It’s hard to argue with Apple’s success over the past five years. Not only are Mac sales at record levels, Apple dominates the online music business and portable music players, but has carved a healthy niche in the cell phone business.

Is everything coming up roses? No. Apple has some problems, too. As Apple’s customer base has grown, perhaps six times what it was just a few years ago, so have customer complaints about quality control.

From my experience, Panther was the most dependable version of Mac OS X. Tiger was good, but was also more complex. Leopard seems to the least stable of all the recent OS X versions, and Apple’s own discussion boards attests to that fact.

Apple isn’t much for tried and true and some Mac users, Windows switchers, too, have run into hardware problems. The new iMacs had freeze problems. The MacBooks had screen problems.

For the most part, Apple’s iPhone is the darling gadget of consumers this year, but not without more than a few hardware and software glitches. Bad screens. Freezing.

iPhone problems may not be any worse than other cell phones but Apple gets more good press than it deserves, so it’s only fair that it get a little more bad press than it deserves.

Apple’s iPods, though not loaded with all the gee-whiz features of the Zune or SanDisk models, still commands the hearts and minds of buyers. The iPhone touch is hard to find this holiday season which indicates Apple’s customers love what they make and sell.

Apple has more new customers than ever in the company’s history. Why do they buy from Apple? The company has a reputation for products that “just work” and are easy to use. It’s no wonder some customers get angry and upset when things go wrong, and Apple is not exempt from quality control issues.

I suspect that what we are witnessing with Apple’s dramatic growth is Apple’s difficulty keeping up the quality to match the sales success. More customers means more customers who are not happy when things go wrong, especially so if if the expectations are higher, which for Macs, iPods, and iPhones, they are.

Let me argue that Apple is stretched dangerously thin on the resources needed to maintain and manage the record growth areas-- Macs, iPods, online media sales, software, iPhones, and hardware in general. Apple’s reputation is good, yes, but not so good that it is devoid of dents, dings, scratches, and other associated problems.

Is Apple doing anything about their growing quality control issues? Certainly, which I why the noise grows, then slowly softens, not to a whimper, but to a less visibly vocal level. Frequent software updates tend to manage problems and quell the pains of the masses and Apple is very good at updates.

As much as I want to be really happy for Apple and relish all my new Apple toys, and the new Apple Store here in Las Vegas, I’ve had my share of issues, too. My MacBook Pro had a loud whizzing noise, so bad I eventually requested and was given a replacement.

My iPhone has worked very well from day one, with only the occasional Safari crash or hang, but each software update has improved the experience. Mac OS X Leopard has improved, too, but the first version had me pulling out the hair of anyone nearby. I refuse to pull out my own hair when I get frustrated.

2007 was a record year for Apple in every category. Units sold, total revenue, total profits, stock price, the works. Hardware and software are tough businesses and Apple manages to excite customers of both.

2008 will see Apple broaden the product line-- more iPods, more iPhones, perhaps a new Mac or two, and certainly TV and movie rentals in the iTunes Store. Did I mention retail? Apple owns and runs about 200 retail stores, too, which account for an increasingly large chunk of company revenue and profits.

Apple is juggling more balls in the air than ever, and not perfectly, either. The company’s high profile makes it difficult to hide missteps, mistakes, and glitches. Ever hear of a problem with a Toshiba notebook? Obscurity has benefits.

More than any other year, this year I will view Apple from a different perspective. Customer experience, hardware and software problems, and value. I’ll give the company high marks, but there are blemishes here and there.

I’d settle for them just getting there existing stuff right!!

I’ve just spent the UK equivalent of $4000 on a new 17” MBPro with all the trimmings (couldn’t wait for MacWorld due to other constraints), and frankly while beautiful, it’s seriously flawed. One of the worst functioning keyboards I’ve used in years, I’m just due to get a third replacement as they don’t seem to be able to make a lid that isn’t warped at one end, audio that pops all the time because they switch it off every few moments, casings that don’t sit flush, a laptop so hot you can’t keep it on your lap to watch a film. I thought it was me but looking at Apple’s forums it seems I’m far from alone.

