Comments on: here’s a letter to Steve Jobs Re the issue I had:

By: Mathias

Mathias — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:18:30 +0000

never buy a dell!!! it is much worse then Macs. But if you are looking for an alternative computer, get a vaio or maybe a hp pavillion

By: cynthia

cynthia — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:10:35 +0000

I’m having the RSS problem right now with my macbook, and for all I’ve been through I think we should get exactly what your letter claims: our money back or a new computer, compensation for all the time and money spent trying to fix, what is a DEFECT from apple computers.
Why can’t they just give us a new computer!!!

By: Rodrigo

Rodrigo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:50:43 +0000

I was going to buy a macbook, but now, after reading all these issues I’ll go with a PC

By: KK

KK — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 03:01:59 +0000

My iMac is also randomly shutting down. I have called for support but like you said they don’t seem to find a solution. Now I can’t even use my computer for more than 5 minutes, it is so annoying that I had stopped using it. So tomorrow I’m making my “appointment” to get my computer fixed at the store.. Wish me luck!!

By: staysong

staysong — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:14:30 +0000

Nice. or he is one of those idiots who don’t really care either way and think that profanity and insults are a great way to get a reaction out of people. Get yourself a life and a clue, Bob.

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:09:16 +0000

From Bob’s colorful comments, I would say he is one of those who would say apple is the best even when his mac is in flames as he is typing.

Bob, say your sorry for language and get some help.

Oh yes, and You should have bought a Dell, dude!!

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:11:57 +0000

Fuck you cock sucking whore. Apples are great products and this is just a ploy to get cash out of Apple. Fuck you all for saying Dells and the like are better than Apple, you are all a bunch of fucking cock sucking whores. You don’t know shit. Fuck you all.

By: Selah

Selah — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:06:21 +0000

well, nearly six months after my laptop started having problems I finally have some resolution. Apple is sending me a check for the amount I paid TC Curran. They were willing to refund the APP in full, but the customer relations person encouraged me not to cancel it, in case something comes up, and to take a free accessory at a comparable price instead. So I feel that I have come out ahead with a very nice new printer and still have warranty coverage for 3 years (not that it will do me much good based on the service I’ve received so far and the horror stories I’m hearing here!)

I am still skeptical of Apple. It seems ridiculous that it had to get this far before I received good service. I still have not gotten a good explanation from them about what caused the problem in the first place, but whatever TD Curran did seemed to work– for now.

Good luck to all the rest of you out there suffering from this problem. it really does seem to pay to complain to the bbb and to write a letter to the owner. At least in the end, Apple took the smart road and made an effort to retain a customer. I don’t know how retained I am–only time will tell.

By: Brett L

Brett L — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:07:57 +0000

I work in high tech and have been a Windows PC user all my life, but given the recent hype around the new Macbooks and OS-X decided to get one as my second laptop a few months ago to check out the User Interface and mess around with the underlying UNIX OS (I already have a Lenovo laptop and two iPods sitting around at home). BIG BIG MISTAKE!!!

The MacBook â€œout-of-box experienceâ€ and great user interface got me pretty hooked off the bat, and I was starting to use the laptop more and more. Suddenly two weeks in, the laptop stopped booting giving me an error screen when I turned it on. After taking it to the store it turned out to be a hard drive failure and they gave me a new laptop and moved my docs for me. I wrote this off as a one-off QA lapse.

I had almost forgotten about this a month into the life of the replacement, when one day I close the lid on my laptop, leave and come back to my apartment to notice a small crack in the screen. In about a day, the crack expanded and the screen became blank bright white and unusable. I took it into the store and to my absolute astonishment the people there tried to force me into paying $750 to fix the screen, saying there must have been some kind of accident (even though the laptop is brand new without even a scratch on it and hasnâ€™t ever left my apartment). The store manager even tried to convince me (I kid you not) that there might have been an â€œunknown accidentâ€ such as a â€œcat or pet damaging the laptopâ€. After a shouting match explaining that I donâ€™t even own a pet, and explaining how ridiculous it would be for me to pay $750 to fix a screen when I can buy an entire PC for that price,the manager agreed to take the laptop back after charging me a %10 restocking fee even though the 2-week return period had expired.

I know that this is just one incident, but talking to other people waiting at the â€œGenius barâ€ it was amazing to see how many were first time Mac users with horror stories of broken hardware. Apple has a lot of smart engineers and designers. In fact the design is so good that I believe people are more willing to put up with failures (the concept known as â€œemotional designâ€ based on the book by Don Norman). However, it seems clear to me that they are struggling to scale their QA on their laptop line as they increase production to meet demand. Given that users are already paying a premium for their laptops over alternative, such lapses in fundamental quality issues are absolutely inexcusable in my view. I think we are just seeing the tip of the ice-berg as they try to scale to their growth and will be shooting themselves in the foot with poor quality.

No more Macs for me. I am sticking with PCs.

By: GFC

GFC — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:21:45 +0000

There really does seem to be a perennial and systemic problem with Mac logic boards leading to RSS. The way it was explained to me once is that Mac pushes the envelope with its power management system. It is very fault-intolerant, that is, small variations in hardware performance that don’t bother other systems drive Macs over the edge. There was some speculation that all of the copy protection stuff with Vista would make it less fault-tolerant that earlier versions of Windows, but I haven’t come across any accounts of that so far (cross fingers). I bailed on Macs after experiencing RSS type problems on the second logic board of my G5 iMac, encountering Apple warranty dodging, and learning of the widespread RSS problems with Macbooks.

The other recurring theme is that Apple tends not to honor their basic warranty if Applecare isn’t purchased. And if you’re using Apple tech support to diagnose a problem that turns out to be a repair issue more than 90 days after purchase without Applecare, you’re paying for that too. Applecare costs much more than comparable service plans from other manufacturers. You can get plans with accidental damage protection for less than the cost of Applecare, which does not include that protection. The consumer should not have to purchase an overpriced and leaky service plan to get tech support and assurance that a warranty will be honored for the duration of year one.