“My first computer, purchased by my parents after nearly a year of begging, was an Apple II+. That was 1982. I was a Windows user for the next 20 years, but went back to Mac when they switched to Intel chips a couple of years ago. Since then I’ve bought seven Macs for myself, as well as at least one of every iPod and both iPhones. A lot of these were test devices that I’ve passed on to friends and family,” Michael Arrington writes for TechCrunch.
“My obvious enthusiasm for Apple products is fairly evident to readers of this blog. But recently I’ve had a string of bad apples come my way, so to speak. It’s time for Apple to stop screwing around and start paying attention to product quality,” Arrington pontificates.
According to Arrington, his “Mac Mini [sic], Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Macbook ‘all failed.'”
Full article, in which Arrington also wrongly claims that MobileMe issues “are affecting everyone,” despite the fact that MobileMe (.Mac) only has about 2 million subscribers, Think Before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lee in Oregon” for the heads up.]
First of all, Michael, stay away from Vegas, highways, and anything else involving luck and/or risk because if what you write is actually true, your luck sucks worse than Windows Vista and the Zune combined.
Second of all, Arrington seems to think, like a four-year-old, that his anecdotal evidence scales right on up to the population as a whole. Sorry, Mikey, good try, but that’s just not how it works. Nobody cares about your specific issues, be they real or imaginary, nor should they.
For proof, we need only to offer up today’s news: ACSI: Customer satisfaction rockets for Apple’s Mac; rest of Windows PC industry drops again: “The personal computer industry suffers a second consecutive drop in satisfaction, falling 1% to 74 and losing all gains made since 2005. Apple defies the industry by moving in the opposite direction and posting its largest gain ever to 85, a new all-time high for the industry. The 8% leap puts 10 points between Apple and its nearest rival, one of the largest gaps between first and second in any industry measured by ACSI. As Apple’s satisfaction improves, so too have its sales, market share, net income, and stock price.”
It is my experience that Apple quality sucks, but Dell, etc, quality sucks more. I always welcome the opportunity to bitch about my Apple hardware failures.
Mac SE30 — still going last time I powered it up for nostalgia
Performa — still functioning flawlessly (last time I powered it up years ago)
iMac blueberry — dead shortly after its 2nd birthday, no AppleCare — why would I need it?!!
iMac snow — hd replaced with AppleCare, now has serious out-of-warranty issues, optical drive doesn’t work, won’t recognize external drives; mostly retired now
G3 iBook — bad optical drive replaced under original warranty [My best warranty experience ever, picked up Friday (air transport girl looked at me sadly and inquired, “Is it a Dell?”) and returned Monday morning!], still in service many years later
G5 iMac — has had every internal organ except the fan replaced by AppleCare
G4 Mac mini, Intel Mac Mini and MacBook — NO PROBLEMS!!!
Working on my FIFTH Airport Express, first 4 died just after warranties expired, the 5th must be reset every day or two — I will never buy another Apple router.
(And btw, the apps are starting to suck more, too.)
Who the hell is Michael Arrington? Who the hell cares what he thinks or is pushing. Don’t drive up his site numbers. Its all probably part of the Vista billion dollar campaign rollout….
Just another fool that doesn’t know what he is doing or talking about.
Gol-durn it-all, ah PAID fo parfeck-shun, so ah expecks parfeck-shun!! This hyar noo-fangled corntraption has better start werkin’ like whut I tole it too, or ah’ll know the raisin why!!! #$@*?!
Cain’t no-body make decent cumpooters any moh?
.
These problems didn’t just start with Intel Macs.
I bought a Powerbook in 2001. I hardly ever used it (only about four or five hours a day), only dropped it once or twice (or maybe 15 or 20 times … I forgot). changed the operating system once (or four times), took it on a few trips (about 10 a year or so) and eventually gave it to my teenage son, who barely touched it (only seven days a week or so).
Well, can you believe it? That piece of junk only lasted seven years!
“I learned in business a long time ago that there are those customers you can’t afford to do business with. These are the ones that live to find something to complain about, are looking to scam the merchant, or simply derive great personal pleasure from garnering extra attention by presenting a very special problem. Most of these people are indeed special…in the short bus sense.”
I totally agree with you. I own a restaurant, and what always strikes me as absurd, pathetic, and hilarious is the depths some people will stoop to save a quarter or get their meal free. It rarely ever happens here, since I have a sign hanging in the place that says I can refuse service to whoever I want. But it still happens occasionally. And it’s always something ridiculous. By the time they get done arguing with me and start making a scene, our refusal policy kicks in and out the door they go. Legitimate complaints, I have no problem taking care of. So we forgot the cheese in the chili… here you go! But something stupid like a straw wrapper wrapped around the food; something THEY obviously did to try and get a refund (they always pay before they eat, cafeteria-style), and the WAY they present the complaint; by causing a scene; I always know when I’m being scammed. Because I get the cash first, it doesn’t happen that often. But these people pull the same scams over and over again. They must call each other with their scam ideas, because they’re all the same!
