Quote :

"Apple owns all others in terms of customer support"

i agree. despite my poor experiences with the macbook quality, every time i've gone down to the Apple store to get something fixed or complain about something, I've gotten whatever I needed, no questions asked. And I'm sure those macbook problems have largely been addressed in the unibody line

6/6/2009 2:26:21 PM

yeah, me too.
you occasionally hear people bitching about "the morons at the genius bar" or them charging exorbitant restocking fees or something, but I have never had a bad experience, and I have been in there a lot with many, many different products. As long the items are in warranty or under Apple Care, i've never paid a dime for anything and they've never questioned me or asked me to pay or anything.


I had a co-worker who would go on big anti-apple rants whenever their name came up. I mean, he would really rail on them - "fuck apple, i will never buy another apple product," "you should boycott them," etc etc. I finally asked him why and he said that he had a broken iPod he took back to the Apple Store and they wouldn't replace it! OK, i said..... how old was it?
"14 months"
"did you buy the extended apple care?"
"no"
"well..... the factory warranty is only for 1 year"
"I know! That's exactly what THEY told me!"
"ok....."

then he went on about how it doesn't matter, or that it was only 2 months out of warranty or whatever, but he never could never make a clear point about exactly why this was Apple's fault.


i've also been happy with the actual people at the Genius Bar (both at South Pointe and Crabtree). Sure, they're mostly stuck-up hipsters, but whatever - i can get over that. Pretty much without fail they've been able to fix my problems on the spot, even with some software problems that I was convinced they wouldn't be able to figure out. But they hvae a lot of secret key-combinations up their sleeves that work wonders.
And they don't dick around trying to fix problems that they know they can't solve on the spot, like if here is a hardware problem. As soon as they see something needs to be replaced, they will get the parts from the back, or send it off for repair, again with no questions asked.

6/6/2009 2:38:49 PM

Quote :

"What event or product will eventually be their downfall, bringing them back down to normal "

When Steve Jobs dies

6/6/2009 3:08:53 PM

I've had some pretty bad experiences with Apple's support, both over the phone and at the Apple store.

I had a Powerbook G4 that I purchased in 2004 (with the 3-year Apple Care warranty), and the computer was pretty much a lemon. Out of the box the display had 7 dead pixels and had faded white spots. Within 6 hours of purchasing the $3k computer I took it back to the store and said it was messed up. The genius folks said that the 7 dead pixels didn't satisfy their dead pixel policy and said the white splotches were the result of me leaving the screen on for extended periods of time (the computer had been on for less than an hour...). The store manager agreed with the geniuses. They wouldn't replace it, and they said it would have to be shipped off to Apple to be further examined to see if the "problems" would be covered by warranty. I had to force them to let me return the computer (by way of me calling AmEx to deny the charge), and then they gave in and sold me a new one.

Over the next couple of years, the hard drive died twice, and the motherboard fried. Apple was pretty good about repairing those issues.

Another issue that ticked me off was, when I got the computer back from a repair, the laptop would no longer go to sleep when the lid was shut. And if it were put to sleep manually, the faulty switch would wake the computer up when the lid was shut and drain my battery. The heat from the computer also damaged the display. Apple phone support told me that since I upgraded to 10.4 that the feature to put the computer to sleep when the lid was shut was "no longer a supported feature" and refused to help me. After some curse words, about 3-4 other techs, and 3 hours later, I finally got someone who admitted it was a hardware issue and repaired the faulty switch and the damaged display.

Every time I look back at my past issues, I often wonder why I'm still a customer of theirs. They make good products, and fortunately I haven't had any issues with the two unibody MacBook Pros that I purchased in January. I'm still bitter with their tech support and I doubt I will ever use Apple's Care support again. I purchased the two MBPs at Best Buy with their extended warranty. I've had good luck with their warranty repairs and know that they replace after so many repair attempts.

6/6/2009 3:25:46 PM

odd...i've never once had an issue with their support. Of course I've never once bought the apple care because its just an extended warranty since the manufacturer is also the person who sold u the laptop. Every time I went in there for an issue they helped me right away and replaced whatever needed replacing. Same goes with the 3 iPhone replacements i've needed.

6/6/2009 3:57:08 PM

^^ Wow. I think in this case that was a complete failure on the part of the Apple Store itself.

