Why CompUSA sucks...reason #83
Just got back (against my better judgement) from stopping by my local CompUSA to see what's what.
Good news? All their Macs on display are running OS X.
Bad news? They're not running 10.1, but rather 10.0.3 and 10.0.4 and God knows what else.
There was actually a black-shirted Apple Demo rep there and he came over and we started chit-chatting and I asked "why don't you guys fling 10.1 on these machines? It's dramatically faster and more responsive...".
He said he asked the manager if he could do that and was told "no" because it "wasn't what these machines came with...".
I told him, so the manager here would rather handcuff all the Macs and make them look pokier and more sluggish than they need to look for the sake of some sort of packaging nonsense?
"Can't you guys install 10.1 on the demos then make sure the machines going out have that on as well?".
"Yeah, I know. He was being kind of a jerk about it. You know how CompUSA is with Macs...".
PERFECT example of why this set-up sucks.
You have an Apple-centric rep (he was a nice guy and he TOTALLY knew his stuff too...I overheard him talking to various other customers and he spoke only the truth and gave solid, accurate info) who's willing to do his part to make these machines feel and perform up to their capability (are any of YOU still actually using 10.0.4 or earlier? No, I didn't think so...), and he was shot down.
So NOW, some potential new Mac buyer (remember guys...IT'S THE ****ING HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON...) is going to walk up to an iMac or iBook or whatever and be COMPLETELY unimpressed by the performance and leave there thinking "God, Macs ARE slower! That whole MHz thing IS true..."
Nice going, CompUSA. Totally hamstring and entire company's line of products because you're too ****ing shortsighted or lazy to want to have your DEMO (helloooooo?) Macs performing at their peak.
I'll be shocked if anyone comes in (a newbie or current PC user, who's unaware of 10.1 and it's speed/performance improvements), messes around and is so turned off by the 17 bounces to launch Address Book or iTunes and actually goes, "HEY, I've been looking to spend $1400 on something this pokey! Got this in blue?"
Assheads.
I'd be curious to know what Apple and Jobs would think of this? Jobs nearly creamed himself touting 10.1 and knowing that his stuff isn't being given a fair shake at the biggest shopping time of the year would probably frost his glasses, wouldn't you think?
Good news? All their Macs on display are running OS X.
Bad news? They're not running 10.1, but rather 10.0.3 and 10.0.4 and God knows what else.
There was actually a black-shirted Apple Demo rep there and he came over and we started chit-chatting and I asked "why don't you guys fling 10.1 on these machines? It's dramatically faster and more responsive...".
He said he asked the manager if he could do that and was told "no" because it "wasn't what these machines came with...".
I told him, so the manager here would rather handcuff all the Macs and make them look pokier and more sluggish than they need to look for the sake of some sort of packaging nonsense?
"Can't you guys install 10.1 on the demos then make sure the machines going out have that on as well?".
"Yeah, I know. He was being kind of a jerk about it. You know how CompUSA is with Macs...".
PERFECT example of why this set-up sucks.
You have an Apple-centric rep (he was a nice guy and he TOTALLY knew his stuff too...I overheard him talking to various other customers and he spoke only the truth and gave solid, accurate info) who's willing to do his part to make these machines feel and perform up to their capability (are any of YOU still actually using 10.0.4 or earlier? No, I didn't think so...), and he was shot down.
So NOW, some potential new Mac buyer (remember guys...IT'S THE ****ING HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON...) is going to walk up to an iMac or iBook or whatever and be COMPLETELY unimpressed by the performance and leave there thinking "God, Macs ARE slower! That whole MHz thing IS true..."
Nice going, CompUSA. Totally hamstring and entire company's line of products because you're too ****ing shortsighted or lazy to want to have your DEMO (helloooooo?) Macs performing at their peak.
I'll be shocked if anyone comes in (a newbie or current PC user, who's unaware of 10.1 and it's speed/performance improvements), messes around and is so turned off by the 17 bounces to launch Address Book or iTunes and actually goes, "HEY, I've been looking to spend $1400 on something this pokey! Got this in blue?"
Assheads.
I'd be curious to know what Apple and Jobs would think of this? Jobs nearly creamed himself touting 10.1 and knowing that his stuff isn't being given a fair shake at the biggest shopping time of the year would probably frost his glasses, wouldn't you think?
Comments
Their Mac section was actually pretty well set up. They had a nice Quicksilver with a Cinema Display up at the end of an aisle running OS X (don't know what version), but a guy was hogging it. Obviously a guy like me who just comes in to check out new gear in person, not to buy stuff. I woke 2 iBooks from sleep in the laptop section and looked for an iPod. They had one, in the plastic casing it ships in strewn between a few PowerMacs.