Then there’s the Airport Extreme N base station. I was going to buy one of those but wow, how many people having problems with them??!!

Mighty Mouse - again, lovely bit of kit but on the third one now in 18 months as the balls get the slightest bit of dirt in them and they stop working. Of course the design is so beautiful that they forgot to design in a way to open them up and clean them. Thank heavens for Apple Care on that system is all I can say to that.

So, in summary, my advice to Apple would be to forget new products at Macworld, skip it this year and spend a year getting your existing products to the quality level that the price demands.

Martin.
PS: Sadly the MBPro was bought on an ADC scheme so I am not able to return it otherwise I think I would even though I still like it despite it’s flaws.

Dude don’t feel bad! For starters I have a Mac Pro with a 23 inch apple h.d. monitor all witch is now a year old this month. Knock on wood but the Mac Pro tower is doing just fine. My monitor I just noticed two dead pixels on it when I watch movies, I should have read up online at the threads at the .mac store! Every one gave this monitor a bad review. I payed $1200 for this monitor with Apple care and Apple is giving me a hard time on the phone telling me it’s Leopard (B.S.) I hate dealing with those f*ck*** jerks. Now I also bought a Mac
Book a year ago, well it’s been back to the repair shop about five times, 1st for the fan expanding and cracking wires making it shut down, 2, hard drive died, 3 top where the keyboard is and the lid shuts on it cracked open, 4. the magnetic power receptacle stopped accepting power, 5 lcd display went out, only thing left to replace is the mother board. Don’t get me wrong, I am a die hard Apple fan but if they don’t clean up their crap and stop selling people junk, Apple I know and promise is going to head right back into the slumps. They can build a rock solid OS system but they don’t give a damn about their hardware and that is fact whether Mac users want to admit it or not. Just telling you how it is. Oh yeah, my mighty mouse ball stopped working two months into using it, I blow compressed air into it and it’s fine for another few months, I also spin it with a alcohol prep the clean out the rollers in side. I am really mad about my monitor and if they don’t do something, I will go out of my way to hire a lawyer and take them to court as so many other pissed off mac users have done. Glad that is out.

Bambi, agreed - I think we have a worrying trend here, but in addition to the growth of QA problems with the growth in sales, I can personally map a growth in QA problems against the amount of money you spend. The more you spend the worse the problems. Now that’s serious!

I started down the Mac road about 3 years ago now (i think!). Like so many others my first purchase was a relatively cheap Mac Mini 600GBP. The cheapest Mac there was. Guess what? It was perfect, straight out of the box, worked first time and is still going strong to this day (now as a server). So, fairly quickly after that, I realised I did indeed love the Mac world and splashed out the most I’d ever spent on a “PC” - 1500GBP for one of the first round of Intel iMacs. A lovely bit of kit that is still going strong like the day it was bought, even though I sold it just last week(the new owner is a convert who is extremely happy with it). The catch here is that we spent getting on for triple the money of the mini and this time we got sent a duff one out of the factory - a faulty screen. Okay, granted the fault was a mis-mapped memory location on the screen. A bit like having a dead pixel. But it wasn’t dead, it was just displaying the data that should have been displayed elsewhere (very odd!). I guess a very small fault to catch. Well, an immediate replacement and I guess no foul done.

But now with the need to be mobile, I needed to get the wife a Macbook for her day to day use and myself a MBP for my professional / development use. Including cases, that’s just shy of 3000GBP, and in the post above, you can where we are with that mess.

But rather than it being the march of time causing the problem, I honestly think it’s the expense of the products. Yet again, the cheap (well, in relative terms!) 839GBP Macbook was perfect straight out of the box. The expensive 2000GBP MBP is needs replacing at least twice.

Eek!!

Oh well. I hope someone at Apple stops by and reads these kind of posts. You never know, we can but hope.

