So, I bought the IMAC....and I'm not happy!

[Bob Marino]

Am at the Apple store and it froze up here and they are
setting up a new IMac.

 

[BlueMaxx]

Since it's a 27" imac, my guess is 2560 x 1440

  [doh]

 

[pugilato]

Sweet... it has always been my experience that when I take something that's broken to the guy who can fix it, it always works.  Its not fixed, of course, and its why people who fix things think that those who dont are morons.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Just in my experience over maybe the last couple of years, Apple's first line of tech support people are morons knowing maybe slightly more than the people calling in and reading off of a computer screen to give you answers.  It's finally when they transfer you up the line to the second level of tech support that you get real technically knowledgeable individuals that solve your problem.

 

[tiralie]

Bob:
You are a much more patient man than I. I would be furious.
Sorry this is happening.
I would have thought problems would have started to appear after about year or so...
Tim

 

[Bob Marino]

Bob:
You are a much more patient man than I. I would be furious.
Sorry this is happening.
I would have thought problems would have started to appear after about year or so...
Tim

Tim,

If there is a problem and people are responsive to that problem
I tend to give them the opportunity to correct the situation.
Apple is not where it is by providing bad products more poor
service.
Was it frustrating having the computer freeze several times
within the first hours of use? Yep, and the after about the
third call in as many hours, the service rep at Apple Care got
an earful from me.

Hopefully it will work out soon.

Bob

 

[tbellemare]

Bob:

A good friend of mine that lives about a mile from here got a new iphone recently. He was using it to demonstrate some mobile app's for publishing and decided to upgrade the operating system Saturday morning to the latest and greatest.

Saturday, Veronica and I were taking her nephews to the farmer's market and my phone rang. It was my buddy's mobile number calling but nobody would answer so I hung up. Very soon after, it rang again. It was him and 'same thing, no answer. This went on several times and I decided to go to his house, which was sort of on the way and ask him to stop calling.

He saw us pull up and came out of the house with his phone in hand laughing. He quickly explained that when he upgraded the OS, the phone started dialing my number (the last dialed number) over and over. I told him to call the Apple store and let it call them over and over instead of me. He couldn't get to it to dial anyone else because it was too quick.

He finally turned it off and went to the Apple store. They argued with him and said what appeared to be some really stupid things like, it's impossible to revert to the prior OS (which worked). He explained to the guy that they could wipe out the phone and start over and they insisted that they couldn't install the previous OS.

Anyway, they gave him a "new" phone - it had the older, working OS and now everything is fine.

Apple is a good company but the mystique around them is a little overblown. They are certainly not perfect.

Tom

 

[pugilato]

This is true of just about every company in existence.

 

[tms0425]

Bob,

I sure hope you can get this worked out. We've converted to 3 macbooks over the past several years and recently added an iMac for my wife, who was a staunch holdout. I bought my iMac just before the changeover to the new one you have. Overall we've had very few problems other than the typical crummy Apple power cords and batteries. Occasional flakyness is usually solved by a software update which is easy. My daughter's Macbook Pro we bought her for college survived 4 years of undergrad and 2 years of med school and is still going strong with no issues!

If you're running some of the typical "corporate apps" like Citrix, you might consider the boot camp option or what I use which is VMWare Fusion running a very small Windows7 instance. Just for those occasions where the applications you buy aren't so friendly to OSX. It is very seamless to do though it opens up that whole malware/virus thing with the Windows partition.

Best of luck. Once you get there you won't turn back  

Tom

 

[peter halle]

Just in my experience over maybe the last couple of years, Apple's first line of tech support people are morons knowing maybe slightly more than the people calling in and reading off of a computer screen to give you answers.  It's finally when they transfer you up the line to the second level of tech support that you get real technically knowledgeable individuals that solve your problem.

I didn't realize that you were a Mac owner.  Go Ken!

Peter

 

[Ken Nagrod]

I didn't realize that you were a Mac owner.  Go Ken!

Peter

[big grin] Not yet, Peter.  Soon!
I bought the ipod touch when it first came out, then upgraded (or got sucked into) to the iphone.  That's as Apple as I am so far.  Funny thing is I called them today for tech support and had the same crappy experience plus got hung up on while waiting to be transferred to a higher level of tech support.

 

[tms0425]

I've had AppleCare and support has been great. Granted, at the prices they charge, basic care should be great too.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

I always pay extra for the Apple Care.  It's definitely worth it in my opinion, when you get the right level of support.

 

[Bob Marino]

Bob:

A good friend of mine that lives about a mile from here got a new iphone recently. He was using it to demonstrate some mobile app's for publishing and decided to upgrade the operating system Saturday morning to the latest and greatest.

Saturday, Veronica and I were taking her nephews to the farmer's market and my phone rang. It was my buddy's mobile number calling but nobody would answer so I hung up. Very soon after, it rang again. It was him and 'same thing, no answer. This went on several times and I decided to go to his house, which was sort of on the way and ask him to stop calling.

He saw us pull up and came out of the house with his phone in hand laughing. He quickly explained that when he upgraded the OS, the phone started dialing my number (the last dialed number) over and over. I told him to call the Apple store and let it call them over and over instead of me. He couldn't get to it to dial anyone else because it was too quick.

He finally turned it off and went to the Apple store. They argued with him and said what appeared to be some really stupid things like, it's impossible to revert to the prior OS (which worked). He explained to the guy that they could wipe out the phone and start over and they insisted that they couldn't install the previous OS.

