What actually happens is that early batches are the most likely to be flawed, and later batches contain corrections.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
If you're opening up 'identical' Apple machines on a daily basis, you start to notice patterns. The surface mounted chips on the system board are pretty much set in stone, but you'll find that the manufacturers of the attached OEM components will vary. That means that when you open up a Mac, you'll never be quite sure who manufactured the power supply, hard disk, optical drive, LCD or RAM. Even the manufacturers of the keyboard and mouse mechanisms will vary over time.
Buy two machines off the shelf at your local PC World and there's a good chance that when you get back to the office you'll find that they are similar but not identical. Perhaps they will have different optical drives installed or different memory or hard drives.
Now in theory, this is a smart business practice, because all things being equal, it allows Apple to capitalise on the components that offer best instantaneous value for money. In practice, you'll find that there is a motivation for the OEM manufacturers supplying Apple with components to remain the cheapest, and if that means cutting corners then so be it. In the real world, all things aren't equal.
The recent launch of the new unibody MacBook demonstrated this perfectly. Apple used a number of suppliers for the MacBooks LCD panels, and the quality varied across the board. As a result, securing a MacBook with a better quality screen became a bit of a lottery.
When I was working as an Apple hardware tech, we started to notice patterns ? the revisions of particular hard disks that would cause problems or the optical drives that failed prematurely.
As a result, it is impossible to predict a particular models reliability over time, as the bill of internal components will continue to be a lottery. Any experienced hardware tech will tell you that you simply can't predict a machines reliability based purely on when it was manufactured ? there are too many variables.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
Well spoken and very true. However, if I buy a widget from a vendor and suddenly another vendor comes up that promises to sell the same widget for 1/2 price, I will look at it suspiciously. Something has got to give. So while it may be good business practice to always lower one's cost basis, it's rolling the dice in the hopes that new vendor isn't cutting corners somewhere just to get their foot in the door.
Reminds me of the drama going on right now with the chinese-made drywall. I read an article in the newspaper about how one guy felt proud (before the problem was discovered) for saving $1,000 by buying chinese-made drywall as opposed to US-made drywall. Now, his (formerly) new house is being gutted completely again to remove the contaminated product, the pipes that corroded, etc. So much for trying to save a buck. This is only an example. I'm not promoting a pro-US stance necessarily.
At the minimum, we can agree to disagree. Chinese made goods (not just computer components) IMHO are just downright inferior compared to more developed nations. It's the byproduct of getting something that barely does the job at the lowest possible cost.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've bought a Chinese-made product only to have it fail, fade, whatever in a few months. With the hassle of replacement, my labor, my time, headaches, I could have spent 50% more on a real quality product and be done with it and never have to address it again. Of course, there are times when one cannot purchase something without having it made in China. I actually do go out of my way to validate the origin of a said product and decide accordingly whether they get my business. I pay extra knowing I'm getting a better quality product and more durability.
I am not badgering the Chinese workforce per-se. I just do not trust anything that comes out of that part of the world. Don't get me wrong though. In Apple's case, I think they are far more meticulous and careful about the quality of product that comes out of China. But even they cannot supervise on a daily basis every single component that gets manufactured. There has to be a level of trust and I think the suppliers play a game with that.
You're wrong. You have some sort of prejudice here, and it's off the mark. Some of the most sophisticated equipment is being built in China today.
A number of high end audio companies from the US, the UK and other places now build their products there, and the quality hasn't gone down. In fact, it's considered to have gone up, esp. the stuff that was made in the UK before.
To simply paint the entire country's manufacturing industry that way is simply unfair, and totally incorrect. You have NO evidence to back up what you're saying.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
If you're opening up 'identical' Apple machines on a daily basis, you start to notice patterns. The surface mounted chips on the system board are pretty much set in stone, but you'll find that the manufacturers of the attached OEM components will vary. That means that when you open up a Mac, you'll never be quite sure who manufactured the power supply, hard disk, optical drive, LCD or RAM. Even the manufacturers of the keyboard and mouse mechanisms will vary over time.
