there CUSTOMER SERVICE people seem unable to give / supply me one for whatever reason

And why does everyone seem to think a switch to pc is a switch to MS I bought a mac cause of its UNIX core. Seriously the PC / Mac war ended years ago, Move on.

I will admit what i wrote was a bit of a rant but i needed to vent after two months of crap and some seriously taxing phone calls today to apple. I now see that was a mistake to do that here, as I was hoping for some support or advice but it seems most seem to think I am fighting some sort of pc war, or faking a post or some other agender, seriously at the end of the day PC / Mac / Sun whatever its just a computer and it serves a job.

If it doesnt work it is useless, regardless how great the design is or operating system or whatever. Given the levels of most of the normal posts in here as I am a regular reader I would have expected more then the replies I have gotten in here.

I have had four other very recent PCs before I got my Powermac. The Dell Dimension 8400, the sony VAio media center thing, the HP, and an Emachines.

Ill start with the Dell.

If you think Apple support is bad, you should call up Ramshidad over at Dell. Not to be racist, but Dell, outsources all their support over to India, and you talk to people who cannot even speak english fluently. I admit that sometimes with apple you will get a Californian moron who is not very knowledgable, but mostly you will get someone who knows what they are talking about. I returned the 3.4 Ghz machine because it was UNBELIEVABLY SLOW!! (sorry for the spelling) The machine had all sorts of errors and other ____ that I couldnot put up with for my business.

I live in the US and it took me 2 months just to get the little bums to accept my computer back. They picked it up 2 weeks later and I did not get my payment 5 MONTHS LATER!

SONY: Everything was just dandy for a while when after 3 weeks of usage, BAM, the computer had about 7 critical errors a day and didnt function. It then wouldnot turn on. There is not any illegal software on these business machines, so dont think of any spyware, Viruses: No possibility because It has top of the line virus protection and was not on any bad sites.
They had some foreign tech support, but their 2nd and 3rd level services are american based. They could not solve my problem and I ended up losing all my data.

Emachines: Their tech support is plain AWFUL! I cannot even compare it because it is chat, but you would ask the person a question and they would not get back to you because they were talking to like, 7600 other people as well.

All in all, do not complain about apple support, IT COULD BE BETTER! But, it is not comparable to others, especially if you live in america. I had a friend whos 20 inch imac hard drive crashed because he over heated it in a corner...they sent him a brand new computer with tiger prreinstalled next day.

 

[e²Studios]

My first entry in to the Apple world was with a 2nd hand iMac G3 500 DV SE, i never had a single issue with it. The fact that it kept pace with my P4 2.0 impressed the hell out of me, OS X was easier to use, and being that it is *nix based it appealed to the geek in me.

My First real Apple Purchase was a G3 900 12" iBook/ap/combo/640mb that i purchased from the local apple store. The first one the screen would randomly look "scrambled" and the latch wouldnt release the screen so easily. They gave me a replacement.. this one just decided it was going to turn off and never come to life again, after standing at the "genius" bar for nearly 4 hours they gave me my 3rd unit. I recieved it on January 6th of 2004, and its been trouble free since, I have trust in Apple making a quality product and like anything that is manufactured there will be "bad apples" in the bunch. I admit i still dont have much faith in the Local Sacramento apple store genius bar, but thats mainly from the hours of waiting i had to endure.

About 6 week or so ago i recieved my Mac Mini, i love it... I got Tiger today and weeeee yea well i still drool over the G5's, but when the choice is G5 or the couch, i know my boundaries

Dont let a few bad apples (no pun intended) ruin your experience, mistakes happen in manufacturing, coming from the PC world and working in it i can attest that it happens more in the PC world than in the Mac world.

Ed

 

[superfunkomatic]

really odd. i'm on my 7th mac now. plus i've done tech support on macs for the past 4 years. i think you may have a bad dealer or something.

