Truth be told - Apple SUCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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deep

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23 months ago I spent $3000 at Apple.

I bought a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.

The MacBook is a pretty good machine. But the optical drive only worked properly the first few months.

Checking on the forums this is a very common problem there are pages and pages of mac owners that can not get dvds and sometimes cds to load and play in the macbooks.

My iPhone quit a couple of days ago. The home button just froze. The phone won't charge. I went to the Apple store where I bought it. Six months ago I paid $200 to replace the phone because I cracked the screen. They said the replacement phone only had a 90 day warranty. I said so if I give you $200 now I can get a replacement and after 90 days if it quits I give you $200 again? I paid $400 for the phone new, $200 for a replacement and it has not even been two years.

$2500 for a notebook and it won't even read dvds?
 
why didn't you take the extended warranty? that's the most no shit thing ever.

I've always thought a decent product doesn't need an extended warranty. In fact I can't think of a single product I've EVER purchased that I have used an extended warranty on.

Of course, I don't own any Apple products either. ;)



(I'd be pissed off too, deep.)
 
I've always thought a decent product doesn't need an extended warranty. In fact I can't think of a single product I've EVER purchased that I have used an extended warranty on.

Of course, I don't own any Apple products either. ;)



(I'd be pissed off too, deep.)

something portable and subject to regular use like a laptop or expensive phone without an extended warranty is just stupid, in my opinion.

who's to say you won't accidentally drop your laptop or phone? it won't matter then if it's a decent product or not.
 
I have been waiting for a post like this. I agree Apple products are overpriced!! $2500 for a macbook that won't read DVD's? holy cow... I could get a Dell Studio 15 laptop for $1000 with 1080p HD screen (that will read dvds and bluray) thru my dads employee purchase discount program. I was thinking about a macbook but i don't want one now after seeing this thread. No thank you!!
 
Maybe you got a bad macbook? Mine's over a year old and the dvd drive still works perfectly, no complaints at all.

And my U2 ipod which is from... 2006 or so still works perfectly as well. Only thing is that the battery isn't lasting as long as it used to, but for a three year old device I'm not complaining!

What I'm trying to say here is that that YOU have a bad experience with Apple doesn't mean they SUCK!!!!!!!111ooneoneoneone.
There are plenty of people who have never had any problems, and ofcourse there are a few who have. You just happen to be one of them.

It sucks, but if you want to avoid stuff like that listen to Ian. My macbook doesn't have extended warranty, but my phone does. Everybody drops their phone at least once in a while, so I'd rather have it insured.
 
something portable and subject to regular use like a laptop or expensive phone without an extended warranty is just stupid, in my opinion.

who's to say you won't accidentally drop your laptop or phone? it won't matter then if it's a decent product or not.

:applaud:
 
I don't pay for extended warranties on things either. They are one of the biggest scams around. Aside from that, they can run you hundreds of dollars, at which point I am happy to gamble that my laptop will last a couple of years at which point I'd rather get a new one than have paid hundreds on a warranty that will ultimately leave me with an old machine anyway.

I have had tons of Apple products (3 Nanos, 1 iPod Touch, 2 old iPods, an iPhone and a MacBook) and I've never had a problem with a single one of them aside from the batteries on the old iPods crapping out pretty fast (which did annoy me).

I also had horrible experiences with both Sony and Toshiba laptops but you'll find plenty of people who did like theirs. A lemon is a lemon.
 
I did a bunch of research a year or so ago when I was going through hell trying to get my daughter's Toshiba laptop fixed under factory warranty. I can't remember exactly what I found, but it went something like this: the laptops with the highest failure rate (being sent back for repairs) are the cheaper PC laptops - Acer and Toshiba. Dell is just a tiny bit better than either of those (and I've heard time and time again that their personal user customer service sucks, but their business customer service is okay). HP and Sony's failure rate is lower, but still high. Apple's is comparable to HP and Sony. When you buy a Mac, you're not getting an indestructible machine the way their marketing would have you believe. The best by far is Lenovo, which is what I'll be looking at next time I need a laptop, and they're much more affordable than Macs.

