Dude buys $4000 MacBook Pro. GPU make/model in this laptop is proven to be defective. Apple launches repair program that covers the machine. Apple refuses to fix or replace the dude’s $4000 laptop. Dude tries several different ways of getting Apple to admit fault. Apple doesn’t budge. Case goes to court, in front of a judge. Apple sends two (2) (twee) (deux) (zwei) (dos) (dva) (dau) lawyers to handle the case. Dude takes care of his own defense, obliterates Apple. Judge summons Apple to pay for the laptop and court costs. During the court case, the Apple lawyers admit openly that replacing the logic board would have cost Apple nothing, since Nvidia foots the bill. Apple paid for two, most likely quite expensive lawyers, to prevent having to pay nothing to replace a laptop. This is pure insanity.
This is nothing nothing new. Try getting a replacement for a new (one week old) defective Macbook Pro replacement battery. It took months for them to allow me to have a replacement and tons of paper work.
Edited 2012-04-18 23:53 UTC
AnXa,
“This is nothing nothing new. Try getting a replacement for a new (one week old) defective Macbook Pro replacement battery. It took months for them to allow me to have a replacement and tons of paper work.”
You complain too much, be happy your macbook hasn’t caught fire or anything.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/12/macbook-catches-fire-down-under/
[/snarky comment]
Actually having the macbook catch fire would be pretty nice so long as your house doesn’t burn down. After all, that would mean that Apple would have to give me a brand new macbook.
And by posting that here any judge will think it’s premeditated. Better luck next time 😉
Keep your macbook in a well-ventilated place. Concentrated pixie dust could unleash a dangerous magic bolt.
So can we lay that whole “Apple are expensive because they are quality made” lie to rest now? Because while that may have been true in the past what we have been seeing of late doesn’t make Apple quality look any better than Acer, Asus, or any of the other laptop manufacturers and frankly in some ways they look worse, as i can’t picture Asus or Acer sending lawyers rather than just replacing a defective product.
Honestly this is an incredibly DUMB move and one I just can’t see Jobs doing as the man knew the value of the brand. of course the big test will be to see if Cook can find new markets like Jobs did or will he simply coast like the Pepsi guy? One thing is for sure since Jobs passing i haven’t seen anything to make me believe this will be like the Apple of old.
Well, the hardware quality (on the whole) of apple products is very high, it’s hard to dispute that.
Customer service/relationship management is a whole different story.
“Well, the hardware quality (on the whole) of apple products is very high, it’s hard to dispute that.”
You must be talking about the shiny brushed metal shell, everyone else is talking about what is inside that shell.
Dell is average quality. Apple often uses the same parts as a Dell. Thus Apple items are often average quality as well.
I’ll agree with you about the shell, great quality there!
No, the quality I was talking about is the whole user experience.
Good hardware choices for the models available
high quality screens, touchpads, keyboards
very good hardware/software integration
The value-for-money of apple products may be poor, the customer management, worker factory conditions and individual software decisions all have problems, but it’s hard to argue that apple products are not high quality
Nope, actually, as products go they score very well in customer satisfaction surveys. Anecdotally (and that’s all the occasional post about ‘I once bought a …’ are), I’ve owned a number of Apple products (Power Book 100, Power Mac 6100/60, Apple G3 B&W, 12 PowerBook, 1 Core Duo Mac Book, 1 Core2 Duo Mac Book and a 15″ MacBook pro, iPod nano, iPhone 1st Gen, iPhone 3Gs, and now iPhone 4S). I’m still using the Core2 Duo Mac Book (just over 5 years old) along with the 15″ MacBook Pro. All the other systems I have given away after 5+ years of use (or in the case of phones after losing them). That’s a much better track record than the Dells I’ve had for work, phones by Samsung and Motorola, where pieces would break.
So far so good, but that’s purely anecdotal. When you look at a lot of reviews, like JD Power or Consumer Reports, Apple tends to have strong products which indicates a consistently strong quality across the brand. Delivering quality products does not mean that every single unit rolling off the line is perfect, but rather the overall score for the product line is good. Having multiple products that achieve strong scores over several years means your company has strong over-all quality, but there are still duds and snafus. Just because my Samsung phones didn’t work out, does not mean Samsung cannot produce a high quality phone. In fact, they’re doing a much better job now at making phones.
