Restoring The Faith
The title of today’s blog entry is quite self-explanatory. After having experienced “minor challenges” (see the PR Lady spot of Mac vs. PC) with my new Macbook’s screen (the viewing angle’s quality was bitchy), the “Apple Care Dude” and I decided to replace it with a whole new one. It is a bummer having the amount of money in mind I paid for it (I am getting a new one, next week on Thursday). However, writing that entry now sort of serves several purposes.
First, I need to work up that bad bad bad Mac experience. It hit me fairly hard, because I only knew that some Apple fellows had troubles from hearsay. Fact is, Apple’s quality (of non-profession products including iPods, iMac and Macbooks) is suffering, I don’t know who to blame and pointing fingers just doesn’t seem right. Nopes. Not at all. Yet, the waiting to get some Apple Care assistance is a pain in the throat. It took me 40 minutes to talk to someone who then put me on hold AGAIN to talk to some frikken lady who obviously knew better than him. Luckily we could figure something out, so thank you there. We will see how that whole replacing will turn out. It better will be a flawless experience.
My second point is, that computers are technology. If that piece of yours breaks, do not take it personally. It might hurt and the actual purchase might have maxed-out your credit card, but I am sure you’ll get over it. For my part, I so hope for them to send my a new Macbook as quickly as possible. It sucks, but yeah. What shall I do? Irren ist menschlich (To err is human, so here the Lingo Bingo reference — What is Lingo Bingo?).
Thirdly, I want to reach out to those who also have had some bad Apple experience. We are a minority I want to keep “us” small in number - The-Apple-Ruined-My-Apple-Faith-Anonymous-Group, that is. Most of us used to have a strong faith in Apple’s approach of computers, iPods and other beautiful products that have that cute bitten apple one it. If your heartbeat does not increase when touching an iPhone, scrolling on an iPod or sliding over a Mac Pro’s cold metallic case, I am afraid, I am forced to diagnose the following: Your Apple Faith Has Been Seriously Injured. The correct medical term then would be pomum-fides-itis (transl.: apple-faith-). Here is what you do to…
Restore Your Faith in Apple Products After Experience “Minor Challenges”
- Take out your iPod and tune into some good music. Music helps. Who said that music can only heal the open and yet unhealed wound of a break-up (ironic blinker lightening up)? If you can say for yourself, that the ironic aggression of giving away your all-new Macbook to get a new one equals the anger of breaking up with that hot chick from last week, - I am afraid to say so - we are dealing with a waaay bigger issue here.
- Look around and see how crappy PCs are. It is not quite fair to do so, but what the heck, that helps. A lot, to be precise.
- Oh watch some Apple propaganda. “Get a Mac”-spots are not just made to fill commercials, but were also put online to Restore Your Faith. Time Machine won’t help in that case, so you can now stop clicking “Restore” over an over again.
- Check yourself into an Apple Camp. So you can share your experience with “one time at apple camp, …”
- Read these iPod engravings. There’re fun. My favorite: Trapped in iPod factory. Please send help! Which one is your faaaave?
- – to be continued –
If you do not find yourself recovered, go see a doctor to get some help. Serious help, just don’t call Apple Care and expect actual aid, because that would make you start from scratch.
By the way, I already am anticipating the delivery of my second new Macbook. Gosh darn it, Apple got me, after all.
Here some visuals to support the pomum-philia inside yourself…
Apple came up with that idea a couple of days ago. It’s the kind of ads on a website that I can actually bear. We want more of them
Related Entries
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- Date · November 23rd, 2007
- Categories · All Posts, Mac Tech Obsession
- Tags · apple, faith, ipod, latin, leopard, macbook, mastercard
- Credits ·
- Dan Dickinson (Apple Store NYC 5th Ave · license)
- Bored or Feeling Lucky today? · Read a random post
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I think the quality is probably suffering purely because Apple is selling more, thus having to make more, which probably causes the occasional loss of quality. Same with Apple Care, since they’re probably being bombarded by stupid people who can’t fix their own iPod. I know one time when I called with a probably the lady was so relieved that I actually knew a lot already.
Yeah, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility — what a great comic book reference
– Apple has grown and with that broad variety of customers, including iPod Creeps, it hasn’t turned to to be easy for Apple.
Too bad.
