So Long Its Been Good To Know You
Hello,
I am a new comer to this forum, but an old hand at Macs and Apple products. I started with a Mac 128 and worked years training people on and troubleshooting Macs in education.
At home we run both a Mac and PC tower and PC laptop on our home network. My wife and I both have iPODs (a classic and a touch). I am considering seriously upgrading the PC tower; replacing it with a new Mac. However, my recent experiences with Apple have convinced me not to continue with Apple.
Recently we went to the Apple store in Santa Monica. I tried asking a techie question to one of their staff. He couldn?t answer it. Told me to talk to one of the ?Apple geniuses? at the troubleshooting station. I went there and was told I could not talk to them or make an appointment to talk with them because I did not have a piece of hardware with me. I had to talk to someone ?on the floor?. I explained my problem and was directed to a specific person ? the same person to whom I had already spoke, who could not answer my question and had directed me to the troubleshooting station. Conclusion: sorry you can not talk to the troubleshooters.
So I went to check out the latest operating system as I have a special need that was no problem for the old OS 9.2 system, but I was not sure if the feature had made the transition to the newer OS X systems. Unfortunately I seemed to touch the wrong computer on the wrong table and was instantly shooed away from that open computer. I found the surface ambiance of the Apple store friendly, but scratch the surface and it was, or could have been a restrictive PC establishment. I felt like I was in a ?do not fold, spindle or mutilate? establishment. Eventually with great persistence I did get the basic information (after two days of trying) and found out that the newer OS Xs machines do have the capability that I need, but in a much less user friendly environment ? in fact, the mechanism is not far of the cumbersome way a PC does it.
Well at least I got my iPOD touch based on checking one out at the store. Of course, as most probably know the iPOD system is not intuitive in the same sense that Macs have been and more or less still are. So I turned to Apple support on the phone ? that much hailed service on the Apple TV advertisements. Twice I got people in Indian whose English was barely understandable and had to thank them and hang up. The kicker was using the Apple sharing feature so that my wife and I could share songs, etc. After three or four calls I got a person who spoke good English (I think he was Stateside support), but it was clear that he had no idea what was what, that he was reading from a manual.
At the end of this help session he got me to the very place I had been before, but the sharing feature was still not working. Finally he transferred me to ?a product specialist?. This made me wonder why in the phone tree I had to specifically identify my product? I understood that I would be talking to someone who already knew my product? No so apparently. Then the product specialist came on the line and told me that we can not use the Sharing feature because our laptop and our tower are not on the same network. News to me. Never had this problem before. He explained that to use sharing the two computers had to be on the same network ? we went round and round. I explained they both go through the same router, there is only one network in out home.
HE explained that the laptop was connected to the router via WiFi while the tower was hardwired to the router, thus as far as Apple was concerned they were not on the same network. I would not have been all that surprised if I were dealing with a PC troubleshooter. They often seem to grasp at straws.
My experience with the formal, structured environment beneath the surface at the Apple store, with ?Apple geniuses? who aren?t and have to read from manuals, with some support whose English I can?t understand, with the sharing network/non-network quirks of our iPODs and with the lose of the user friendliness of some features in the newer OS X machines has pretty well convinced my that I should take my enjoyment from the Apple adds not their product people, not their non-intuitive apps, and certainly not intheir lose of user friendliness of certain features and maybe, just maybe when the Google OS for PCs comes out try a new PC. I never thought that my long appreciation for Macs and Apple could be so quickly and efficiently compromised.
Lucca
I am a new comer to this forum, but an old hand at Macs and Apple products. I started with a Mac 128 and worked years training people on and troubleshooting Macs in education.
At home we run both a Mac and PC tower and PC laptop on our home network. My wife and I both have iPODs (a classic and a touch). I am considering seriously upgrading the PC tower; replacing it with a new Mac. However, my recent experiences with Apple have convinced me not to continue with Apple.