A lot of manufacturers should be aware, especially in the age of social networking, that fixing someone’s problem may not get tweeted, but not fixing what’s most likely a problem with the product *will* get tweeted, posted, blogged, re-posted, linked to and commented on. Shame on Apple for sending two lawyers to fight an issue when they were clearly in the wrong.
Edited 2012-04-20 17:02 UTC
“Apple paid for two, most likely quite expensive lawyers, to prevent having to pay nothing to replace a laptop. This is pure insanity.”
Probably did not want to set a president
And yet by taking it to court, they *have* set a precedent… a losing one.
I’m not sure the Barack Obama would get involved with a mere $4000 dispute
LMFAO i confused “precedent” with my native language “president” which is used in contexts like that.
I need the non-existent spellchecker super advanced edition with AI.
Edited 2012-04-19 14:34 UTC
Heehee, sorry, that was too tempting to ignore.
I’ve suspected this from another manufacture too(Sony). Make the RMA process so hard and time consuming that the customer gives up and pays for the repair on their own dime. It artificially inflates their reliability score.
So a factory option GPU over-clock would be a reason to wiggle out of a warranty? I have never had a problem like this from Apple. But I have had Sony give me a runaround that was never solved to my satisfaction.
I had a iMac that had a stuck pixel that they repaired under warranty and a week later it had video card failure. After those were fixed it has been a solid computer for 5 years. They gave me no hassle other than a couple of days without my computer while they ordered parts. (mine had a 8800 GT… I guess Nvida strikes again)
In general it is better to lose a sale and get a happy customer than to be greedy and lose dozens by word of mouth from an unhappy one.
Edited 2012-04-19 02:43 UTC
And this one of the reasons why although I like Apple designs and the NeXTStep inheritance in Mac OS X, I don’t buy Macs.
Apple have no clue about customers. It’s not only long repair times and expensive repairs. Apple is all about new and cool products, and as soon as you have bought it it is not cool anymore. Just look how they have treated their server customers over the years.
The only reason I buy Apple products is that I need them to develop for iOS, and even that was difficult it took over a month to register my company to the iOS developer program. By that time my first customer was gone.
If you like cool well designed stuff, and can afford to replace it tomorrow by all means buy Apple products, if you need them for your business buy elsewhere.
When you have a world that replaces morals with profits, this is what you get. This was a completely moral-less, logical response by Apple. Deny everything and sick the lawyers. It wasn’t about one guy’s laptop that cost nothing to repair, it was about preventing a rush of such-like cases. They had no expectation to lose.
Pontius Pilate said to Jesus “What is truth?”. Even then he could see that the world was such that truth was merely the opinion of whoever had the authority, position or money to define it.
Jesus had already provided Pilate (and Apple) with the truth they each needed: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
Or Apple could try to repair the last leg of Michael Novak’s three-legged stool of capitalism: “Economic freedom, political freedom, and moral restraint. Take away any of these three and the system collapses.”
Apple (and indeed much of corporate America) has forgotten the Golden Rule, splintered their last leg, and is primed for collapse. What a crying shame.
So one thing I took away from this is that the Better Business Bureau is pretty much useless for anything.
It’s worth saying that people should never accept licenses that prevent them from suing manufacturer/corporation for its fault.
This is common case in USA, so Europe needs to stand up to protect rights of its citizens.
I’m pretty sure that in Europe you can not legally sign away that right as a consumer.
At least that was the case in Sweden when I still lived there and I presume it’s the same for at the very least the other Nordic countries.
Strange enough it seems in The Netherlands isn’t not illegal to advertise your own rules as a company, but this would not stand in a court of law.
Apple, for example, can claim one year warranty and put this in magazines, billboards and in TV ads, but in reality the customer has a longer warranty.
I’ve seen a couple of business offer a standard one year warranty and offer an extended warranty if you pay for it (a bit like Apple Care). But you’re paying for what you already have: a warranty longer than one year (depends on the product).
So it’s weird businesses can advertise it, while in fact it’s misleading the customer.
I’m not an expert but…isn’t that fraud?
I am not an expert either so I can’t be sure what term would describe this, but it is misleading and a shop owner can’t argue he didn’t know about warranty regulations and laws.
If you are really interested I could ask a real expert.
Many years ago I bought <something> (memory fail), unpacked it, it didn’t work, returned it and at first they didn’t want to accept it because I had broken the packaging and now they couldn’t sell it again. HUH? If it’s broken, why try sell it again?
The good news, at least over here in The Netherlands, is that the warranty is about the product, not the packaging. You can burn the packaging and still return the product.