Oh well. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
I agree! I remember back in the early Mac days not even thinking about buying a extended warranty. Then I bought my first iBook without a warranty BIG MISTAKE! Now it’s considered part of the cost of buying an Apple Computer. The most recent two MacBook’s I’ve purchased have both failed on me and required basically a refurbed Mac for a replacement. The first required a new internal drive because it failed after 3 months. Apple replaced the casing because it yellowed too. The second MacBook had a DVD drive failure, they also replaced the casing because of cracking… If we could just get them to do on site repairs like Dell they’d probably up their quality…
I’ve owned my Mini for over a year now, no problems to note…
Hmmm …. let’s see, if we sell 1 million Macs and they are 99% perfect, we still get a defect rate of 10,000 units ! Would we like to see all these units perfect ? Of course, but that’s not practical or even possible. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t have some of these “defect ” units returned to Apple for repair ? I, personally, have found Apple to care about the product and their customer’s satisfaction.
Want to taste my cherry?
I didn’t read the article for I don’t appreciate dense journalists and the resultant behaviors that stem from said density.
No clickey for you!
I’ve been a Mac user for 21 years, and have owned over a dozen macs, including laptops, towers and iMacs. I’ve only had one laptop fail irreparably, and it was abused. My other macs, starting with a Mac Plus and culminating with my current Macbook, iMac, and Mac Pro, have all worked until replaced with newer technology. So, YMMV but I’ve got no complaints.
I wish I cold make Paulos’
A Mathematician Explores the Gap Between Stories and Statistics, Logic and Language
required reading for journalists. In fact, for everyone.
His tagline “Tyranny of the anecdote” pretty well sums up the total lack of logic in popular decision making: “A friend had this happen, so everyone else does to.” Makes me cringe, especially when it’s from politicians.
I have bought and used Macs since Pontius was a pilot and never had any of the problems listed above. Some friends of mine piss and moan constantly about Windows. Get over it, some machines break. I had a Rolls Royce, but my Subaru breaks far less. Also it brakes far less.
After 7 years of OSx and nine Apple computers for business and home, the following is my anecdotal experience…
1/ No data loss, viruses, trojans or other data issues in over seven years. Not one minute lost to operating system or program glitches.
2/ Hardware Problems… two…
a/ When new, my Apple PowerBook G4 (12 inch aluminum) had a sticky keyboard out of the box that caused havoc on my first business trip with it. When I returned, Apple replaced the keyboard at their Mississauga service center while I waited.
b/ When I purchased a new G5 iMac, it had two dead pixels that showed white while watching DVDs.
Apple refused to repair the screen or replace the computer, saying that I needed seven (I think that was the number) dead pixels to qualify and that was their policy.
I informed Apple that my policy was to not accept defective merchandise when purchased new, and where should I deliver the lawsuit to?
After four days of working my way up the chain and saying to each person, “OK. I understand that is Apple’s policy regarding dead pixels. That is not my policy. Are you the last person I speak with before we go to litigation?”…
… I finally reached the VP for Customer Service for Canada who authorized the local warranty center to replace the screen. It has been working properly ever since.
My clamshell ibook fell off the top of a luggage cart (it was on top, more than 6 feet up) onto the marble floor of a hotel lobby in Bar Harbor, Maine.
CRASH!!!
It was like the E.F. Hutton commercial.
Everybody just stopped, and looked.
It had been in sleep mode. As I walked over to pick it up, I could see the sleep light pulsating.
Picked it up, opened lid, and screen came to life.
That was in ’03.
Still working, as of yesterday.
I’m reading this on my Pismo (firewire), so I’m really getting a kick out of these replies.
I wonder how many PC laptops out there are 8 years old and still going strong?
Let’s see, my mac purchase history is: Titanium Powerbook, Aluminum Powerbook, Macbook Pro, mac mini, and just 2 weeks ago the crowning jewel of the collection, a Mac Pro. Non-mac purchases are an iPod 3G (touch wheel) and the first iPhone.
Issue history: Rare airport connectivity issues, which seems to be a known thing, with each of my laptops. Suspect this is software and not hardware. The hard drive in my mac mini failed 4 months after the warranty ran out (AppleCare would have covered this). iPod 3G battery life is a documented issue, but I can still get most of a day listening out of it.
And that’s it. Out of 5 computers over 6 years, I’ve had minor issues and one hard drive failure. I consider that a pretty good track record.
He is a communist, just ignore the idiot
“As an investor I don’t much care about the details of your personal iPhone (or Mac) travails.”
Until the day Apple does a massive recall, you lose your shirt, and you realized you missed the early warning signs. Dumabass.
I’m not sure what you misunderstand about people in good coverage dialing a phone number, hitting the send key and the call not connecting or being dropped, while people all around them on the same network are making calls fine.
You’re right. It’s probably a lack of training. Is there some strange Apple multi touch sequence we’re all supposed to be doing on the iPhone 3G Send key to put the phone into “reliable call” mode? Short of locking the phone in 2G mode like they now do at the stores on each one before handing it to you?
Apple knows more than you on this on Zeke, and they’re disabling 3G on every phone they sell.