I have a 2 year old Acer. It cost me $450 on sale, and I've spent $200 replacing the hard drive and upgrading the RAM. For the price, it's been a decent little machine, the hard drive failure is pretty much the only issue I've had with it. When this one meets its eventual demise, I'll feel a hell of a lot better about tossing it than I would have if I'd spent $2,500 on it.

I agree, extended warranties are a crock. Just talk to any ex-employee of a store that pushes them.
 
Asus and Toshiba are the most reliable laptop makers, and netbooks have a 20 percent higher failure rate than laptops, according to a Nov. 17 study from SquareTrade, an electronics warranty provider that analyzed the failure rates of more than 30,000 new laptops covered by its warranty plan.

The report arrives just in time for the holiday shopping season, and offers an overview of laptop failure rates, failure rates caused by accidents versus malfunctions and netbook failure rates compared to those of laptops.

Shoppers and list-makers may be interested to learn that Asus and Toshiba notebooks had three-year failure rates below 16 percent. Sony placed third, with a 16.8 percent three-year failure rate, followed by Apple (17.4 percent), Dell (18.3 percent) and Lenovo (21.5). Acer and Gateway came in just under 24 percent, and Hewlett-Packard, which is the world’s largest producer of PCs, came in last, with a 25.6 percent failure rate over three years.

Asus, Toshiba Have Lowest Failure Rates, Says Study - Desktops and Notebooks from eWeek
 
^That's contrary to everything I've ever read. It's pretty widely acknowledged that for the past 4 or 5 years, Toshiba laptops suck donkey balls (before that, their quality was slightly better).
 
Airport Security Puts Three Bullets Through MacBook, Hard Drive Survives | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

^Hehe.

I'm not going to go to the mat for Apple, but overall they are pretty damn reliable. I think the $250 for their extended MacBook warranty is a bargain for peace of mind for an extra 2 years beyond the included 1 year.

Lost in these arguments is the true reliability of Macs--their Operating System. I don't have any experience with Windows 7, but Apple beats the shit out of PCs in functional reliability and utility (not talking to you Linux folks though).

You generally get what you pay for, and I'm happy to have spent $20K+ on Macs over the last 10 years.
 
I've never paid for the extended Applecare but think I will on my next laptop since I end up using them for so long. Not sure yet.
I've also have numerous Apple products for years now (tons of desktops and towers, 2 Mac Minis, ipods, Powerbook, MBP, iPhones, blah blah blah) and haven't had any major problems with the machines. I've replaced a couple of crap batteries here and there but that was on laptops that were years old. Have had bad luck with an iPod but it was a refurb, I only buy them new now.
 
One bad thread about one person's laptop is going to make up your mind for you? :slant:
Dell Studio 15 Problems.....? - Yahoo! Answers

How about dozens of threads about Apple drives and hundreds and hundreds of Apple customers with the same problem

I read a few dozen pages last night and realized, I was not just unlucky and got a lemon.

Apple - Support - Discussions - Drive won't read any dvd-ejects it ...

38 pages there ^


Apple - Support - Discussions - Optical Drive and your MacBook Pro

many more threads there ^

and those are only the ones that the Apple people ( mods ) have not been able to keep deleted because of the avalanche of unhappy customers

The SuperDrive on my MBP has stopped recognizing/reading any blank DVD media (and many recorded DVDs, including movie discs). It spins for some time with a noise and then ejects it out. The same media works fine in my wife's Sony Vaio laptop.
There was a thread on this previously, but Apple has closed it:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Drive won't read any dvd .. ejects it ...

I know Apple won't own up to the problem, so has anyone found a solution?

I just noticed the same problem with my MacBook Pro tonight. Help on this 'Apple Guys' would be nice.

Drive Details:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:

Firmware Revision: DA09
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds


Me too!

Even the original DVDs from Apple (Leopard, iWorks08 iLife08) which have only been used once, are ejected automatically!

