“The latest iMac was released 16 weeks ago. Since then, it’s been plagued with problems, most notably flickering and/or yellow screens. Today, the saga comes to an end because Apple has acknowledged the issues and offered their support,” Mark Wilson reports for Gizmodo.
“At long last, Apple has released a statement to us, admitting the production issues with iMacs—which reader and forum anecdotes imply to be a bit less frequent than before but still very much present at some level—and labeling AppleCare as the proper channel for related complaints
“‘We’ve addressed the issues that caused display flickering and yellow tint. Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare.’ These two short sentences might not look like much, but the statement is Apple’s first open acknowledgment of the jaundiced screen issue, and it identifies the problem as one worthy of AppleCare solutions,” Wilson reports.
Full article here.
Bla, bla, bla.
More whoreclicking.
Always some glitch, always gets fixed. Always asswipe whining media turing a mole hill into a mountain. The clickwhores need that click to feed themselves, no body gives a fat rats ass.
Just like Dell and Microsoft.
Are you two first posters actually reading the story?
@IDArgyll
I am with you, nothing wrong with a company owning up to a mistake and fixing it for there customers. If anything 16 weeks to acknowledge this seems a bit excessive. This should have been addressed a lot sooner.
The flickering problem is caused by firmware, the yellow tint is a bad display.
That this is news at all reflects the general lack of problems with Apple’s products. I bought a Benq HD monitor for film editing 12 months or so ago. The first one did not display correctly. The second one did not even power up. The third one has worked perfectly – but it took nearly 6 weeks and several emails and phone calls to resolve the problem with the retailer, including persuading them to collect an extra monitor which they shipped, and billed me for…
I think big official statements about problems bring out the the “perfection disabled” in our communities, and may even cause large legal problems.
We know that Apple has been working steadily on the problems, as is evidenced by the software updates. Those are not trivial matters. . . . And we know Apple has been trying to deal the problems of its customers by the stream of postings of continued problems, or their resolution. We even know about buy-backs, store credits and 15% discounts. And I thought that Apple denied that their was ever an actual halt of production.
It sounds like this is an overblown story of old news. Hit-whore indeed.
Considering Apple has probably sold well over one million of the new iMacs since release, if 1000 iMacs are affected by a particular problem, that’s less than 1 in 1000. The numbers seen in these types of articles are always well below 1000. These so-called “journalists” need to keep things in perspective and look at the big picture.
When you sell a lot of something because that something is popular, a significant number of customers will experience problems of every conceivable type. That does not mean a particular problem is widespread. These scare mongers would have you believe that the majority of iMacs have these issues. In reality, the vast majority of iMacs have no issues; you just don’t hear from the customers with no problems.
This quote, “we tried to reconnect with every person who’d written us after suffering through multiple returns, but very few responded either way” (from the article), is quite enlightening. It does not mean (as the author presumes) “that some had their issues dealt with, while others just gave up on the iMac altogether.” It shows to me that most of the “multiple returns” stories are unreliable, even fictitious, meant to dupe Gizmodo into publishing nonsense.
The take-away from this article is the second sentence of the Apple statement, “Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare.” In other words, if you have a problem with your iMac, have it serviced under warranty or AppleCare. How is that different from business-as-usual since the first Mac was sold by Apple? Answer – It’s not.
How about AirPort cards not working?
Oh, and BTW… to me the yellow only appears on the gray screen at start-up. The white areas of this MDN page appear as white as can be !!
Gizmodo has been banging this drum for at least the last 2 months. In their minds, “resolution” is Apple stating there was a problem? Apple’s been accepting defective units and supplying new ones for as long as the problem has existed, and basically handled the issue as they would any other defect with any product they sell.
Giz fancies themselves as some kind of “help me Howard” when it comes to Apple. They should stick to news, if that’s something they stil do.