Around that time I had a series of problems with an iBook and after working with Apple corporate (1-800-number) they sent me a *brand new* upgraded model of the laptop.

7 dead pixels is ridiculous. In a case like that you should have walked out of the Apple Store and called Apple directly and I would bet they would solve your problem.

6/6/2009 5:56:18 PM

Quote :

"- Apple owns all others in terms of customer support "

Their "enterprise" support is a fucking joke. 50 minutes on hold + had to give them a credit card so they could put a hold on it just to replace the fucking piece of shit "mighty" mouse that didn't work. It took another 40 minutes just to get to that point because they wouldn't believe that it was possible for the mouse to be DoA. Didn't work on the mac it came with, didn't work with another mac, other mice worked fine with both macs.

If it was Dell or HP business support it would have been 10 minutes on the phone and i'd have the tracking number for the replacement.

My sister's macbook pro's gpu (or something else on the motherboard) went to crap last week and the genuis bar wouldn't do anything for her since she had dropped it a year ago and there was a dent.

When i called them up to troubleshoot their shitty ichat server (a fucked jabberd), the first guy had no idea what he was doing and said he could pass me on to someone who did for $300. Turns out all i needed to do was reinstall OSX "server" because the original install that came on it didn't work.

This was all moot anyway since OpenDirectory is total shit, the ichat server doesnt work accross nat (among other problems), and we didn't need it anyway since all we use our macs for is as dumb clients. They just boot up, connect to the vpn, and then use RDP to connect to a terminal server.

Macs are ok for some home users, but in the enterprise they're total shit if you actually try to use them as anything more than dumb terminals.

6/6/2009 6:21:59 PM

Quote :

"they wouldn't believe that it was possible for the mouse to be DoA"

I think that was one of the key issues I had with the tech support. Their egos were so overinflated that Apple products were superior to all that it was impossible for their hardware to just fail.

A lot of the times when my hard drive or display died, they tried to tell me that I wasn't using my computer properly and that it was clearly my fault.

I've never had them try to charge me money for tech support (maybe that's on the enterprise level), but I gladly would have paid not to talk to a pretentious "tech support" representative.

6/7/2009 2:21:36 AM

well its a good thing apple doesn't manufacture said devices so you can tell them they can keep their ego's in tact. and by that I mean the hard drives, displays etc.

6/8/2009 10:22:27 AM

http://www.apple.com/displays/

6/8/2009 10:33:09 AM

We're talking components here

6/8/2009 10:37:44 AM

so wait. Your argument is that Apple's smug attitude that their products cant possibly ever fail is justified because they dont make the components?

6/8/2009 10:42:28 AM

^umm...no. sigh...you kids. I was being sarcastic as in...if you really want to satisfy these 'genius' ego's you can say what i said..nvm way over your heads. This way they can still help you and not feel that apple made a defective product and admit to it

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 10:47 AM. Reason : .]

6/8/2009 10:46:16 AM

heh. Im pretty used to you defending apple no matter how dumb their decisions so i thought you were serious posting.

6/8/2009 11:34:09 AM

^nice jab, however inaccurate it is.

6/8/2009 11:39:35 AM

Well, let's be honest. When it comes to personal computer sales, the "down fall" of Apple would be a pretty short drop. In the first quarter of 2006, they represented something like 4% of worldwide PC shipments. In the first quarter of 2009, they represented almost 8%, down from a peak of 9% last year. That's some pretty solid growth, but this hardly represents a true threat to Wintel dominance. Apple computers have been serving a niche market of hipsters and art school students for decades and thats pretty much where they will stay.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=939015

Apple's true markets of dominance are in mp3 players and smart phones. Over half of Apple's revenue last year came from non-pc sales (primarily the iPod and the iPhone). Therefore, the true "downfall" of Apple will only come if any company is successful at making an iPhone or iPod "killer".

Looking at Zunes and various smartphones, I won't hold my breath for this to happen any time soon. But so long as Wintel machines dominate, Apple's market position is vulnerable. Why? Because people want their seamless integration between these products and their computers. That hasn't always the case with Apple Ipods/Iphones and Windows products. For example, a few years back, iPhone would not automatically sync with contacts from your Outlook, even though a Windows Smartphone would. I don't know if thats still the case, but my point is these issues do pop-up from time to time and it can be a royal pain. If there was an alternative that was as good as Apple, I think most people would switch.

