Hard Cider Index

by William Tell

Well my article of the other day detailing the rather frustrating experience I have had with getting Apple to repair defective equipment generated a lot of response. Many of the responses detailed similar experiences to my own. Two of the messages I received were from former Apple employees giving their perspective from the inside (one of these messages I post at the end of this page).

I have posted on this page a variety of the responses I received. I want to preface these messages and my own article with the acknowledgement that within the computer technology industry Apple has consistently had the highest consumer satisfaction rating and the best repair record of the industry. Whether this speaks well of Apple or very poorly of the rest of the industry, I don't have the data to make that determination. I do know that every piece of Apple equipment I have owned except for my StyleWriter printer has had to be repaired - always at Apple's expense (meaning it was under warranty). According to G e n n i c a (see message below) this is a legacy of the Spindler era at Apple. I can believe this. There should really be some recourse for a company to sue former CEOs for negligence, if they have done as Spindler did, his befuddled best to ignore his job. Instead they usually have a bunch of money dumped on them as they are kicked out the door (at least in this country).

Despite my experience and unlike Olivier (see message below) there is little hope that I would put a Dell or it's equivalent on my desk - I just cannot see the aesthetic equivalent of a cardboard box and matching operating system as my daily interface. There is a reason that Apple and its operating system have the consumer loyalty and affection they do. It is important that in all aspects of its operations, Apple nurture and feed this unique position it enjoys and that it move quickly to clear up problems when they occur. I believe that Apple has the intention and interest in doing this and just has to clean up some of the execution in some areas - specifically repair service. In instances such as Scott's and Ed's, where items have had to be basically rebuilt from scratch, these are not products, but manufacturing defects. I cannot believe that it is cost effective to keep repairing them (it certainly isn't from a public relations standpoint) and they should be quickly assessed as unfortunate lemons by the company and replace with well functioning units.

Pete Ottman's message I found the most sad - basically accepting this level of service as the normal course of business. I grew up in Switzerland and if a company had the kind of repair record I experienced they would be out on the street within a week. I don't think that Apple would accept this level of service from their own vendors and Apple's customers should expect no less.

I hope you all have a happy holiday

Will

12/22/98

From Olivier Giboin.

I bought a laptop G3 back in June. The computer worked great for 3+ month, then the screen started changing color and fade up to the point where I could not see anything. The date had to be reset after starting up the computer, and the batery would be loose in its bay. I sent it to repair at the begining of October. It came back a few days later with a note saying a cable was loose in the unit. None of the problems were fixed.I shipped the computer back to Apple. I called every other day to find out when I might see or ever see that machine again. It lasted over a month. It finally came back on December 12. They changed the screen (13.3" active matrix), but the date was still wrong and the batery still loose in the bay. I finally took it to a local Apple dealer. It is not fixed yet. I might get it back next year if everything goes fine. I has been 3.1/2 month now since my problems started with this computer and it's not over yet. What puzzles me is why can't they do it right the first time. The next time I need a laptop I will check out Dell first.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Olivier

Hi William,

I had the buzz problem with my TAM and I waited and waited to read about a posted fix. It took months before I found out I should have called immediately and put my name on a list. Finally I called and after 45 min of voicemail hell I put my name on the list. A month later I got a message on my answering machine that they had tried to call me. I spent about 1 1/5 hours a day for 3 days in a row to get to a person who knew what was going on. This was the week that the Apple contract with Kodak for customer service was terminated. I was told that a replacement base unit would arrive in 72 hours. When it didn't, I spent another 2 days on the phone and was told that the part was out of stock and it would be 3-5 weeks before it would be sent. The next day the base unit arrived. I sent my original unit back and never heard anything back from Apple. Since my credit card was not charged $600 I guess the unit got back to them and my account updated to reflect it. This experience made it extremely difficult to recommend Apple products to my friend. I'm just glad I only had to send the base unit back after I got a replacement instead of packing up the machine and sending it off beforehand. I would have been afraid of never seeing it again. The buzz had almost been enough to make me hate my TAM but now that it is fixed I love it again. Thanks for your column.