Recently we went to the Apple store in Santa Monica. I tried asking a techie question to one of their staff. He couldn?t answer it. Told me to talk to one of the ?Apple geniuses? at the troubleshooting station. I went there and was told I could not talk to them or make an appointment to talk with them because I did not have a piece of hardware with me. I had to talk to someone ?on the floor?. I explained my problem and was directed to a specific person ? the same person to whom I had already spoke, who could not answer my question and had directed me to the troubleshooting station. Conclusion: sorry you can not talk to the troubleshooters.
So I went to check out the latest operating system as I have a special need that was no problem for the old OS 9.2 system, but I was not sure if the feature had made the transition to the newer OS X systems. Unfortunately I seemed to touch the wrong computer on the wrong table and was instantly shooed away from that open computer. I found the surface ambiance of the Apple store friendly, but scratch the surface and it was, or could have been a restrictive PC establishment. I felt like I was in a ?do not fold, spindle or mutilate? establishment. Eventually with great persistence I did get the basic information (after two days of trying) and found out that the newer OS Xs machines do have the capability that I need, but in a much less user friendly environment ? in fact, the mechanism is not far of the cumbersome way a PC does it.
Well at least I got my iPOD touch based on checking one out at the store. Of course, as most probably know the iPOD system is not intuitive in the same sense that Macs have been and more or less still are. So I turned to Apple support on the phone ? that much hailed service on the Apple TV advertisements. Twice I got people in Indian whose English was barely understandable and had to thank them and hang up. The kicker was using the Apple sharing feature so that my wife and I could share songs, etc. After three or four calls I got a person who spoke good English (I think he was Stateside support), but it was clear that he had no idea what was what, that he was reading from a manual.
At the end of this help session he got me to the very place I had been before, but the sharing feature was still not working. Finally he transferred me to ?a product specialist?. This made me wonder why in the phone tree I had to specifically identify my product? I understood that I would be talking to someone who already knew my product? No so apparently. Then the product specialist came on the line and told me that we can not use the Sharing feature because our laptop and our tower are not on the same network. News to me. Never had this problem before. He explained that to use sharing the two computers had to be on the same network ? we went round and round. I explained they both go through the same router, there is only one network in out home.
HE explained that the laptop was connected to the router via WiFi while the tower was hardwired to the router, thus as far as Apple was concerned they were not on the same network. I would not have been all that surprised if I were dealing with a PC troubleshooter. They often seem to grasp at straws.
My experience with the formal, structured environment beneath the surface at the Apple store, with ?Apple geniuses? who aren?t and have to read from manuals, with some support whose English I can?t understand, with the sharing network/non-network quirks of our iPODs and with the lose of the user friendliness of some features in the newer OS X machines has pretty well convinced my that I should take my enjoyment from the Apple adds not their product people, not their non-intuitive apps, and certainly not intheir lose of user friendliness of certain features and maybe, just maybe when the Google OS for PCs comes out try a new PC. I never thought that my long appreciation for Macs and Apple could be so quickly and efficiently compromised.
Lucca
Comments
It is annoying when support people don't know what they're talking about; what the guy told you about iTunes sharing was mostly rubbish (it does indeed only work if both machines are on the same network, but one machine being wireless and one wired does not mean that they are on different networks)
BTW:
It's iPod, not iPOD.
Why don't you tell us what this "feature" is that OS 9.2 does/did better than OS X?
I think you mean "loss" not "lose" a couple of times at the end there.
Google OS is just going to be a web browser and that's it; no native programs, everything will be web-based.
What makes you think trying to get a PC to work will be any better?
The problem is all computers are rubbish in one way or another. It's just that Macs are rubbish less often than PCs.
My local Apple store is located right in a mall and I have gone there several times just to simply walk around. Normally I am greeted as I walk in and everyone is quite friendly. No one (yet) has pressured me to buy something. In addition, every time I have called 1-800-MY-APPLE I have gotten someone who speaks English with no problem. I am not denying that Apple does not outsource however some things seem not quite right.