Poll: Apple's QA ? is it getting worse?

messiah

Is Apple's QA getting worse?



I've had numerous problems recently, and the Apple Dealers that I have spoken to all concur that they're seeing a massive increase in the number of items being returned faulty. And we're not talking iPods here, we're talking about the other Apple hardware.



Some say that it happened after the iPod became popular. I've heard others saying that it happened around the time that the PCIe G5s came out.



All I know is that I've had to return virtually every product I've bought recently for a refund/replacement. Everytime I've been in John Lewis' returns department there are Apple products piled up to the ceiling.



So what do you guys think? Is Apple's QA getting worse? Or is there another reason for the amount of products being returned?

backtomac

Hard for me to say, I've only had my MBP for 6 months. So far it's as reliable as my last Apple laptop-a powerbook 160. Oh, but the MBP is a *lot* faster.

ryukyu

In the past 6 months, I have 2 friends that have purchased MacBooks, 2 that have bought MacBook Pros and I bought an MBP about 2 months ago.

Not a single problem with any of them so far.

I think that most of the posts you see online are about problems and that tends to give a sense that they are doing poorly with QA.

I know they've had some problems, but with the volume of sales that Apple has, there are bound to be things that slip through the cracks, but for the most part, they do pretty well.

bergermeister

Been a Mac owner since the MacPlus... first 6 or so machines I owned never had a single problem between them. The last nine machines have all had troubles of some sort, some which Apple would deal with, some which they wouldn't.



Three local stores that used to carry Mac stopped because of quality issues. One went so far as to say the "switch" campaign was benefiting PC sales at his shop; many Mac users were switching to higher quality PCs.



They need to get their act together, and fast, if they are to survive.



Leopard is delayed... Apple TV was delayed... iPhone announced way way way too early and if they delay it they are sunk.

ryukyu

That's interesting.

My experience has been the opposite. I've owned Macs and used pthers professionally since the Mac Classic, and have only ever had a problem with one, which Apple fixed under Applecare with no problems.

With regard to the "too early" annoucement of the iPhone, it seems that they can't make people happy. If they don't announce product in advance, they get dinged, if they announce too early, they get dinged.

I am by no means a fan boy, but it seems that people need a reality check on their exepectations. I have a lot of experience using PCs as well and have had so many problems with those that I've lost count.

Not trying to trivialize or negate your experiences, but I really do find it interesting that people can have such differing experiences in the same area.

fran441

I don't think Apple's QA is any worse than it was in 1998 when Steve Jobs took over. I will say, however, that the older Macs seem to have held up better than anything released after the original Bondi Blue iMac.



My Pismo PowerBook G3/500 MHz was sent back to AppleCare so many times for repair that I was eventually offered my current Titanium PowerBook G4/1 GHz. Unfortunately, it also made many trips back to Apple for repair, the last was a month before the AppleCare warranty expired and within another month, I started having issues with it again.



Two of my cousins own Power Mac G5s and another owns a Power Mac G4. The G4 had an issue with it's SuperDrive after it was out of warranty and I was able to replace it with another drive. One of the Power Mac G5s has had nothing but problems since Day 1, powering off at random times and then unable to boot for hours. Despite many attempted repairs (and an unfortunate stay at a CompUSA for a few months), the machine is still not working right to this day. The other Power Mac G5, the exact same model purchased at the same time and place, works fine with no issues.



My brother had a Dual Processor Power Mac G4/500 that kicked the bucket a few months after it was out of warranty as well. The problems started when the machine wouldn't wake up from sleep without sleeping. But over the course of a few weeks, the problems continued to mount until the machine just wouldn't boot up. He ended up buying a new G5 to replace it and it's been fine as far as I know.



Before we got our Bondi Blue iMac, the other Apples that we owned were an Apple ][GS, a Performa 575, and a PowerBook 1400c. The ][GS was given away to a cousin and still works as far as I know (it took until just a few years ago to get that family to actually buy a 'modern' computer). The Performa 575 worked well until my sister put 'cute animal' magnets onto the built in screen like it was a fridge. Even a degausser didn't totally clear up that mess and no one wanted to use it much after that episode. The PowerBook 1400 worked very well and even got a G3 upgrade, an 802.11 wirless card and a RAM upgrade to 64 MB. Eventually, we stopped using it as much when the hinges started to go but we still have it around.



So I wouldn't say that QA has changed, but it's more common to see Macs failing outside the warranty periods than before Jobs came back.