- ipod battery went - apple replaced the entire unit under warranty
- g4 quicksilver with bad motherboard - solder on a circuit board - replaced unit under warranty

newbie, troll?

funny how these posts are always by newbies, but if you search through the forum rarely are they ever posted by long-term mac users, hmmm...

 

[Mord]

Actually Sony Laptops are very good.
And with Linux on it, should be good.

Maybe Apple London are great but this is Apple Australia I am talking about.

And the car things, how would you be if you put your car in for service and two months later you was still catching the train cause they wouldn't get back to you Of course they dont actually ever get back to you. And all the while having the parts in stock and still have your Thousand $$$ investment.

Not very happy with the customer service I would expect and not feeling too much love for the product.

my cisco instructor has gone through 5 motherboard replacements on his sony viao, and one of my friends has had 3 motherboard replacements on his dell laptop, all the parts are made by the same people asustek and foxconn.

your experience is just bad luck, how about you demand a refund and order a powerbook from the apple online store.

 

[Sun Baked]

Even Aston Martin makes lemons, remember they fought a good long battle to prove one of their cars was fine with the top down in the FL sun.

But the owner eventually won, because actually knowing the speed of the vehicle is quite critical to driving said vehicle -- and you should still be able to drive a conv. with the top down even if it has a digital cluster.

---

Yes, Apple does send out some bad machines, and the customer service may turn into a nightmare for some people...

But I hope he can defuse the bad karma before switching back to a PC, or his life is about to become hell.

 

[PCM]

So, just because someone happens to wonder why he or even you has so many problems when someone like me has few problems, doesn't make someone a zealot.
Fact is, I hate the usage of zealot for someone who disagrees it just warps the conversation from 'let me understand the problem' to a defense of Apple=zealot, ie irrational.

hi I think you misunderstood what I was saying...I was referring to the post with a picture of a troll. That, IMHO, is the definition of an apple zealot.

NO offense, but it also sounds like you've had a few problems yourself. Logic board repair, ipod and powerbook...that's three products. Cheers....

 

[CanadaRAM]

hi I think you misunderstood what I was saying...I was referring to the post with a picture of a troll. That, IMHO, is the definition of an apple zealot.

No, I'm with E on this one. It has nothing to do with the opinion expressed, it has to do with the way it is expressed. A Troll is someone who posts an inflammatory posting on a 'board (and inflammatory includes something directly at odds with the community sentiment of the 'board, aggravated by a fixed postition and absolute declaration of fact or conclusion, not allowing for alternatives); and where that post is not made for the purpose of answers, or support, or healthy debate, but simply to set off fireworks on the board.

The OP has had a terrible and disgraceful experience with apple support, granted. Thousands haven't but he had. BUT the entire tenor of the original post met every criteria for being trollish.

The OP redeemed himself later by engaging in debate and possibly moderating his position (albeit with some semantic softshoe around Linux rather than Windows). A true troll would have sat back to watch the flaming, or lobbed a few more hand grenades in.

 

[PCM]

A true troll would have sat back to watch the flaming, or lobbed a few more hand grenades in.

I have to say it's tough to read people's intentions on a board, but are you referring to me?

Hopefully not...because that's far from the truth.

These boards are for discussion. Buying tips and discussion. The original poster was giving relevant info "here's what happened when I tried to BUY an apple". NOt the most relevant topic but definitely not worthy of the trash bin.

This is a community of mac users (newbies or not...in fact I had 450 posts under my old name but switched 'cause it was screwing up my google results for my personal website) and I've been visiting for over two years. I've ranted myself on this site. This site is often the first I turn to when I have an informative post or a problem.

If it hadn't been for the threads complaining about Macmice's BT mouse, I probably would have bought one, but thanks to the rants about what a piece it was, I didn't buy one. Would you buy an ibook g3? What if people didn't complain about that?

I suppose I'm just sick of reading the responses to ANY post complaining about apple products...at least one person always says "screw you...go buy a PC then"...or "yeah the g5 update sucked, but OSX is superior so enjoy XP"...or "...this dude's a troll". This happens WAAYYY too much.

cheers................................................................................