PS: To “IWazANubee”: Sorry to hear of your problems too! I was looking at the 23” Displays last week as the 1920x1200 display on the MBP is a bit small for the resolution for me but I did learn my lesson now and spotted all the complaints so decided against that purchase straight away. I hope you manage to get your issues sorted!

I loved that mighty mouse. The nipple was genius. If only it kept clean and functional, I’d still have it on my desktop. There is a better mouse out there: The Logitech VX Revolution with the cool metal flywheel. I’ve had it for quite a while now and it functions and scrolls like the day I took it out of the box. The batteries last far longer than they do in Apple’s mouse. Apple would do well to copy that metal flywheel and optical system. Since they’ve gone aluminum, now would be a good time to redesign something sleek and metallic and functional.

We’ve been very lucky with our iMacs, considering we upgraded 3 G4s to G5s. Apple never built a hotter iMac and these were problematic. One of our 3 went through the repair cycle that is commonly mentioned on the boards. But the last fix seems to have worked wonders. All 3 are purring and running like new. Just in time for another upgrade to the Intel iMacs. I’ve read about the video issues and have my fingers crossed. Apparently, Apple has designed a silent fix and the issue has been resolved. We’ll see. My parents have the latest and are not having any problems with it.

My biggest streak of bad luck with Apple occurred years ago with my Purple iMac. Dead on Arrival. A washed out green-ish screen from day 1. And that took months to resolve, even with AppleCare. Since then, if there are issues, AppleCare is so good and so fast, it’s hard to complain. That purple iMac taught me a good lesson. I always buy AppleCare and purchase with a credit card. My 3rd layer of protection is having a relationship with an Apple Rep. You don’t have to be a large business to be treated like one. Having someone at Apple in your corner can be really helpful. At a minimum, get to know the repair guy that works his magic behind closed doors at the local Apple Store.

In light of Apple’s discussions boards lighting up with a higher volume of complaints, I think the extra expense of Apple’s insurance is well worth it. I hope Apple keeps on top of their manufacturers because right now they enjoy the reputation of producing superior hardware.

You all should be long time .Mac customers. I first joined because i kept the same iTools email address that I handed out to everyone (a long time ago now). It seems while time has progressed the >Mac email service is getting shakier and shakier in reliability. I am starting to wonder how many emails I have missed over the last few years because I wanted to use one unified email address. Apple is sating on thin ice with the .Mac service and I wouldn’t be surprised at a class action lawsuit in the future of .Mac.

3 weeks ago I started my conversion to Mac from PC with the purchase of a Macbook to use at work.  When it came time to configure my Macbook, the 250GB drive was reasonably priced.  Superdrive also not so bad.  Both added bonuses well worth the extra money.  Memory was the exception.  I originally initiated the purchase at the online Apple Store.  They wanted $850 for the 4GB upgrade!  WTF?!  What are they selling, Terahert quantum foam bio-memory?

Intrigued, I went down to the MacLife store and they brought the price down to $400.  I know that this stuff is not that expensive.  I had them configure just 1GB.  On the way home I stopped by Crucial.com storefront.  (Yes, I live in Boise where we get our memory fresh out of Micron’s FAB) The store matched the crucial.com price of just $150 for 2GBx2 sticks that went in my Macbook in less than 5 minutes.  Diagnostics passed, and I’ve been living large ever since.

I was very surprised with the price gouging going on with the memory.  Everything else was reasonably priced.  Go figure.
I’ve always known Macs had superior hardware and you tend to pay a little extra, but this is a little extreme.

I always tell people not to bother to get the additional ram from Apple...they have always charged way too much for it.

I had an old iBook G3 800 that fried. Apple replaced the logic board. That one fried, and they replaced it again. And again. After four, they gave me my current machine, an iBook G4 1.2. I have had to get this logic board replaced once.