Anyway, they gave him a "new" phone - it had the older, working OS and now everything is fine.

Apple is a good company but the mystique around them is a little overblown. They are certainly not perfect.

Tom

Well said, Tom and basically I agree with your assessment - admittedly my experience is not the norm for the overwhelming majority of Apple customers. But, while I was waiting to be taken care of,
there were plenty of others with machine issues.

Bob

 

[NuggyBuggy]

Although the OP seems to have had a hard time with his Mac, I suggest we imagine what his experience would have been if he had bought a PC.  Would he be expecting a higher level of service ? Does Dell or HP or Best Buy or WalMart or Staples or wherever he buys his Windows machine from even have a place that he could take his computer to for semi-knowledgeable help ? Every time I've ever had to go to the Apple Store for service, I have been surprised at how well they have handled things.

I have mentioned before that I had a Macbook Pro with a display problem.  I brought it in, they quickly diagnosed and confirmed the problem, took my computer.  They called me the next day to tell me it was ready.  They had already replaced the display.  What kind of turnaround could I have expected if I had bought a Windows laptop ? The best I would expect is that I would have received a courier box the next day, probably after running the types of diagnostics that the OP doesn't really want to run anyways.  Then the box would be in transit for at least another day, then I'd expect one or two weeks turn around time before the box would be on its way back again.  That is the best case scenario of Windows support  I can possibly imagine,  ( unless I purchased next-day onsite service) and I have lived in the Windows world a long time.

Finally, why argue with differing levels of tech support ? Why not just bring it back and get a new one ? You've already established that you're not interested in doing any sort of diagnostic work. Fair enough.  Just return the lemon and start anew.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Nuggy, to be fair, and I hate giving any credit to them, Dell XPS tech/warranty support had parts or parts and a repair technician if I wanted, overnighted next day.  I only let a tech replace things once and never again as he did more damage and left screws out plus took the magnet home that puts the computer in sleep mode when the cover is closed.

Also, Bob posted that they gave him a new iMac.

 

[fidelfs]

I was not able to convince my son to get an apple instead of a pc laptop for college.
He gave me the tired reasoning that apple charges you more and you can get a cheaper pc.  I told him to compare apples to apples ( not pun intended).  Use the same components  from a mac book pro to have a similar windows pc, you know what happend. Prices were similar or higher than apple.  He didn't take it.

He got a toshiba laptop for college, that laptop broke in April this year, he called toshiba and he has given the turn around and the laptop is not fixed yet.  We finally sent it to toshiba instead of waiting for the parts.  That was 3 weeks ago.

I will always buy festool for quality and good customer service, same as apple.  I know machines can failed or have a lemon, but I need a company to stand behind their products and not just say "sorry for your inconvenience" crap andget some help from them.

 

[Bob Marino]

Although the OP seems to have had a hard time with his Mac, I suggest we imagine what his experience would have been if he had bought a PC.  Would he be expecting a higher level of service ? Does Dell or HP or Best Buy or WalMart or Staples or wherever he buys his Windows machine from even have a place that he could take his computer to for semi-knowledgeable help ? Every time I've ever had to go to the Apple Store for service, I have been surprised at how well they have handled things.

I have mentioned before that I had a Macbook Pro with a display problem.  I brought it in, they quickly diagnosed and confirmed the problem, took my computer.  They called me the next day to tell me it was ready.  They had already replaced the display.  What kind of turnaround could I have expected if I had bought a Windows laptop ? The best I would expect is that I would have received a courier box the next day, probably after running the types of diagnostics that the OP doesn't really want to run anyways.  Then the box would be in transit for at least another day, then I'd expect one or two weeks turn around time before the box would be on its way back again.  That is the best case scenario of Windows support  I can possibly imagine,  ( unless I purchased next-day onsite service) and I have lived in the Windows world a long time.

Finally, why argue with differing levels of tech support ? Why not just bring it back and get a new one ? You've already established that you're not interested in doing any sort of diagnostic work. Fair enough.   Just return the lemon and start anew.

Well, I'm that OP and would agree with you that I would have been more frustrated initially if I had to make a long series of prompts and what nots to try and diagnose and fix the freeze ups and non functioning Function keys.
I did do a diagnostic test and it did not show anything amiss. At that point, I felt further testing on my part was not something I wanted to do as it is only  2 days old and needs a qualified tech person to do what they are expert at, not a newbie like me doing tests. I would say flat out that the people at APPLE  were very helpful.

When in the store, they ran some other tests and nothing showed up - until the computer froze right there. At that point, they swapped out a new machine and all looks good so far.

Bob

 

[GPowers]

When in the store, they ran some other tests and nothing showed up - until the computer froze right there. At that point, they swapped out a new machine and all looks good so far.

Bob

And that is what make Apple service so great! You get a real , flesh and blood, person to fix your problem. No some phone center on the other side of the world that talks English in a way you can NOT understand them and they keep patronizing you.

And I'am basically a Windows PC user (home and office), BUT Over the last two years I have converted my home network to a Apple network products with a mini-mac music server.

 

[Bob Marino]

When in the store, they ran some other tests and nothing showed up - until the computer froze right there. At that point, they swapped out a new machine and all looks good so far.

Bob

And that is what make Apple service so great! You get a real , flesh and blood, person to fix you problem. No some phone center on the other side of the wold that talks English in a way you can NOT understand them and they keep patronizing you.

Agree 100% with you and others on this.