I had yellow tinted screen and Apple replaces the screen numerous times with no success. I chose to get refund after a month and half of receiving bad iMac screens. This is great news to hear. If anyone syas this is not news then they are idiots and obviously not one of us unlucky people who bought new iMacs only to have to return the machine because of bad quality. I am still going wait for a product update before jumping in again, but thanks Apple for the acknowledgment.
@ MacAdvocate
Did you know Apple “recycles” returned defective parts back into the repair chain under the belief that a large percentage are replaced simply due to misdiagnosis? It’s a lousy policy but they do it, just like many other profit greedy companies do. If you are close enough to a certified Apple repair tech, you’ll find this out. As time goes on the customer has lower and lower odds of receiving a working replacement part due to the amount of defectives revolving in the channel. I ran into this little snag with my flaky G5 Quad, which Apple conveniently denied had any “known” problems but kept switching out my logic board with other obviously used units … until my warranty ran out. Today I am still left with an unreliable POS while the G4s and Intel versions run fine. After speaking frankly with my local dealer he said the issues I suffer are common to all G5s but Apple refuses to acknowledge the problem because to do so would likely make them liable to replace every single one. Most of his customers eventually give up and sell off their flaky G5s.
I’ve been using Apple products expressly since OS7. Apple has indeed changed. Not for the better. They have become trendy rather than quality devices. Giz has a very legitimate beef. Getting Apple to formally admit a problem is the biggest part of the battle. From this point forward they are obliged to deal with it.
Ask Toyota about how well it works out to deny a serious problem with one of their products.
Maybe one day, Apple will acknowledge the crushing catastrophe that is Time Capsule. Your heart has to go out to the folks suffering from this machine. Just awful.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2091667&tstart=15&start=675
@Brau
I didn’t realize that. Amazing that JD Powers thinks so highly of these clowns.
/sarcasm
@ Jeeve Stobs,
I’ve heard the complaints about the Time Capsules, but I will have had mine for two years next month and no problems yet. But I’ve always had great luck with Apple products.
I have a only had a new 21 inch imac for a few months and my best friend got a new 27 inch at the same time. Zero problems. Let me repeat that….Zero problems. I will never go back to a PC. Lete repeat that….Never go back to a PC!
@ AC in WA
Congrats to you and your friend. Just because you got lucky doesn’t mean an issue didn’t exist. I’ve been using Apple products since my Father bought an Apple IIE and I will never buy a Windows PC… NEVER! So I am not bashing Apple products, but I had nothing but problems with my 27′ Quad Core i5 I bought on Black Friday. So much so that the Apple Techs finally threw their hands up after two months and said they couldn’t fix the yellow tint issue and gave me my money back.
I’ve said it before, if you received a great new iMac with no issues then count me as jealous because I am waiting until the next revision of the iMac before I dive in again; and it is very difficult to not buy again right now. It was great machine with a very flawed display.
AC in WA, stop acting like a D-Bag.
@Brau:
“Did you know Apple “recycles” returned defective parts back into the repair chain under the belief that a large percentage are replaced simply due to misdiagnosis? It’s a lousy policy but they do it, just like many other profit greedy companies do. If you are close enough to a certified Apple repair tech, you’ll find this out.”
I’m married to an Apple Certified Repair Tech. Is that close enough? Yes, parts that are exchanged and are TESTED AND FOUND TO BE GOOD are returned to the replacement parts chain. There is the slim chance that such a used part really is bad but tests good. Two parts may test within tolerance, but not work with each other because the combined discrepancy is too great. That kind of thing has happened.
So, your used but bad part MAY be replaced with a used but good part. And you are behind in the deal how? Should Apple simply throw away used but good parts, and as a result modify their generous warranty policy to industry standard?
This whole story has the flavor of paranoia. “Aha! See? See?!! Apple has finally admitted to the cover-up! Our conspiracy theory was right all along!” Gizmodo’s writers/editors should get a life. It takes time to verify and track down defects like these. Premature announcements are costly and stupid. The important part is that Apple has determined what the issue is and taken action.