Hey, that’s a strange title for an avid and long time Apple user! But I’ve completely had it with Apple products. They look great, they’re ease of use… but their life time is simply ridiculously short. Let me briefly describe to you how I came to the conclusion that Apple products suck.
I bought my first Apple product, a 15″ Mac PowerBook G4, a little over four years ago, when Apple was nothing compared to what it has become to date. The large crowd didn’t use these higher priced notebooks yet. I’m still using the same Mac, but had some significant problems with it over time.
The first problem was actually one that Apple handled really well, when they recalled all batteries for replacement due to a safety risk. My second problem however was one of large scale, as my hard drive crashed. I tried several recovery programs, but gave up after trying for a few days. I finally accepted the fact that I lost all my files, including irreplaceable photos and movies, and replaced the hard drive with a new one. Besides the frustration, the repair also turned out to be quite expensive.
Because I never wanted to experience such a situation again, I decided to invest some money and bought a 500Gb Apple Time Capsule, which is a storage device that makes backups on the fly combined with a wireless network router. The perfect solution!
In the meantime, we bought more and more Apple products, including an 8Gb iPod touch which we hardly use. My girlfriend, just as brand minded as I am, also bought her first Apple computer, a 13″ MacBook. We even convinced my dad, who was 75 years old at the time, to buy a MacBook, and so he did. My dad is a renown tango DJ, but that’s a whole different story that I’ll surely cover in one of my future posts.
My girlfriend’s MacBook started to act up really soon after she bought it. First, her keyboard failed to work properly, but luckily it was replaced by the local Apple dealer for free, as it happened within warranty. When we returned home from our family vacation to Mallorca, she tried turning her MacBook on, but apparently, her battery died. The reason they gave us was that “it sometimes happens when batteries are completely discharged”. New batteries cost about 10% of a new MacBook, hence we didn’t buy a new one yet, as buying a new MacBook might be a much better choice.
Not long thereafter, a few keys of her keyboard stopped working. Besides these hardware failures, the plastic of her MacBook began to crumble off. After googling this on the web we found out that it’s a common thing that more MacBook owners are experiencing.
Two weeks ago, something bad happened again. It was a Monday morning, my girlfriend went to work, and I sat down in my in-house office to begin my daily routine, when I noticed that the WiFi network was down, I went downstairs to check on the Time Capsule, and it turned out to be completely dead. Since I had a huge todo-list, I decided to use the wired network instead and started working.
Up to this morning, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, as the occasion didn’t occur, but somehow this morning I felt like searching for more information about dead Time Capsules. It turned out that tons of other Apple Time Capsule owners ended up with the same problem. From one to another website, I stumbled upon the Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register.
The Memorial Register for Time Capsules is a website where owners can register their dead Time Capsule. It turns out that 1562 registered Time Capsules had an average life span of approximately 18 months. Hmm, I bought mine in April of 2008… and that is really close to average!
After doing some more research, it appears that more Apple products seem to die after approximately 18 months. Weird stuff! The worst part, Apple ignores there is a problem at all, and owners of dead Apple products are left behind neglected.
Until today, despite the problems I’ve encountered, I used to be a big fan of Apple products. For one, I love the iPhone, and there’s really nothing close to an iPod either! But from now on I’ll resist being part of the Apple hype and go with the flow. Many Apple owners I happen to know have one thing in common, they don’t dare to admit that Apple sucks, because to them there are no alternatives.
Anyway, coming Monday I will pay a visit to the local Apple dealer in person and see what they’ve got to say about it. If it can be fixed, I guess I’ll have to convert my Time Capsule it into a really handsome gift-box.
Would I buy another Mac again? Probably so…
Hi Giorgio,
In the little book “The Tango Guru” you will find a comparison about the quick wear of a Mac Book. Here it is:
“The ‘Unknown Es’ (Electronic Sender), by whom we all are being lived, had reckoned that Sybille had lived one hundred and twelve years. He bases his measure on the intensity one lived and not on the four seasons. To live one day as a lioness counts as one hundred days as a sheep.”
A question arises: Are you using your Mac with such an intensity that you only stop to brush your teeth?
Take care,
Pierre
Hey Giorgio,
Sorry for your luck! I have heard of quite a few people having similar problems as you – which is exactly why I started this new blog called ‘How About Them, Apple?’
http://blemishedfruit.tumblr.com/
I hope that you don’t mind that I’ve written my first article about your troubles. Maybe others will come here and share their grievances with you.
Best of luck!
Apple is just a technojewelry. The makers intended to create a fad that actually made some of my friends smuggish. One of my friend won’t stop talking about his iPhone. That’s great, but don’t you have other things to do than fiddle with that iCrap? Another friend of mine said, “oh, my mac doesn’t get pop ups at all!”. To test his hypothesis, I borrowed his Mac Pro. In less than five minutes of use, I had several pop ups coming up on the screen.
It’s all just a marketing trick to make you buy something so expensive. I can buy the same hardware used for Mac towers 50% less. They always mark it up to 100% of the original cost.