Patricia

Howdy -

I read of your experience, and only wish mine was as prompt. A shade over a month after I bought my PowerBook G3 Series 233, it shut down and would not restart. It also smelled really bad (like burning plastic). I had noticed occasional snapping sounds within a day or two of getting it, but hadn't given them much thought. I think I convinced myself that they were actually coming from the speakers, and not the sound of electrical arcing, which I now suspect they were.

I called Apple service and was put through a standard, "Did you try this? (Dummy?)" suggestions in order to convince them that something was really wrong. In the course of the procedures I mentioned that the PB was smelling awful. They finally relented when I mentioned smoke. They agreed to send me a mailing carton.

I packed it up and sent it to Texas. It arrived November 19th. I haven't seen it since. My calls (every couple of days) have revealed that they have replaced the power supply, the charging card, the battery, the PMU (Power Management Unit?) card, the motherboard, the trackpad, and soon, the keyboard. (The CD-ROM is OK! - so far...) Every delay I've experienced (including the current one) has been parts related. I am now waiting for a new keyboard.

I grant you that the PB must have just melted down. They have nearly replaced it, piece by piece. But it'll be five weeks tomorrow that I've been without my PB - that's longer than I had it originally. To say I am unimpressed by their service is to understate things severely. Yet I feel helpless to do anything about it.

It seems to me that if Apple is going to shop out their repairs, they really need to supply enough parts for them to do the job. It doesn't seem to matter whether the part is esoteric or common - they don't have enough to meet the demand.

I've owned Macs since the original Macintosh. I've been pretty lucky so far, as none before needed repair. I didn't know how lucky, however.

And to think they quoted me 7-10 business days when I sent it in!

- Scott

I wrote the following as an entry for the MacTimes Road Apple list, but since it mainly involves service problems it probably is a better fit here. In addition to what I outline below, the first time the 1710AV monitor was 'repaired' it came back with the microphone piece broken and hanging a little loose from the top of the machine and the power cord was missing (but these problems were so minor compared to the overall horror). All in all I was without my 1710AV for 6 months.

-------------------- RoadApples:

I just assumed that this was on the list, and boy was I shocked that it wasn't! All it takes is a scan throught the online Apple Tech Discussion site for Apple Displays and anyone would know to avoid the 1710 and 1710AV monitors (used only at this point) like the plague.

This monitor sports the always super Trinitron tube with a sharp and clear picture (when working). The speakers (AV model) are placed well for sound and the sound is pretty good. The on-screen controls and accessory ports on the monitor case are extremely convenient.

Now the bad:

A significant range of serial numbers for both the 1710 and 1710AV models were announced a couple years ago by Apple to be susceptible to failures in the deflection board primarily (the part that controls the position of each pixel of the entire image on the screen). Though there are a number of tech articles on this subject there doesn't seem to be just one root failure mechanism or symptom, but the two most common ones are:

- on startup the screen just stays black - on the AV model, the speakers make a continuous ON/OFF popping noise

Apple did not respond with an extended warranty on these models until after almost a year of frustration by owners, and even then, they only extended it to one additional year from the date of purchase. Now this is with a manufacturing lot for a device that they know is a faulty, failure-prone, design. If this were a car or a baby product there would have been a recall.

The next year saw a flood of activity on the Apple Displays Tech Discussion board after which this summer they initiated another extended warranty program. This one was without regard to when you purchased the machine, and simply covers repair for the 'black screen' condition through the end of 1998. For most owners this represents a 3-yr plus warranty from the date of purchase which is pretty much the industry standard now (for monitors that are presumably manufactured correctly).