The sad thing is that a lot of people believe what a shop employee says and just take their loss. If you don’t it can be a lot of hassle and frustration.
I recently bought a new iMac and the girl asked if I knew what Apple Care was. I said I did (and showed my Apple watch to prove my level of knowledge), but then she insisted I’d take in to account the extra warranty.
Apple Care is a borderline subject, you do get something more than just an extended warranty period, but still most people will view and buy it as such.
Seems Apple was fined in Italy for this very behavior:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/27/apple_italy/
Might want to take this up with the Consumer Protection…whatchamacallit in Netherlands.
This already happened a little while ago, Apple changed their policy, but then experts said they’re not still not compliant with the European law and… well, that’s the last I heard of it.
In an older article, Tony Swash and galvanash tried to use “customer satisfaction” as an explanation for Apple’s $500 billion dollar market cap and how that is a true reflection of what Apple is really worth. Were they talking out of their ass about “customer satisfaction”?
The customer satisfaction stats are based on multiple customers, this article is based on one customer.
Of course. There can only be one unhappy customer per Apple.
I wonder how many Apple customers accept their lot in life and just buy a new one when an old one breaks and how they don’t fit into the calculation of customer satisfaction.
I didn’t say that. You doubted the argument of two people that was based on customer satisfaction surveys and you used this article which only mentions one person. Despite his legal problems with Apple he may very well be a satisfied Apple user if he has a number of other products that work fine.
There are probably a lot of customers out there that aren’t happy with Apple products, but they are, based on statistical probability, outnumbered by satisfied ones.
There are even a lot of people out there who have never used an Apple product and claim not to like their products.
If they buy a new one it seems they were satisfied with the old one. Should my iPad break down now I’ll buy a new one tomorrow (unless I can find a shop that’s still open today).
And people wonder why I don’t trust customer satisfaction surveys. A broken iPad wouldn’t decrease your satisfaction. Buying a new one, rather than trying to get it repaired and facing Apple’s poor customer service, obviously skews these surveys.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Well, if you buy something expensive science has shown you’re more likely to rate it favorable either because psychologically you think that expensive equals better, but also because you wouldn’t want to admit you misspend your hard earned money.
Apple does very effective marketing, packaging and created a kind of “above the rest” image, this makes customers more inclined to believe what they have is better than they would think if it didn’t have an Apple logo.
Still, in every lie in some truth and I don’t think Apple products would be rated good if they were in fact awful. So they are probably pretty good, but may be overrated by some.
What do you mean “break down”? If you mean you dropped it and/or it’s been run over by a truck I wouldn’t argue with that. If, on the other hand, you are suggesting that you’d buy a new one even after an hardware failure, then you are The Perfect Apple Customer! 😉
RT.
That does have a nice ring to it!
The reason why doesn’t matter for me, if it doesn’t work I’ll replace it.
Until now I have been pretty lucky, I have a lot of Apple stuff and the only things that have stopped working are a few Macs from the 90’s. I suspect the battery or power supply died.
In a word: yes. 😉
In more words: it’s a psychological thing, really. Once you’ve spent a fair chunk of money on something, you’re going to try your damned best NOT to be disappointed with your purchase and be yet another happy customer.
RT.
Happiness and satisfaction are feelings, if customers feel happy they are happy. I don’t think the reason why or the path to really matters, unless they’re unknowingly drugged of course.
Apple was right. The logic board (what ever that is) and not the GPU.
The term “logic board” is the Apple equivalent of “motherboard” from other vendors. The faulty component on this motherboard (logic board) was the GPU. The motherboard was faulty because of the faulty GPU.
I purchases a new HP laptop late last year for my son and the motherboard went out on it. I called HP up, told them what was going on with it. They mailed me a box out for me to send the laptop back. Two days later, the box was at my house. I mailed it back to them (they covered postage). They received it in 2 days, swapped out the MB in it the day after they received it, and shipped it back to me 2nd Day Air. Easy transaction……..
I have two HP laptops bought mine the fan died had the same service as you went great so I didn’t think twice to buy one for my wife. Different model laptop same model fan also died took 3 weeks of fighting they still never replaced the part, I ordered one online and did it myself. It is all subjective it really depends on the people you have to deal with on the other end.
Yes, it is pure insanity… Welcome to a world where most politicians are lawyers, and the whole system is stacked so that whatever happens the lawyers benefit.
It’s not the hardware…….it’s the Apple Experience!