My Day at the Apple Store

AsSiMiLaTeD

It's hard to respond to your post when it's mostly generalized and there aren't a lot of 'facts' in there to debate, but I'll give it a shot.

Your first paragraph is a bunch of 'back in the 80s it was like this' and then you just magically jump to the statement that it's still like that. I guess I don't know how to respond to that other than say 'nu-uh...'

As far as clones you're right, there aren't any, but you're stating that like it's given that it's a bad thing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Apple and Microsoft have two fundamentally different approaches when it comes to how they manage their ecosystems and each has worked well for them. Microsoft has the enterprise market and a big chunk of the consumer market when it comes to PC volume, no doubt a result of their willingness to let everyone play in their sandbox.

As for Apple's approach let's use the iPod and iTunes as an example. They weren't the first to market with those products, in fact they were at least a couple years late. So why did they take off, was it because they were 'cool' or everyone suddenly turned into a 'yuppie' I believe is the word you used? I highly doubt it, nobody really cared about Apple at the time and they were just another PC maker, except nobody really bought their stuff. Plenty of jukebox software and players were on the market, why was the Apple stuff so successful? It was because of their closed ecosystem that Apple was able to create something like iTunes and the iPod experience, they were able to get the record labels on board because they were able to control the whole experience, which set the labels' mind at ease about copy protection issues. In addition to getting the labels on board, they were able to create a good user experience as well since they controlled both the hardware and software. Granted, iTunes on Windows is an abomination but once you get that working the experience on the iPod was miles ahead of the other gear out there. Even today, over ten years later, there are very few products on the market that are as good.

Another thing about clones, ever tried to get support for a Dell or Samsung computer? Let me tell you how that sometimes goes, you come home one day to a blue screen of death or even something simple like no sound and pick up the phone and call Dell. They walk you through a few steps and then either walk you through a restore procedure on your PC (if you bought the restore disks) or tell you it's a Windows problem and to call Microsoft, then you call MS and they tell you it's a hardware issue and to call the OEM. Obviously not every call goes like that, but that's the general level of support you get in that ecosystem where everybody can build everything. I worked in and then managed a Dell and an HP support center for years, I know how it goes...

As for overpriced peripherals that break I can't really comment other than to say that's not been my experience. I have seen some very cheap peripherals that break easily but that applies universally to basically everything ever made, but the quality stuff I've bought over the years all works just fine and I wouldn't consider any of it too expensive. I'm sure you can find some examples if you try, but that can be said for anyone out there.

It's not even remotely fair to use the Made in US vs Chinese labor argument against Apple as you yourself noted. At least when I pick up the phone and call Apple I'm talking to someone in the US, try that with Dell or Samsung and tell me where you end up. They've also started moving production of some lower volume devices back to the US, my Mac Pro was made here, I think the issue with the large volume devices is that we simply don't have the engineering and manufacturing ability in this country to be able to crank out enough of those devices. I read a good article on this a couple years ago and will have to find it, but the gist was that even if Apple wanted to bring the iPhone production into the US they couldn't do it because of those issues. Other companies like Motorola have tried it, they opened a plant here in TX last year, and it's virtually a ghost town now and is closing down at the end of the year. I think Apple employs somewhere around 50,000 workers in the US, but their products generate somewhere around half a million American jobs in related industries the last time I looked at it.

I don't have the same reliability issues with Apple stuff as your teenagers, but since everything seems to be failing "in a year or less" you should actually be good since their base warranty is at least that long and longer in some cases. That's not to say their products don't break and that every trip to the Apple store is unicorns and rainbows, and in fact that's kinda the point of the thread here, a complaint about the Apple store. My personal experiences with them have all been great, and you do tend to see a lot more references to positive experiences than bad ones (even here on this forum there have been several threads that support this). But it's important that threads like this get posted as well and that Apple gets the negative feedback so that they can try and make things better.

AsSiMiLaTeD

sucks2beme wrote: »

I have always maintained my own stuff. And Apple doesn't make hardware easy to do.
the non-apple stuff has a lot more software glitches, but I understand whats going on.
Apple stuff is user friendly on day to day stuff, but not so easy when things go wrong.

You're 100% correct on the hardware side. The other generalization you can make is that the stuff that a Mac does it does very well, but it won't do everything like a Windows box. Gaming, for example, is prehistoric at best on a Mac...

cnh

Didn't really mean to come down on Apple that much. Just not into Apple fanboys. Not that you are one because your presentation is reasonably balanced.

Apple, Microsoft? Both have run the gamut of doing good and bad. Gates or Jobs? Neither strikes me as legendary. Of the two, Jobs was the greater, because I have never heard Gates say anything that borders on the wisdomatic. His interviews are truly pedestrian.

cnh

AsSiMiLaTeD

I'm with you there, the fanboys give us reasonable people a bad rep sometimes. I've spent enough of my life with an irrational hatred of Apple that I tend to have a balanced view now even though I'm mostly converted at this point...

mlong

I lucked out in that I bought a MacBook Pro on ebay that was six months old with 2 1/2 more years of Apple care and got it for half the price it was new. I've had to use the applecare three times an it runs out next week. The apple care really came in handy for me... especially since it was free.