That’s all, folks. Unless you want to count a Blueberry iBook G3 300 (first generation) that took abuse for more years than most people retain machines as primary computers. Eventually the opening and closing got to it, but I still keep it as a desperation backup machine, and it runs fine, if not quite as quickly as my current machine.

My wireless Might Mouse, which spends its off hours in my laptop case (in a mesh pouch) has never given me a problem. Software that Apple has provided has been as stable as or more stable than the alternatives, often with better performance.

I wonder whether there are simply more people complaining or actually a higher rate of problems. If one person in 10 thousand complains about a product and you have sold 2 million units, that is 200 complaints. If you go on to sell 10 million units of another products and only get 1,000 complaints, then things have gotten no worse, only scaled up.

A lot goes into making these things and if the supplier of just one of the components has a bad day or a bad week, it may go unnoticed till it’s too late.  It’s all about the acceptable PPM level.  PPM = Failing parts per million.  Different industries have different levels of acceptable failures.  For example, if your product is going into an automobile, the automotive industry requires a PPM level of less than 100.  So if 100 cars out of 1 million have a problem with the windows rolling down, the makers of the windows / window controllers get put on a SH*T list and given an unreasonable deadline to identify the root cause and implement containment and correction plan.  Failure to do so and a call is placed to a guy named Guido who lives off 8-mile to have him ‘visit’ you.

In contrast, say the TV remote control market has a pretty lax methodology to failing units.  If a unit fails off the line, they throw it in a bucket.  When the bucket is full, they might write it down.  If it fills up many times in a week, they might get annoyed and call you.  It simply isn’t worth their time to try and investigate each failure.  The units themselves aren’t worth the batteries you stick in ‘em.  In this industry, the acceptable PPM rate is around 3000.

I suspect the personal computer market is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.  If a common failure rate goes beyond the acceptable level, they might investigate root cause and cost to implement a solution.  If the cost is too high, the end user gets screwed.  Otherwise, recalls are made, retrofits are issued, patches are released etc.

I am really surprised by this. My first Mac was a IIVx, which I loved. I have had over 30 Macs since then, laptops and desktops, and the only problem I’ve ever had was a hard drive that died. I can’t even blame Apple for that one because it was a clone, a PowerCenter 210.My youngest daughter has had 3 macs...no problems. Middle daughter 4 Macs, including a MacBook Pro...no problems. Eldest daughter has had 3 Macs...no problems. My wife has had 2 macs with no problems. Now that is over 40 computers and only one problem! Lately, I’ve been tempted to skip AppleCare, but I always figured that would be when I’d get burned. Remember, more people will write in to complain that to report no problems. It’s human nature. I agree with one of the previous posts; it just seems to be a problem because Apple is selling so many more computers.

I am going to post here one more time. You have to Expect to be pissed off for a while when you make a big switch from them to US, like I did a year ago. Yes I Got my Mac Pro Desktop out and the fancy 23-inch high definition monitor out and raced to set it up. No problem I thought, I don’t need those Mac lessons that I just paid for at the store (never did go) for I am a computer geek. Yeah right, I turned that thing on and was LOST for a good two weeks and then it smoothed out and then it got better. What am I saying? If you’re a long time P.C. user then yes it is going to be hell learning the new OS especially if your taking on the challenge with out any help like I did. It boils down to this simple line of, MAC RULES once you have mastered it and got used to it. You might actually realize that what you are mad about is the computer just works and is not crashing and giving you stuff to do such as pulling out video cards, sound cards, reset the bios because you over clocked it. Yes I do kind of miss those days but not really. I guess you could say I have grown up.

PRO~DUAL~INTEL~3/GIGAHERTZ - 29 December 2007 03:56 PM

I guess you could say I have grown up.

I think this line says it all right here. I can understand the attraction of putting together a system yourself and using your knowledge and ingenuity to make it work; and this is what Windows (and DOS before it) are: hobbyist systems, which through a bizarre accident of history have been inflicted, like it or not, on the population at large.