 

[CanadaRAM]

I have to say it's tough to read people's intentions on a board, but are you referring to me?

Huh?
OP = Original poster - and I was saying he turned out not to be a troll although his first post was tending that way.

So, nope, this isn't about you

 

[Sedulous]

If you used a credit card, you can probably have the charge removed. Play some hardball and threaten Apple.

 

[john1123]

i really think AppleCare is a must because you get priority treatment and the problems usually get fixed too

i've had a couple of problems with my ibook:

1) broken backlight fixed within 5 days
2) my logic board broke while in Japan, fixed overnight they picked it up in the evening and i got it back the very next day. delivered to my doorstep!!!

so far i'm impressed by apple service

 

[Orlando Furioso]

I sell Sony Laptops, and the cheaper ones have heaps of problems. The $au4500 ones are decent but aren't worth the price

sony brand laptops are not worth the money and everyone I know who has a viao has had nothing but trouble with them. not surprisingly, they get the run-a-round treatment with sony's service reps too.

 

[the dr]

QUOTE:

In Australia, many people have trouble getting proucts from Apple, because it seems they just really don't like sending stuff here .



Hmm.... I guess I'd feel kind of uneasy sending thousands of $$$'s worth of hardware to a convict colony too....

I believe that Apple Store Shinsaibashi in Japan is your closest Genius Bar... Take it there and i'm sure they'd be more than happy to sort you problems out....

 

[PCM]

Huh?
OP = Original poster - and I was saying he turned out not to be a troll although his first post was tending that way.

So, nope, this isn't about you

gotcha..

 

[iact101]

Lots of interesting and crazy comments, Thanks for the postive ones guys, the crazy ones can just go jump and as for first time posting....... isn't it common to actually finally post or join a forum when you have a problem ????

However I finally have it back and its all good. Love using OS X.

Only went to support cause it was simply something I could not fix, broken motherboard (logic board). Never generally use support even as a last option but I had no choice in this case. From some of the stories around I am not surprized that their happens to be a lot of crap support out their.

Its very interesting to read that a lot of people whom have dealt with Apple Australia have some really bad war stories as well. For all you guys/gals out their I can relate and hopefully they will pick up their game.

Funny now however looking at my OG post as it seems that in a small way we will all be switching to a pc now.......lol.

 

[Panoctopi]

glad everything worked out well. sorry that you were the victim of such poor customer service and also the victim of some posters' instantaneous defensiveness when someone raises an issue that involves an apple flaw... i love apple but they aren't flawless (the os is pretty close, but the company itself is still working on it).
anyway, enjoy it, you've more than earned it.

 

[mischief]

Thanks dude,
yeh I hate kicking up a stink and even more so cause i kinda feel its not the re-sellers fault as they do want to fix it, they just need the part to do it.

I guess by me posting this I am hoping that maybe someone from apple australia will see this and go "hey, we better fix this"

Unfortunately Apple AU has an atrocious reputation.

I was an Apple reseller for a couple of years, got to know the hardware pretty well and eventually did the AppleCare training. I saw perhaps ten customers in two years have bad luck like that out of hundreds that came in to have their Macs fixed or order custom machines.

Those who had problems like yours were spooky. They were usually nice people that were treated well by the staff and the techs but seemed genuinely cursed. Their Macs would sit while Apple sent DOA parts or argued about the issue or released tech updates about recalls, etc. They'd take their machines home and something else on the machine would die, then they'd come back and do it all again. I can remember one lady that had the extrordinary bad luck of having a faulty machine out of the box followed by three DOA replacement Macs. It was spooky enough that we would all be washing our hands and doing thespianesque cleansing rituals after she left.

I've actually been payed by clients (tidy side business) to talk to Apple's phone support because I know how to get past their scripts. Turnover at their phone center is very high and the training can't always keep up with the dropout rate.