I agree with what Blake said… it’s just a matter of time before the Apple OS also comes pre-packaged with some bugs that are patched later… i.e. Leopard.
It’s also a matter of time before Apple has to start supporting backwards compatability - which in turn will end up bloating the OS.
Also Apple will be putting out more fires, than creating new an interesting features… It’s a fairly new OS compared to Windows, and the growing pains are yet to come…
hey purazar,
having used leopard and the new macbook whose quality lives up to my expectations (after the brouhaha with my first macbook) i can only say that leopard is still buggy. i am glad that apple tries to update their software to eliminate bugs. think about the time users of other operating systems have to wait.
yet, leopard hasnt convinced everyone, are you running leopard already? i sort of had to. new macbook, it came preinstalled :)
No.. I’m a Windows guy and my work revolves around Windows, so I can’t migrate to a Mac.. having used Leopard quite a bit and hearing stories, it’s launch was no different than the launch of XP or Vista…
The early hickups and problems…Which we’ve now become accustomed, and know that even the mighty Steve Jobs can’t do much about those things.
But in the end, in my opinion Apple still has an easier job than Microsoft. Apple runs on small selected group of hardware. Microsoft has to program for a million different combinations of hardware that are possible.
I wouldn’t compare the minor errors of Leopard with XP. XP was buggy as hell. Leopard has slight “hick ups” as you said.
Apple has a way easier job. Usually diversity is what I am preaching but in that case, the simplicity is just beautiful and it obviously works better :)
Well, Apple got slightly sloppy, if you know what I mean, not just hardware wise… the whole iPod and iPhone era makes Apple focus on - if you as me - non-essential things. :) Gadgetism. :P
XP wasn’t too bad.. aside from the problem where the firewall was off by default, and a few driver issues it was fine. I was running XP from day one and never had any major issues. If I recall correctly, Leopard had firewall and driver issues as well.. :)
But diversity is what made Windows popular. It’s ability to run on all sort of hardware not just specific ones. Although Linux does this well too - Here driver support from hardware vendors is a problem.
I agree with you - Apple is diversifying - a little too much. I agree with ‘don’t put your eggs in one basket’… but they’ve got way too many baskets.
Hardware, OS, Software, iWhatever (pod,phone,touch), accessories (airport, the displays,) and servers.
Maybe I’m the first person to say something so silly, but this is where Apple should take a page out of Microsoft’s book. Do the OS, Software, and Xbox… (lets not talk about the Zune)…and if I’m not mistaken Microsoft has the bandwidth (employees) and revenue to fan out into all those different streams and do it right. Apple is still growing, they need to focus on a few things and do them exactly right until they firmly establish themselves. They got some bad press because of Leopard!!
Well. Apple has got some challenges too with Leopard. No wonder, all they do is bringing out iPhones around the globe. Yeah, great. Apple is growing. That’s it.
I like Apple for not being like Microsoft. I don’t want to elaborate on the Zune either. Although the new one looks “promising”. On a scale from one to ten it now is 2, the previous version was -20. So I see improvements :P Just kidding. Good to see that other companies try to kick Apple off the MP3 champion rank. YET, I love my iPod and the combo with iTunes. It’s pretty much unbeatable.
Yet, I think Leopard is great. It’s just that they hurried and also started postponing the release date. Anyway, I remember using XP and it wasn’t that bad. It’s just super embarrassing for the leading OS company to wait ages to release something crappy like VISTA. Apple wins in that case, if you ask me.
As to Apple’s egg in various baskets, I only agree to a certain degree. Apple used to be a pro company. Now that it went for consumerism, the usual problems show up, don’t they. All the bugs in Macbooks with their keyboards, AIrport issues and stuff. Apple has potential and I like seeing progress. They just need to figure out their priorities. That’s it. After the iPhone hype they’ll fix that. Hopefully.
I dont’ think to highly of the iPhone aside from the touch screen. This innovation was over due. Why create physical keys, when you can just have keys on a touchable interface.
Aside from that, everything else is just bells and whistles. The built in Wi-Fi is great, and the multi-touch screen.
How about GPS, or 3G? Why did they tie themselves to one carrier and expensive plans? That was a bad move…what about the ‘no third party apps’…hehe. Why did it take them 7 months to launch in Europe.. and I’m in Canada, they COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT CANADA.. haha, it’s ok, we’re used to it, everyone forgets about us. We live in igloos, why do we need an iPhone.