Buy two machines off the shelf at your local PC World and there's a good chance that when you get back to the office you'll find that they are similar but not identical. Perhaps they will have different optical drives installed or different memory or hard drives.
Now in theory, this is a smart business practice, because all things being equal, it allows Apple to capitalise on the components that offer best instantaneous value for money. In practice, you'll find that there is a motivation for the OEM manufacturers supplying Apple with components to remain the cheapest, and if that means cutting corners then so be it. In the real world, all things aren't equal.
The recent launch of the new unibody MacBook demonstrated this perfectly. Apple used a number of suppliers for the MacBooks LCD panels, and the quality varied across the board. As a result, securing a MacBook with a better quality screen became a bit of a lottery.
When I was working as an Apple hardware tech, we started to notice patterns ? the revisions of particular hard disks that would cause problems or the optical drives that failed prematurely.
As a result, it is impossible to predict a particular models reliability over time, as the bill of internal components will continue to be a lottery. Any experienced hardware tech will tell you that you simply can't predict a machines reliability based purely on when it was manufactured ? there are too many variables.
Have you ever been in business? Because I have had two businesses over a period of 35 years.
I will tell you that a business doesn't not always go for the lowest bidder, and even when they do, it's often not for the reasons you think it is. That's a completely incorrect misunderstanding of the way it works.
In my electronics manufacturing business, where we made professional audio equipment, we NEVER looked to get parts from a lowest bidder, unless that was a distributer of particular parts, as we were bidding out to the suppliers, not the manufacturers of the parts.
We were designing, and building high quality products, and NEVER used cheap parts. I don't know of any company that is looking to build a quality product that does that.
Apple is known in the industry to pay a bit more for parts that Dell and some other companies. That's one reason why, when a few years ago, some computer companies had the caps on the mobo go bad, but Apple's didn't, even though their machines were made by the same company, and used the same value parts.
Apple, as do many other manufacturers, has shortages of certain parts from a particular manufacturer from time to time, and so switches. And yes, sometimes, two competitive manufacturers are vying for Apple's business, and will offer a better price on a part. That has nothing to do with the quality.
Sometimes even the best manufacturers have bad runs of parts. It happens!
Companies that have low margins on cheap machines will bottom trawl because they have no choice.
You're wrong. You have some sort of prejudice here, and it's off the mark. Some of the most sophisticated equipment is being built in China today.
Neither of us are "wrong" Einstein. My experience dealing with Chinese suppliers is just different than yours. That does not mean that your opinion is gospel to all us villagers.
My blanket blame of China in its entirety was not written well and I could have explained it better. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. I know very well that China does make high-end products that rival what other very well-developed countries can manufacture.
However, I firmly believe that given the opportunity, even those manufacturers will skimp on quality if they could get away with it. If not by them directly, then by another sub-supplier. Responsibility must be done by the company (in this case Apple) to make sure all components that go into their machines meets quality specs. However, this is a daunting task considering the millions of components that get used each year.
My company deals with directly with Chinese suppliers overseas. I could write a book detailing how they try to skimp on quality that we pay for because we can't provide constant on-site supervision. Ridiculous sometimes.
I don't believe I am being prejudiced simply because I state a vocal opinion of questionable business practices. As a people, I have high respect for the Chinese populace and their culture. So if you're implying I might have a racial issue, it really is a direction you don't want to go.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Hmm, you are exactly describing my call to Apple Support...
the acuras and lexuses are OK, but brands like bentley's and ferraris break more often than the cheapo cars most of us drive. pretty much every "luxury" brand is owned by one of the mass market manufacturers and is a name to pay for
The car analogy is quite good, as a lot of high end car brands share the same engines, etc, as the cheaper brands, but the price increases massively to get the high end name badge. The same could be said of Apple, as the components inside it are just standard components found in other brands, you just pay a big premium for the Apple name and logo. As such, the components inside an Apple computer are subject to the same chances or breakdown or malfunction as any other brand. What sets them apart is the way they might deal with such a breakdown or malfunction. People are always saying that you can just walk into an Apple store and get it replaced, without realising that not everyone has an Apple store on their doorstep. It's over 100miles on the train to my nearest Apple shop, so the experience of swapping out a Dell or Apple computer would be exactly the same for me - and this'll be true of a lot of people. UPS picked up my plastic cracking iPhone on Friday to go back to Apple for repair. I might not have it back for another 2 weeks.