Soon I lost interest and wandered over to the PC section and played with XP. I thought that no matter how hard Apple works, they have a long way to go before OS X is as responsive as Windows. Windows isn't as pretty, but at least live-window resizing doesn't stutter. I also looked at a few kids playing on an XBox demo...unfortunately they were playing some stupid boxing game when I wanted to see either Air Force Delta or Halo. I also checked out Civ 3, Myth 3, and RTCW...drool...
On my way out I glanced at shelf full of Radeons from the 7000 to the 8500. Sadly they had no GeForce 3 cards, but boy, ATi knows how to make Radeon boxes look very cool.
I went in with my Dad to get a 4-6 pin IEEE 1394 adapter BTW.
I usually go to Circuit City if I want to look at something, or one of the two campus retail stores nearby. I wish there was an Apple store closer...
<strong>This isn't about CompUSA but it's a story about retail, so it sorta works... I was at the only store in town that sells macs (circuit shitty) and they had an imac running 10.0.4, but right next to the machine was the upgrade cd for 10.1. I looked around, popped it in and started the install. I wandered around till it was done and played on the machine a little. I thought I had done a good deed an went home happy. About a week later, they had DOWNGRADED that imac to 10.0.4 again. I couldn't believe it! Someone went to the trouble of reformatting the drive to put 10.0 on it! I was baffled. Do they want to sell NO macs?!? What the hell is wrong with that store anyway?</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's ridiculous. That's why the only time I go into Circuit City is when I can't find what I'm looking for anywhere else.
These stores, either out of laziness, clulessness or outright contempt routinely hamstring and mangle Apple's chances of getting a fighting chance.
If it's not lame, know-nothing employees it's neglected, frozen Macs with blinking question marks.
If it's not that, it's something like this OS X situation I spoke about above.
If I was Apple, I'd do routine surprise inspections or whatever it took and I'd seriously get to the point to where I'd want to eventually tell CompUSA and Circuit City to go **** themselves.
Maybe by this time next year, there will be 50 Apple Retail stores, spread EVENLY (in other words, not TWO in Orange County, CA, FOUR MILES from each other!) around the nation.
That, in addition to the reborn iMac being a kick-ass piece of hardware and so forth, so that Apple and their product reputation and their stores can (along with mail order and the online Apple store) do the job and eventually have to rely less and less on places like CompUSA.
Of course, SOMEWHERE in that formula is better, more aggressive and more engaging marketing by Apple.
But that's a whole other thread...
But perhaps with the next wave of 25 or so.
Of course, Apple WON'T. But honestly, I have to ask sometimes: does the occasional sale of a Mac in a CompUSA or Circuit City (through no effort of the sales staff, I might add) undo or negate all the bad or negative things Apple's suffered at their hands?
In other words, can clueless salespeople, anti-Apple employees, neglected displays, half-ass demo units, the whole "tucked into the back corner like a beaten stepchild" approach, etc. be erased by some grandmother accidentally buying an iMac?
Just in my experiences in all the CompUSA's I've visited in the past couple of years, I'd have to say no.
I've left there seeing WAY more negative or bad stuff in the course of 30 minutes or so. I can recall perhaps 6 occasions of seeing someone actually purchase a Mac. However, in that same time frame, I've seen MUCH more harmful, damaging behavior and events.
You know, all the standard lame-o horror stories: employees spouting all the lame, UNTRUE myths about Apple (no software, going out of business, etc.), going out of their way to rag on Macs (THAT really pisses me off), spout complete bullshit and misinformation, while TRYING to sound informed and knowledgeable, etc.
In other words, I'd be curious to see the sales figures from Apple for each of their products AND where they were actually sold, just to see to what degree Circuit City and CompUSA are contributing/participating.
I wonder if it's in any sort of significant numbers?
Because if it ISN'T...
[ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: pscates ]</p>
<strong>Open up a Stickies window and type "Go to the Apple Store!" with directions to the nearest one in all the stores. Crawl under the nearest table. Wait and see how long it takes for them to get rid of the message.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's kinda like what I did. Earlier in the week on the Macs in CompUSA and Circuit City at Palisades I typed "Apple Store Palisades coming Saturday 1st Floor" and yesterday I typed "Apple Store Palisades Now Open"
The other day I was in there getting a pen/pencil/stylus for my m100 when I overheard a couple guys leaving the store talking about how cheap those ibooks were cause hell if keys can break in half... what else would break.