(Sorry went of on an rant there..)
The Zune, it looks promissing, and it definitely has potential, but I think Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with the Zune v1, by making it such a piece of junk. It’s going to take a while to build up it’s reputation again.
I agree with you.. Apple is growing, and they have to support more features, so they have to delay the releases and allows minor bugs to get through… this is just going to happen more often.
But Vista isn’t so bad…I’ve used it quite a bit, and I like it. There are things that I got used to with XP, and take a while to adjust, but the new features are nice…And I’m not talking about the eye candy.
Oh dude, I am not going down that road talking about VISTA. I used it once and I was like. Wow, what a waste of resources and crap. I didnt see one new feature. The Flip 3D looks nice, but isn’t that useful after all. :P I won’t comment on VISTA. Just like the frikken PR Lady.
The iPhone. Hm… It isn’t worth the money for me actually. I don’t wanna pay 400 Euros (compared the the 250 Euros = 400 Dollar it would cost in the US) and I do most definitely don’t wanna pay 70 Bucks a month for using a phone… Geez… It’s for people who can afford that. And PHIL’s Blogging would need to get heavy sponsoring to afford that :) So in case you feel reading a review on my blog, donate! :P Go GO! Haha. I know a friend who is really happy with the iPhone, well, again, I can’t afford it and that’s what keeps me from using it.
I want to give Apple some credit for this revolution because now Android and other mobile applications chance, which was SO over-due. As you said. :P Geez, we agree on many points :) LOL Go under contact and contact me via AIM :) I’d liek to chat up with you :P — but on the other hand we can discuss that here publically :P LOL
The Zune. Not going to work out the way MS wants it too right now, so they will have to wait and see what’s happening on the market. Their sharing joke is actually hilarious :P We’ll see zune,… What a pun :P
Oh Canada is the better US in so many respects. Canada is one of the countries I wanna visit. :) Where are you from exactly? :P
Vista is a good upgrade to XP… They enhanced the UI with making the controls and menus and option way more accessible and functional. The visual stuff is just eye candy, just like your stacks… under Windows it’s called the task bar, and the stuff under the Start Button :D
The iPhone is way to expensive for what you get, and besides it’s not available in Canada… yet.
I’m sure you could get sponsors for your site… looks like you get quite a few readers.. why not have some Google Ads? Not sure how much revenue that will bring, but it’s something.
Apple definitely started the touch screen, and the mp3 players revolution.. I will give you that… I think Samsung is coming out with a flip phone, but both sides are a touch screen. I read something about it on Engadget.
The Zune, MS needs to come up with a different business model, otherwise it’s not going to take off like they want it to. Apple has a strangle hold on that maket with the itunes and ipod combo..
I’m from Ottawa Canada. The captial of Canada… :D
If you’re from Austria, where you have some amazing skiing, you should definitly come to Canada, and ski at Whistler and Blackcomb…
But this year might not be the best choice.. it’s giong to be really cold this year.
I prefer talking publically rather than AIM (and I don’t have AIM), it builds content and conversation for the ‘blogosphere’. :D
I’m going to put your blog in my RSS feed…
Vista is more than embarrassing. they cut off half of their orginial plans for longhorn, then renamed it because of the bad press they got for longhorn. even apple cut off some features, but they at least have a reason. they were busy doing their iphone thing. what did microsoft do? busy doing their zune-thingy? :P Nah, it is okay, Vista needs to be patient. people are just happy that their xp is running fairly well: “never change a running system
Leopard has some bugs. I just experience them :P Stacks is so not what I call great :P Automator and Preview crashed yesterday. I wanted to resize about 60 pictures. Oh, all those ticket that I just sent Apple. That should keep them busy. :P I send passive-aggressive bug reports, you know :)
I think it is great that other mobile phone producers now rethink their designs and the usability. I am glad Apple contributed to this new wave…
Apple’s position on the MP3 player market (some people already call MP3 playing devices iPod automatically :P sick, what?) is more than reasonable if you once saw how that syncing and everything that comes with itunes+ipod.
So, you’re from ottawa. that should be fun. I’d love to come and go snowboarding, but bringing your snowboard along on the plane can be a pain. i’d rather rent it for a couple of days. too bad I can’t go snowboarding this year, because I have to do my community service. I might get the chance to go for one day or so…