I think someone earlier summed up perfectly that the fact that these afected iMacs are close to unusable out of the box is less tolerable due to Apple's Brand (high quality worth paying the extra for). As an affected customer with a 2 day old machine that freezes every 20 minutes im not prepared to live with this issue and Apple are kindly replacing the machine. Based on the fact that Apple say that this is not a know/common issue I dont know if to be encouraged or nearvous about the state of the replacement machine. Its possible that I would think this to be normal operation on a PC but I didnt purchase a PC and at £1700 I expect more. I do understand that its hard to gauge the extent of the issue but I have to say it is so severe I cant believe that it could slip through testing leaving me to conclude inneffective testing or a change that occurred post testing. I guess we will never know the true extent of affected machines as that kind of admission would seriously dent sales. Fingers crossed on the new machine as I want to love Apple again.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Apples support is so much better it's literally the antithesis to to Dell support. And they have a one on one personal tech service available with the ability to make an appointment online for. For anything.
You may be correct, unfortunately I cannot confirm or deny this. I have a Dell XPS and a MBP, both two years old, But I have never, not once, had to call Dell support for anything. I have however had to call Apple support twice and on both occasions had to see my MBP disappear for a week each time to replace the motherboard due to serious overheating issues that seemed to be burning things out.
When Apple left Macworld, I had hoped they would stop having issues like this. They can now release new products when they are ready, not on someone else's schedule. But alas...
has no-one come across the battery recalls of most major laptop manufacturers or the nVidia 8400M recall on most laptops that had it? I always find support is not what the issue here but more what the company do to resolve these issues. My experience of Dell and HP support has been good. However my experience with apple has been better. What really get my back up however is the windows bashing I have incurred in some stores. Always funny to tell them you are buying a mac to run windows only! LOL Seriously though, yes problems are a pain in the arse but it is what we do resolve them that matters - so apple GET YOUR ARSE IN GEAR!! sort it! and please dont let it happen again.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Apples support is so much better it's literally the antithesis to to Dell support. And they have a one on one personal tech service available with the ability to make an appointment online for. For anything.
I can only speak for Apple support. In about 5 years I've obly called them 3 times, but on issues that weren't specifically Mac related (since I've never had an issues with any of my Macs, but YMMV.)
Each time, it was a North-American call, the support/technician was not only helpful, they were patient, very "interested" in the problem, and if they didn't have an immediate answer, they put a team on it , kept me on the line the whole time, followed up with e-mail, and basically monopolized my time (in a good way) until the issue was resolved. And they'd follow up with a personal e-mail afterward as well, once the issue was resolved. And they keep the call on file as well as a history of my dealings with them.
Now, I don't know how customer service/tech support functions for othe manufacturers/tech companies, but every time I had called in to Apple it was a pleasant experience.
So why does apple score an 80 in overall customer experiance?
Because out of the say 500,000 iMacs that are sold this may only effect a small percentage of owners as most won't get the BTO iMacs, but rather the standard models that Apple sells. Also, most of Apple's sales are notebook sales, not desktop. Lastly, as usual, the whole thing is most likely getting blown out of proportion making it sound like a bigger issue than it really is.
I think Apple need to stick to NVIDIA chips. ATI seems to SUCK lately!
This REALLY is bumming me out! I had held off buying an iMac because I wanted to order it with the 4850 card and now I keep hearing about these freezing problems with the 4850 iMac. I was planning to order mine this coming Friday too... what should I do? I wanted the 2.93GHz with 4850 option.
I came to Apple from Windows in August of 2008.
I learned one thing...
When Apple releases a NEW product, always wait two to three months before buying it! Apple is famous for problems with new products. HORRIBLE.