I talked to the manager and he just shrugged me off cause it was his idea and he didn't care what image it put out, as long as his keys weren't being stolen. GRRRRR!
(All of our macs are running 10.1 though)
Mac Guru
The Apple Rep is lazy as well. He could very well upgrade all those machines and the manager wouldn't even bat an eye. They get all the demo CDs and software CDs. It's not even a matter of passwords...just boot off the Install CD...
First of all, if one does buy a Mac and returns home they will be surprised that it'll be OS 9 that appears, not OS X.
Secondly, there isn't much of anything out there for OS X that the regular Joe needs (Ok, MS Office X...name others...).
Apple themselves said that Macs won't boot up to OS X by default until March of next year. Even the mac resellers here downtown have 90% of their displays with OS 9 on screen. The only display that one has with OS X is the pro desktop with the cinematic display...
All this OS X on demos sounds silly to me right now... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Care to specify what a "regular joe" is? What would he need that's not available in OS X (I'm asking the question seriously, not to start an argument)?
Office X, you've conceded.
MP3 software? Got iTunes.
Internet? AOL and IE are here.
CD burning? Through iTunes or the finder or Toast (albeit a preview)
Printing? Most "regular joe" printers work (i.e., USB inkjets)
Video editing? iMovie (though, arguably not a regular joe thing to do)
Digital Cameras? Image Capture is great.
Finance? Quicken 2002.
How about some advantages to OS X? True multi-user capabilities. Stability. Stability. Stability. Multi-tasking, etc, etc. And it looks cool too. I always ask myself why they are showing OS 9.
<strong>Artman,
Care to specify what a "regular joe" is? What would he need that's not available in OS X (I'm asking the question seriously, not to start an argument)?
Office X, you've conceded.
MP3 software? Got iTunes.
Internet? AOL and IE are here.
CD burning? Through iTunes or the finder or Toast (albeit a preview)
Printing? Most "regular joe" printers work (i.e., USB inkjets)
Video editing? iMovie (though, arguably not a regular joe thing to do)
Digital Cameras? Image Capture is great.
Finance? Quicken 2002.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, thanks for expanding the list. Most are all Apple's. By average Joe...I would describe Joe as a former Wintel user looking for something new and decides on getting a Mac (not much choice, is there?).
Just by entering CompUSA Joe is making a big mistake. Joe may be lucky and finds a trained Apple salesperson to show Joe the ropes. Fine, but what if one's not there? Good luck.
I had a friend who just purchased a Tibook from CompUSA. Seems that everything works fine. Only the salesperson pushed him into getting their 3 year warranty.
Now I don't know what it cost him or if their's is better than Apple's, but I told him to definately look into that. I guess CompUSA gets some extra money of course in having him sign up for theirs, but seriously, it's just a ploy.
I guess you see where this is leading...I don't like CompUSA.
[quote]<strong>
How about some advantages to OS X? True multi-user capabilities. Stability. Stability. Stability. Multi-tasking, etc, etc. And it looks cool too. I always ask myself why they are showing OS 9.
No, I think a display at the store should exclusively demo OS X (plus it's ability to run classic applications, too). But you get what you're paying for, and that to me is still OS 9. More software, games and drivers are available for it. There still aren't as many choices for Wintel Joe.
I haven't been to a CompUSA in months...do they have software on the shelf for OS X? How does it match up to the OS 9 apps on the shelves?
I agree with the other posters...sneak the message around that the Apple stores are here or are coming...and Apple...ADVERTISE THESE DAMN STORES!
By the way, I still haven't been able to get Image Capture to work. I use a VST Tri-Media Reader...VST says the Image Capture for OSX should read the FlashCard but I have no clue (or any information from them) on how this is done...still waiting for the final driver...
btw, Artman, I see your point. But games are for losers anyway... (just kidding...)
The iPod is right in the middle of all the other Mp3 players on display. With a big 22inch cinema display that lets you transfer music onto it.
To me it's the next best thing as having a Apple store.
Strider
<strong>My CompUSA is actually good. We have a Mac guy that works for CompUSA and he is always on top of stuff. He always has the newest stuff on the OS's. He put Unreal Tounament on a quicksilver so we could see the geforce 3. They are amazing. I hate to see COMPUSA's get abad rep because ours is so great.
The iPod is right in the middle of all the other Mp3 players on display. With a big 22inch cinema display that lets you transfer music onto it.
To me it's the next best thing as having a Apple store.
Strider</strong><hr></blockquote>
Your CompUSA sounds great. I wish the one here was anywhere near that good.