I think this market will be increasingly catered to by Linux distributions. A hobby is supposed to be fun; and trying to force Windows to work just...isn’t. Speaking for myself, like you said, I guess I’ve grown up. I pay over $1000 for a computer and its associated software, I want it to (to coin a phrase) “Just Work.” If that makes me an old fart, so be it!

I can accept that, no problem. As a matter of fact you could not have phrased that any better “ hobbyist systems, windows that is”. The P.C. tower I built was almost five grand just for the tower and guts inside. NOTHING but problems. I still have it, I gave it to my old lady last December yes it’s a little bit to much for her needs but I want nothing to do with windows anymore. I want her to switch also and I don’t know why she won’t, she can see that I hardly have problems and I am always in “start, run, cmd doing crap and I have to format the thing once a year or more. I have a fire pit in the back yard and the P.C. will make it’s ways their sooner or later, the only thing I am keeping from it is the Acer 24 inch monitor. I could go on and on about how I only put top of the line parts inside but what is the point. I am happy on my Mac Pro Desk top.

peace.

p.s. allot of it and I mean allot of it, is drivers. This is my first custom built P.C. and I finally bought a program that finds the drivers for me and it worked and fixed allot of the major problems but I still can not wait to pour gas all over it and light it up. I’ll put it on my you tube when I decide to do it. Promise.

I have to make a former apology about my earlier thread on my “23 inch high definition Apple Cinema Monitor” I stated that it has been a year with my Monitor now and I had just noticed a few dead pixels on it. Well I buy from the apple Itunes store like the world is coming to an end. I have bought nothing but music in the last year. I have just got into buying T.V shows and now Movies recently. I have never noticed a problem with any dead pixels until I started watching the T.V. shows and Movies in Full screen mode. You know switching over to wide screen mode and you have the black on the top and the wide screen where the movie plays and then the black on the bottom the wide screen.

Well I only had two dead pixels and yes it really was no big deal but I am a pessimist about things having to be perfect or It drives nuts, and when I payed $1,200 for the monitor after Apple care I feel it should last for more than a year.

Well I am apologizing to Mac. I gave their Apple monitor a bad reputation. I got a idea, I have 7 thousand dollar P.C. I built with a 24 inch Acer Monitor so I switched monitors and the acer was fine (looked like crap compared to high definition Apple monitor) but I don’t ever see the dead pixels unless I am watching A movie in full screen mode or t.v. Well I turned on the same movie I had just got done watching a hour ago (seeing the dead pixels agin) with the 24 inch acer and to my surprise the Acer was showing the same dead pixel in the top in the black the other dead pixel on the bottom of the Acer Monitor. So these must not be dead pixels, they are in the same spot on both monitors. The movie viewing area is just fine.  The Odds both these monitors have the same glitches in the same spots in next to well I should go out and buy a lottery ticket.

It must be something to with quicktime. I am still learning Mac even after a year. When I start watching a Movie or T.V. show I downloaded in Itunes, is it quick time showing the movies or does mac have a dvd player. I have to ask a stupid question on this one.

I am writing all this to tell everyone to go buy this monitor because I was very relieved to see the same thing on a perfectly good 24 inch Acer. I know my Apple high definition monitor is o.k. and I feel bad for crying like a baby about it and giving apple a bad reputation.  So i just want to correct to problem.

Let me tell all you Mac users who don’t have a H.D. monitor. there is a difference. I hooked up both the Acer 24 inch and the Apple 23 inch H.D. cinema monitor and the Acer was very dull compared to the Apple H.D. monitor. I really do love my Mac Pro Desk top and even though it is all coved for another two years under Apple care protection plan and has given me no problems in the 12 and a 1/4 months I have had it I dread the fact of it dying on me, I would most likely have a massive heart attack and die with it.

The only thing that really hasn’t lived up to my expectations from Apple is the mighty mouse...I have had 3 of them and within a relatively short (3 months or so) the scrollball stops functioning and I cannot get it back no matter how much cleaning I try...other than that stuff works and keeps working…