The early adopters report the problems and Apple generally fixes them within 2 to 3 months of release... Here are a few examples...
1. iPhone light leaks + dust under the LCD
2. Macbook nVidia graphic card display issues
3. 20" + 24" iMac gradient display issues
Don't buy it until the update 10.5.7 comes out to see if it corrects the issue. If it does, then do it. Otherwise don't do it.
I totally agree with you. In the case of cars, most hi-end exoticars do require a hell of a lot more maintenance than say your everyday honda accord.
However, the general consensus I believe though is that purchasing a product because of its name (Apple, BMW, Bang&Olufsen, etc.), you get more of a support structure after the fact.
In the case of Apple, I buy one of their computers knowing that I get more support for it after I've had it, not just in hardware but the entire package. I don't even want to address certain complainers about the commodity components being used. Just the entire experience which for me, has value.
Yeah, exactly.
Apple are essentially selling a very similar product to the likes of Dell and HP ? the only difference is that Apples after sales care is far better.
Ya 3 months support! You want a full year or more? Its called Applecare! You got to pay for that SUPPORT!!!
So you can have a year support from Dell or HP at an okay level or
go for Apple's better service... BUT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR IT! IT ain't free....
I'm not sure what product you're referring to. The iMac comes with 90-day complimentary support and a one-year repair repair-coverage warranty as stated verbatim from Apple's own website.
Purchasing Applecare is an additional cost for those that want to go up to three years. In that case, it is one's own personal taste to spend the extra money. I only purchase Applecare on bigger-ticket items like Macbooks and Desktops as those constitute a more major investment. But certainly it is not required.
Ya 3 months support! You want a full year or more? Its called Applecare! You got to pay for that SUPPORT!!!
So you can have a year support from Dell or HP at an okay level or
go for Apple's better service... BUT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR IT! IT ain't free....
I thought Apple's warranty was 1 year by default.
Regardless, for a boutique and more costly product line, you expect longer and better support out of the box. I.e., a statement of intent by the manufacturer that they're so confident of their hardware that they'll give a longer warranty out of the box. The high price of AppleCare would actually make me think that the hardware is actually quite naff if I was a new buyer.
Comments
What actually happens is that early batches are the most likely to be flawed, and later batches contain corrections.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
If you're opening up 'identical' Apple machines on a daily basis, you start to notice patterns. The surface mounted chips on the system board are pretty much set in stone, but you'll find that the manufacturers of the attached OEM components will vary. That means that when you open up a Mac, you'll never be quite sure who manufactured the power supply, hard disk, optical drive, LCD or RAM. Even the manufacturers of the keyboard and mouse mechanisms will vary over time.
Buy two machines off the shelf at your local PC World and there's a good chance that when you get back to the office you'll find that they are similar but not identical. Perhaps they will have different optical drives installed or different memory or hard drives.
Now in theory, this is a smart business practice, because all things being equal, it allows Apple to capitalise on the components that offer best instantaneous value for money. In practice, you'll find that there is a motivation for the OEM manufacturers supplying Apple with components to remain the cheapest, and if that means cutting corners then so be it. In the real world, all things aren't equal.
The recent launch of the new unibody MacBook demonstrated this perfectly. Apple used a number of suppliers for the MacBooks LCD panels, and the quality varied across the board. As a result, securing a MacBook with a better quality screen became a bit of a lottery.
When I was working as an Apple hardware tech, we started to notice patterns ? the revisions of particular hard disks that would cause problems or the optical drives that failed prematurely.
As a result, it is impossible to predict a particular models reliability over time, as the bill of internal components will continue to be a lottery. Any experienced hardware tech will tell you that you simply can't predict a machines reliability based purely on when it was manufactured ? there are too many variables.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
Well spoken and very true. However, if I buy a widget from a vendor and suddenly another vendor comes up that promises to sell the same widget for 1/2 price, I will look at it suspiciously. Something has got to give. So while it may be good business practice to always lower one's cost basis, it's rolling the dice in the hopes that new vendor isn't cutting corners somewhere just to get their foot in the door.