A scan of the discussion boards will also show that most people who have had a 1710-series monitor repaired have had it repaired multiple times. I myself have had every single piece of electronics in the case replaced at least once, and the deflection board has been replaced 5 times (and it is in the shop now because the focus still isn't acceptable).

Summary:

It's an excellent monitor concept which works great when it works. It had a flawed design and manufacturing process which is not necessarily awful if the manufacturer supports the product well. Apple has failed miserably here, and though the manufacturing is reason enough to be a Road Apple, the support issues should put it at the top of the list.

First off, Apple only offers a 1-year warranty on monitors while most companies offer a MINIMUM of 3-years. Apple monitors are not cheap, and in fact, are more expensive than most competitors yet they have a shorter warranty. Using the car analogy again luxury cars usually have what amounts to valet-style bumper-to-bumper warranty service when compared to budget vehicles. I mean if the rear-view mirror has strange deflection in it, BMW will replace it with the urgency that you would only expect if the engine had fallen out of the bottom.

Secondly, Apple has responded to the rampant complaints about this monitor too late and with repair programs that are minimal at best. As I mentioned before, if this had been a car this product would have been recalled and replaced with properly manufactured subsystems (or just replaced with an alternate monitor). Since most well-manufactured monitors fail because of the power-supply or the picture tube Apple should have provided a lifetime warranty for all the electronics except those two items if they didn't want to issue a recall. Instead they have frustrated consumers with piecemeal limited extension programs which cause the monitors to spend more time in the repair shop than actually functioning on a desk. The degradation of good will towards Apple products that this has developed in me has been severe.

Finally, it just doesn't make financial sense. The money Apple has spent on phone support, customer service, and multiple repair parts has got to be significantly higher than the cost would have been had they just simply recalled the monitors or replaced them with other models when they failed.

This should be a minimum of a *** Road Apple (you can specify the bad serial number range if you like).

Thx Ed

Interesting stories, but I don't find them all that damming.

First off, you never, ever send your power cords or any cords with a machine to a repair shop. Second, you never ship out a machine with a disk of any kind in it. Then, if you do do those things, don't ever expect to get the items back. Just bad implementation. Why? Repair shops have or should have all the cords necessary. They are your CDs or disks, you should control them.

About the repair time: if a repair shop tells you your car will be done in an hour, expect it to be three. If they say two days, expect at least a week. Three weeks seems a bit excessive, but stuff happens.

As for the battery being unplugged, well, that's a bummer and unprofessional, but it's not a perfect world.

I don't mean to belittle your experiences, but they really aren't that horrible, just annoying. It seems like you think Apple should be perfect, but in truth, it is just a company that makes good equipment. Well, its usually good.

My 6205 had it cache replaced under the repair program. It was done in 10 minutes and done properly. My 15 inch monitor is currently in the shop for repair under a recall program. I was told three weeks, but secretly believe it will be back in 4-5 weeks because it is Christmas. Is that excessive? Maybe, but I'm glad it's being repaired for free.

Pete Ottman

William,

Loved your article... "Apple's Repair and Service Center"

I worked inside the Apple Assistance Center for 3 years and took over 22,000 calls... You are not alone with these issues... but... we really tried hard, and succeeded "much" of the time...

It was simply the shear volume that caused us to fail... We just couldn't handle it... "still can't".

The Spindler era created many of the issues... powerbook 5300, 5200/6200... TAMS, 1710AV Displays... Color LaserWriter, it was a NIGHTMARE... trust me! We worked our butts off to help clean up the mess... but I respect your comments with our service...

I'm glad you own a TAM... A wonderfully built "Apple Machine".... overly engineered, overly kewl, and a small design flaw... Which was sooooo Apple during that 6 year period!

Things are better... and will be GREAT in 15 days!

Keep the faith,

G e n n i c a

Willam works for a large Internet company and divides his time between Silicon Valley and Bern Switzerland. He feels qualified to comment on all things Macintosh because he often takes potshots at his son's Apple.