Now, like I said, I don't see a Windows mp3 player or smartphone challenging Apple's dominance in these markets anytime soon. But if that ever did happen, I think we really would see something comparable to Apple's "downfall".

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 12:21 PM. Reason : ``]

6/8/2009 12:15:20 PM

Quote :

"Apple computers have been serving a niche market of hipsters and art school students for decades and thats pretty much where they will stay."

umm...thats where they WERE...thats not what they are now. Hence the growth.

6/8/2009 1:13:37 PM

^ I actually cut part of my post out and meant to cut that out too. I was going to argue that the growth was probably due to the failure of Windows Vista, because Apple's computers have not gotten incredibly better in the past 2-3 years. But if Windows 7 is as good as it looks like it will be, I think that will put a stop to that. Then i was going to wrap up the arugment with jab at mac users--they've been serving hipsters/artists and that's pretty much who will they keep serving.

I took all of it out because it would distract from my major point: apple doesn't dominate the personal computer market, it dominates the mp3 player and smart phone markets. So any discussion about Apple's "down fall" should probably center on those products.

I thought it was a point worth making because most of the convo thus far has focused on Macs. In reality, that neglects over half of Apple's revenue base.

6/8/2009 1:24:10 PM

Snow Leopard.

no one is saying apple is going to crush microsoft in the OS department but they will continue to see good growth between their hardware and OS. Windows 7 will not change that. Microsoft is fixing their second windows ME mistake with windows 7. Not improving an already great OS.

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2009 1:29:49 PM

I don't see how Snow Leopard explains Mac sales doubling between 2006-2008. As far as I knew, the new OS is not even for sale yet.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-snow-leopard-mac-os-on-june-19-2009-6

A much better explaination, I think is the fact that Windows Vista was released in January 2007 and it was so crappy people went looking for alternatives.

If that is the case and it turns out that Vista's initial poor performance was the major reason for the growth in Mac Sales, I don't see how you can argue that Windows 7 won't reverse that trend if the OS is as good as it looks like it will be.

But, like I said, that just distracts from my point. The downfall of Apple will come when a company comes along that can compete with the iPhone and iPod.

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 3:16 PM. Reason : ``]

6/8/2009 3:13:42 PM

^he brought up windows 7 so I reminded him that apple too has an 'upgrade' in the works.

Quote :

"If it turns out that Vista's poor performance was the major reason for the growth in Mac Sales, I don't see how you can argue that Windows 7 won't reverse that trend."

what kind of logic is that? If all these new users weren't satisfied with Mac they would have abandoned that path already.

Quote :

"The downfall of Apple will come when a company comes along that can compete with the iPhone and iPod."

Doesn't that apply to ALL companies? You aren't bringing anything new to the table other than saying if a competitor comes along that is better they're doomed. lol

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 3:19 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2009 3:15:18 PM

^Actually I know a lot of people that bought mac's because they didnt want vista
Its actually funny how much some people overlook to deal with their mac mostly its just annoying
little things.

That said once windows 7 comes out and if it performs i think it will hurt mac sales b/c people
will look at prices again. Though I would be happy to be wrong.

6/8/2009 3:26:15 PM

Like I said, I bring it up because no one has mentioned how much the "Apple brand" actually relies on devices other than computers. So far, all the talk has centered on the mac, when in reality the mac isn't the biggest thing at Apple anymore. To repeat from 2 posts ago:

Quote :

"I thought it was a point worth making because most of the convo thus far has focused on Macs. In reality, that neglects over half of Apple's revenue base."

And if that doesn't count as a contribution, I am not sure what the point of the thread is. I mean, lots of people have said that Apple will "fall" if Jobs dies and they "lose their vision" and start amkign inferior products. But news flash, that's also kinda true of any comapny. Poorer products = fewer customers.

*I* thought we were identifying Apple's specific vulnerabilities. And in my first post, I explained why I thought Apple was vulnerable on the mp3/smartphone side of their business (people want these devices to be seamlessly integrated with their Wintel PCs, which isn't always possible w/iPod or iPhone). If that ain't a contribution to the thread, then I don't know what the thread is supposed to be about.

[Edited on June 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM. Reason : ``]

6/8/2009 3:32:57 PM