Reminds me of the drama going on right now with the chinese-made drywall. I read an article in the newspaper about how one guy felt proud (before the problem was discovered) for saving $1,000 by buying chinese-made drywall as opposed to US-made drywall. Now, his (formerly) new house is being gutted completely again to remove the contaminated product, the pipes that corroded, etc. So much for trying to save a buck. This is only an example. I'm not promoting a pro-US stance necessarily.
At the minimum, we can agree to disagree. Chinese made goods (not just computer components) IMHO are just downright inferior compared to more developed nations. It's the byproduct of getting something that barely does the job at the lowest possible cost.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've bought a Chinese-made product only to have it fail, fade, whatever in a few months. With the hassle of replacement, my labor, my time, headaches, I could have spent 50% more on a real quality product and be done with it and never have to address it again. Of course, there are times when one cannot purchase something without having it made in China. I actually do go out of my way to validate the origin of a said product and decide accordingly whether they get my business. I pay extra knowing I'm getting a better quality product and more durability.
I am not badgering the Chinese workforce per-se. I just do not trust anything that comes out of that part of the world. Don't get me wrong though. In Apple's case, I think they are far more meticulous and careful about the quality of product that comes out of China. But even they cannot supervise on a daily basis every single component that gets manufactured. There has to be a level of trust and I think the suppliers play a game with that.
You're wrong. You have some sort of prejudice here, and it's off the mark. Some of the most sophisticated equipment is being built in China today.
A number of high end audio companies from the US, the UK and other places now build their products there, and the quality hasn't gone down. In fact, it's considered to have gone up, esp. the stuff that was made in the UK before.
To simply paint the entire country's manufacturing industry that way is simply unfair, and totally incorrect. You have NO evidence to back up what you're saying.
In reality, in business you have to actively continue to reduce your cost base. As a result, the hardware will always contain components supplied by the lowest bidder.
If you're opening up 'identical' Apple machines on a daily basis, you start to notice patterns. The surface mounted chips on the system board are pretty much set in stone, but you'll find that the manufacturers of the attached OEM components will vary. That means that when you open up a Mac, you'll never be quite sure who manufactured the power supply, hard disk, optical drive, LCD or RAM. Even the manufacturers of the keyboard and mouse mechanisms will vary over time.
Buy two machines off the shelf at your local PC World and there's a good chance that when you get back to the office you'll find that they are similar but not identical. Perhaps they will have different optical drives installed or different memory or hard drives.
Now in theory, this is a smart business practice, because all things being equal, it allows Apple to capitalise on the components that offer best instantaneous value for money. In practice, you'll find that there is a motivation for the OEM manufacturers supplying Apple with components to remain the cheapest, and if that means cutting corners then so be it. In the real world, all things aren't equal.
The recent launch of the new unibody MacBook demonstrated this perfectly. Apple used a number of suppliers for the MacBooks LCD panels, and the quality varied across the board. As a result, securing a MacBook with a better quality screen became a bit of a lottery.
When I was working as an Apple hardware tech, we started to notice patterns ? the revisions of particular hard disks that would cause problems or the optical drives that failed prematurely.
As a result, it is impossible to predict a particular models reliability over time, as the bill of internal components will continue to be a lottery. Any experienced hardware tech will tell you that you simply can't predict a machines reliability based purely on when it was manufactured ? there are too many variables.
Have you ever been in business? Because I have had two businesses over a period of 35 years.
I will tell you that a business doesn't not always go for the lowest bidder, and even when they do, it's often not for the reasons you think it is. That's a completely incorrect misunderstanding of the way it works.
In my electronics manufacturing business, where we made professional audio equipment, we NEVER looked to get parts from a lowest bidder, unless that was a distributer of particular parts, as we were bidding out to the suppliers, not the manufacturers of the parts.
We were designing, and building high quality products, and NEVER used cheap parts. I don't know of any company that is looking to build a quality product that does that.