Ya same thing here. I was reading on another post about a similar issue and they said to start up your laptop with the original Mac OS X disc to fix the issue, but mine was ejected after spinning for a few seconds. Can Someone from Apple please post to this thread and Help Us address this issue. I have used a Mac since 1994, but lately nothing but problems. My iPod Touch broke after 7 months and even though apple said it had a 1 year war. they would not fix it. Now my BRAND NEW laptop is having issues. I called the 1-800 number and they would not talk to me unless I paid them, and my laptop is not even 6 months old!!!! I was even supposed to get a free iPod touch with my laptop, which I did not, and they wont even help me with that! Im starting to think I should sell this thing and go buy an HP.
 
I'm a laptop technician and work on Apple's and PC. I think the form factor is both the best and worst thing about the Apple laptops. It's the best because their laptops are indestructible. We had one come in that a guy had in his backpack while he was carrying his child who was having an asthma attack. He slipped on the ice and both he and the child fell back onto his backpack. The corner of the laptop with the optical drive was bent, but the damn thing worked fine! No damage to the LCD. The only problem was the guy had a Netflix DVD in the drive for the kid to watch in the hospital and we had to figure out how to get it out with the slot being bent in a crescent shape. All of our most "abusive" users are Mac people and it's amazing what these computers survive.

But when it comes to servicing or upgrading them....most of the time I just turn people away and tell them to go to the Apple store, I just don't have the patience! The newer models are much better. It used to be a several hour process to upgrade something that takes me 30 seconds on most PC laptops.

I personally use a PC laptop for price and ease as far as replacing/upgrading components. When I'm a "power user" I use my Mac or enhanced PC at work. At home, I just don't need the indestructible form factor because I no longer take my laptop with me every day and use it as a guinea pig for testing other parts so I need to be able to pull it apart in minutes.
 
Lost in these arguments is the true reliability of Macs--their Operating System. I don't have any experience with Windows 7, but Apple beats the shit out of PCs in functional reliability and utility (not talking to you Linux folks though).

You generally get what you pay for, and I'm happy to have spent $20K+ on Macs over the last 10 years.

Corporate buyers have largely shunned the Mac though - their share of the business market is tiny. The iPhone, on the other hand, has captured 30% of the business market in its niche.
 
One bad thread about one person's laptop is going to make up your mind for you? :slant:
Dell Studio 15 Problems.....? - Yahoo! Answers

The posts on that page were posted a YEAR ago....

Dell has a pretty good track record. I'm using the same Desktop with XP for 6 years now and still runs great.

It's not just one person, its my bank account too. Plus i prefer to be able to customize the ram and drives, you can't do that with mac's.

And PC's are more handicapped accessible IMO(i'm physically disabled an use one hand to type), I use keyboard for everything more than the mouse.

As for regular macs, the mouse that comes with the system sucks too, the regular Microsoft wheel mouse is way easier to use!
 
The posts on that page were posted a YEAR ago....

You tell em, Jesse


Apple has a big problem with their drives

Here are dozens of threads about Apple drives and hundreds and hundreds of Apple customers with the same problem

I read a few dozen pages last night and realized, I was not just unlucky and got a lemon.

Apple - Support - Discussions - Drive won't read any dvd-ejects it ...

38 pages there ^


Apple - Support - Discussions - Optical Drive and your MacBook Pro

many more threads there ^

and those are only the ones that the Apple people ( mods ) have not been able to keep deleted because of the avalanche of unhappy customers

The SuperDrive on my MBP has stopped recognizing/reading any blank DVD media (and many recorded DVDs, including movie discs). It spins for some time with a noise and then ejects it out. The same media works fine in my wife's Sony Vaio laptop.
There was a thread on this previously, but Apple has closed it:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Drive won't read any dvd .. ejects it ...

I know Apple won't own up to the problem, so has anyone found a solution?

I just noticed the same problem with my MacBook Pro tonight. Help on this 'Apple Guys' would be nice.

Drive Details:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:

Firmware Revision: DA09
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds


Me too!

Even the original DVDs from Apple (Leopard, iWorks08 iLife08) which have only been used once, are ejected automatically!

