So, I’m a little torn. On Saturday, I had a pretty good customer service experience. I walked in to the Apple store for a Genius Bar appointment I’d made the day before. I explained my problem, the guy helped me quickly, courteously, and the problem was resolved absolutely to my satisfaction. Everyone was very friendly, the atmosphere was great, and overall, it was a really pleasant experience. So far, every time I’ve had to bring an issue to Apple’s attention, it’s been handled very gracefully.
On the other hand, I’ve never had a laptop with this many physical problems. So far, the case has spontaneously cracked in three places – once on the wrist rest near where my right wrist sits, at the edge, and this time, in two places – on the bottom part of the case near the front left on the side, and again by the USB port on the same side.
I haven’t been treating this laptop any differently than I did the VAIO I used to have, but that thing’s case was magnesium, and I could probably have dropped a truck on it without it breaking. So, on one hand, Apple’s customer service is stellar, but on the other hand, Apple’s products force me to use the customer service, so it had *better* be stellar.
I don’t think this really evens out, unfortunately, it’s really a tick not in Apple’s favor, in the same way that the new extended warranty for the 360’s RROD problems isn’t really all that positive a thing for Microsoft.
That said, I’ve had the laptop for a couple months now, and I *really* like it. The physical design of the case is really leaps and bounds above any other laptop I’ve ever used. While the Macbook was in the shop, I used Ei-Nyung’s ThinkPad, and it really felt quite alien. The keys felt really odd, and it just had all these bits and bobs that made it look … inelegant.
I hope that this is the last of my problems with the MacBook, but I’m not gonna cross my fingers. I’ll definitely have to get AppleCare for this thing before the year’s up.
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On a totally different note, the project I’m working on is chugging along nicely. About halfway done with two steps in the process, with one step starting tomorrow. I think I’ll have it done by the end of the week, but we’ll see. I think the last step is going to be a bit more time consuming than I think, even though I think it’ll be pretty time consuming.
It’s freakin’ TIRING though, and damn, it’s hot these days.
Apple pushes limits in its designs, no question. The most infamous example of this, to my mind, is the first Titanium powerbook. It was a wonder to behold, but immediately tons of major problems surfaced.
Nearly every innovative feature came with a major engineering flaw: the metal frame gave it terrible wireless reception, the slot-loaded optical drive was prone to jamming, the hinges were major failure point, and it was hot enough to fry your thighs like so much flabby bacon.
I don’t think Apple has released such a problematic product since, and if you look at that list they do pretty well in all of those areas these days except heat dissipation, which I suspect is a tradeoff between fan noise and fried thighs.
If they’re such great designs, why are they totally overhauling them so often? 😛
Seriously though, I think there’s something to be said for small design tweaks over time, as opposed to radical re-designs with every iteration. It’s a big part of the reason I drive Japanese cars.
RE: The Red Ring of Death – I’ve had three 360s die on me now, and not once has it been a RRoD.
1st was a firmware update that killed the video
2nd was games freezing within seconds of booting up
3rd was a broken optical disk
It’s a great console …when it works.
hmm, microsoft and apple similar in this way…odd
mmm madden and skate…ok this verification thing is out of control:
gwumpgtm
The project is AWESOME!