Apple is known in the industry to pay a bit more for parts that Dell and some other companies. That's one reason why, when a few years ago, some computer companies had the caps on the mobo go bad, but Apple's didn't, even though their machines were made by the same company, and used the same value parts.
Apple, as do many other manufacturers, has shortages of certain parts from a particular manufacturer from time to time, and so switches. And yes, sometimes, two competitive manufacturers are vying for Apple's business, and will offer a better price on a part. That has nothing to do with the quality.
Sometimes even the best manufacturers have bad runs of parts. It happens!
Companies that have low margins on cheap machines will bottom trawl because they have no choice.
You're wrong. You have some sort of prejudice here, and it's off the mark. Some of the most sophisticated equipment is being built in China today.
Neither of us are "wrong" Einstein. My experience dealing with Chinese suppliers is just different than yours. That does not mean that your opinion is gospel to all us villagers.
My blanket blame of China in its entirety was not written well and I could have explained it better. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. I know very well that China does make high-end products that rival what other very well-developed countries can manufacture.
However, I firmly believe that given the opportunity, even those manufacturers will skimp on quality if they could get away with it. If not by them directly, then by another sub-supplier. Responsibility must be done by the company (in this case Apple) to make sure all components that go into their machines meets quality specs. However, this is a daunting task considering the millions of components that get used each year.
My company deals with directly with Chinese suppliers overseas. I could write a book detailing how they try to skimp on quality that we pay for because we can't provide constant on-site supervision. Ridiculous sometimes.
I don't believe I am being prejudiced simply because I state a vocal opinion of questionable business practices. As a people, I have high respect for the Chinese populace and their culture. So if you're implying I might have a racial issue, it really is a direction you don't want to go.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Hmm, you are exactly describing my call to Apple Support...
the acuras and lexuses are OK, but brands like bentley's and ferraris break more often than the cheapo cars most of us drive. pretty much every "luxury" brand is owned by one of the mass market manufacturers and is a name to pay for
The car analogy is quite good, as a lot of high end car brands share the same engines, etc, as the cheaper brands, but the price increases massively to get the high end name badge. The same could be said of Apple, as the components inside it are just standard components found in other brands, you just pay a big premium for the Apple name and logo. As such, the components inside an Apple computer are subject to the same chances or breakdown or malfunction as any other brand. What sets them apart is the way they might deal with such a breakdown or malfunction. People are always saying that you can just walk into an Apple store and get it replaced, without realising that not everyone has an Apple store on their doorstep. It's over 100miles on the train to my nearest Apple shop, so the experience of swapping out a Dell or Apple computer would be exactly the same for me - and this'll be true of a lot of people. UPS picked up my plastic cracking iPhone on Friday to go back to Apple for repair. I might not have it back for another 2 weeks.
Call Dell support.
Then
Call Apple support.
There's a huge difference in the support you get.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Apples support is so much better it's literally the antithesis to to Dell support. And they have a one on one personal tech service available with the ability to make an appointment online for. For anything.
You may be correct, unfortunately I cannot confirm or deny this. I have a Dell XPS and a MBP, both two years old, But I have never, not once, had to call Dell support for anything. I have however had to call Apple support twice and on both occasions had to see my MBP disappear for a week each time to replace the motherboard due to serious overheating issues that seemed to be burning things out.
Go figure!
Have you ever been in business?
Yeah, I'm actually in business right now...
Call Dell support.
Then
Call Apple support.
There's a huge difference in the support you get.
Dell = some dude with a heavy accent who knows nothing other than how to read his troubleshooting script. You waste hours through this BS until you get to LV 3 support who ends up sending someone out the next day to replace 80% of the innards and no explanation as to what the actual problem was.. so it might happen again. And sometimes it does.
Apples support is so much better it's literally the antithesis to to Dell support. And they have a one on one personal tech service available with the ability to make an appointment online for. For anything.
I can only speak for Apple support. In about 5 years I've obly called them 3 times, but on issues that weren't specifically Mac related (since I've never had an issues with any of my Macs, but YMMV.)