Ya same thing here. I was reading on another post about a similar issue and they said to start up your laptop with the original Mac OS X disc to fix the issue, but mine was ejected after spinning for a few seconds. Can Someone from Apple please post to this thread and Help Us address this issue. I have used a Mac since 1994, but lately nothing but problems. My iPod Touch broke after 7 months and even though apple said it had a 1 year war. they would not fix it. Now my BRAND NEW laptop is having issues. I called the 1-800 number and they would not talk to me unless I paid them, and my laptop is not even 6 months old!!!! I was even supposed to get a free iPod touch with my laptop, which I did not, and they wont even help me with that! Im starting to think I should sell this thing and go buy an HP.
 
I have been waiting for a post like this. I agree Apple products are overpriced!! $2500 for a macbook that won't read DVD's? holy cow... I could get a Dell Studio 15 laptop for $1000 with 1080p HD screen (that will read dvds and bluray) thru my dads employee purchase discount program. I was thinking about a macbook but i don't want one now after seeing this thread. No thank you!!

http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f295/are-u2-people-mac-people-199831.html#post6296829
 
For my money, Apple product has been worth every penny.
I have several things from them and the ease of use and productivity I get from them validates the extra cost.
I've done my share of experimenting with Dell, HP, Sony, etc and none of them can deliver the type of efficiency that Apple delivers.


As far as warranties, I did not buy any of them for these products....but if they malfunction or break down, i'll pay for them to get them serviced.
Some one once complained that "luxury" products should not break and should last longer. Sometimes they do, but even Lexus cars require service.

btw, Alum MacBook; best product I have EVER purchased.
 
I will agree on one thing; for the most part employees at Apple stores are horrible.
It's like they are in a clique/click/cleeq/clieq
 
I will agree on one thing; for the most part employees at Apple stores are horrible.
It's like they are in a clique/click/cleeq/clieq

oh, definitely. when i had to get my repair done i went straight to the technician (found on the apple website, research ftw!) and they couldn't have been better to deal with.

if i'd taken the time to go to an apple store i'd have got attitude and had to wait for someone forever. the apple store employees (usually, not always) seem to represent the douche section of apple owners.
 
I will agree on one thing; for the most part employees at Apple stores are horrible.
It's like they are in a clique/click/cleeq/clieq
oh, totally. it seems whenever i do need help (which is basically when i decide i want to buy something, lol) i can't find anyone, yet when i'm just browsing at ipod cases it's "can i help you?" x500.

of course it probably doesn't help that i shoot "leave me the fuck alone!" laser beams from my eyes when i say i'm "just looking." :shifty:
 
The posts on that page were posted a YEAR ago....

And Deep bought his Macbook 2 years ago ;)

In all seriousness though, I dont really care what sort of computer people want to buy. If you prefer PC, go for it. I'm a Mac user, but I'm a little biased as its pretty much standard in my industry. I couldn't be happier with it though
 
Bought my first MacBook in 2006. Not impressed. Went buggy (keyboard occasionally not responding, battery had to be replaced) and would freeze up more often than any computer I ever owned. The HD crashed last summer and had to be replaced.

Thus, my first impressions of the Mac were not good. What really got to me was how people would talk like Macs were God's gift to computers, when in reality they're are just another machine that runs slightly better than their competitors at much higher prices. The Apple culture is nauseating enough without the fact that the machine doesn't back up its claims.

However ... as a graphic artist and a amateur photographer, I've loved how well my Mac handles media. It's so much smoother than my Dell (with the same processor and RAM) ever was. Despite how unimpressed I am with machine overall, I might just make the switch to a full-time Mac person on this fact alone. Just makes my production a lot easier.

And I have to say that in the two times I've visited an Apple store (once for a broken iPod and once for my crashed HD), I could not have had better service. They were friendly, knowledgeable, and even gave replaced my products for free or for a cheap price when they didn't have to and weren't under warranty.

All that to say: Macs aren't what they're cracked up to be, but for some specific needs (artistic, mainly) they're pretty swell. And the customer service is superb.
 
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