Each time, it was a North-American call, the support/technician was not only helpful, they were patient, very "interested" in the problem, and if they didn't have an immediate answer, they put a team on it , kept me on the line the whole time, followed up with e-mail, and basically monopolized my time (in a good way) until the issue was resolved. And they'd follow up with a personal e-mail afterward as well, once the issue was resolved. And they keep the call on file as well as a history of my dealings with them.
Now, I don't know how customer service/tech support functions for othe manufacturers/tech companies, but every time I had called in to Apple it was a pleasant experience.
So why does apple score an 80 in overall customer experiance?
Because out of the say 500,000 iMacs that are sold this may only effect a small percentage of owners as most won't get the BTO iMacs, but rather the standard models that Apple sells. Also, most of Apple's sales are notebook sales, not desktop. Lastly, as usual, the whole thing is most likely getting blown out of proportion making it sound like a bigger issue than it really is.
I think Apple need to stick to NVIDIA chips. ATI seems to SUCK lately!
Apple never made computers in Cupertino. Try again.
Maybe not but some used to be built in the US. Hell even some Dell computers are built in the US today.
This REALLY is bumming me out! I had held off buying an iMac because I wanted to order it with the 4850 card and now I keep hearing about these freezing problems with the 4850 iMac. I was planning to order mine this coming Friday too... what should I do? I wanted the 2.93GHz with 4850 option.
I came to Apple from Windows in August of 2008.
I learned one thing...
When Apple releases a NEW product, always wait two to three months before buying it! Apple is famous for problems with new products. HORRIBLE.
The early adopters report the problems and Apple generally fixes them within 2 to 3 months of release... Here are a few examples...
1. iPhone light leaks + dust under the LCD
2. Macbook nVidia graphic card display issues
3. 20" + 24" iMac gradient display issues
Don't buy it until the update 10.5.7 comes out to see if it corrects the issue. If it does, then do it. Otherwise don't do it.
I totally agree with you. In the case of cars, most hi-end exoticars do require a hell of a lot more maintenance than say your everyday honda accord.
However, the general consensus I believe though is that purchasing a product because of its name (Apple, BMW, Bang&Olufsen, etc.), you get more of a support structure after the fact.
In the case of Apple, I buy one of their computers knowing that I get more support for it after I've had it, not just in hardware but the entire package. I don't even want to address certain complainers about the commodity components being used. Just the entire experience which for me, has value.
Yeah, exactly.
Apple are essentially selling a very similar product to the likes of Dell and HP ? the only difference is that Apples after sales care is far better.
Yeah, exactly.
Apple are essentially selling a very similar product to the likes of Dell and HP ? the only difference is that Apples after sales care is far better.
Ya 3 months support! You want a full year or more? Its called Applecare! You got to pay for that SUPPORT!!!
So you can have a year support from Dell or HP at an okay level or
go for Apple's better service... BUT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR IT! IT ain't free....
Ya 3 months support! You want a full year or more? Its called Applecare! You got to pay for that SUPPORT!!!
So you can have a year support from Dell or HP at an okay level or
go for Apple's better service... BUT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR IT! IT ain't free....
I'm not sure what product you're referring to. The iMac comes with 90-day complimentary support and a one-year repair repair-coverage warranty as stated verbatim from Apple's own website.
Purchasing Applecare is an additional cost for those that want to go up to three years. In that case, it is one's own personal taste to spend the extra money. I only purchase Applecare on bigger-ticket items like Macbooks and Desktops as those constitute a more major investment. But certainly it is not required.
Ya 3 months support! You want a full year or more? Its called Applecare! You got to pay for that SUPPORT!!!
So you can have a year support from Dell or HP at an okay level or
go for Apple's better service... BUT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR IT! IT ain't free....
I thought Apple's warranty was 1 year by default.
Regardless, for a boutique and more costly product line, you expect longer and better support out of the box. I.e., a statement of intent by the manufacturer that they're so confident of their hardware that they'll give a longer warranty out of the box. The high price of AppleCare would actually make me think that the hardware is actually quite naff if I was a new buyer.