Apple Rant!

one word...

DELL

With all do respect, I have enough intelligence and insight into the operations of my computers to understand what transpires and how these things operate.  Those years of Engineering school studying electrical and computer engineering, as well as working in this industry for 7 years gives me the benefit to know the difference between a faulty operating environment, the words spoken by someone given the title "genuis" by the acceptance of his job application at the Apple Store and the physicality of my 17 inch computer after it had been dropped - including removing the case and performing some troubleshooting operations. 

Plus, you have to admit that Apple is VERY restrictive about backwards compatibility in their operating systems.  I have an older Mac that is useless because they stopped supporting the operating system.  It is only through creative patchwork that you can get these systems to work.  I've purchased s/w in the current Apple stores where I had to install System 9.0 OS, which then crashes in OS 10.4. My own follow-up with Apple included them basically saying that I should find an application in the system 10.4 formatting...

My rant isn't a by-product of a sore consumer who bought an Apple, dropped it repeatedly and then is and moaning because things stopped working BECAUSE THE COMPUTER WAS DROPPED.  In fact, Apple has even come out and publicly acknowledged their own faulty design on the power cords for the G4 models.  My complaint is that the embedded RAM is self-destructing...

Imagine you sold something to a person.  That person comes back and admits to dropping or knocking that product to the floor numerous times.  Would you feel obligated to cover any damage the computer has?  You can't say the screen didn't go bad because it was dropped.  You admitted to tripping on the power cord 2 times, that could easily mess up the power connector.  RAM is pretty sensitive, so while there may be a high incedence of failure on that model, how can you say that you didn't damage the RAM by dropping it? It could have been knocked loose or had a minute crack develop. 

I don't care what brand it is, if you brought a laptop into my (hypothetical) store with dents in it, I would not fix it for free.  I am sorry you are out some cash, but maybe you should be a bit more careful with your expensive toys. 

That thing has saved me from having to buy a new MacBook about 10 times in the last 6 months. 

I've worked in IT in a pretty large ad agency for about 10 years now and we're split about 50-50 apple and dell. From 10 years of personal experience working on desktops, laptops, servers and accessories, dell support and warranties outshine apple pretty much every time. All the while, on average, costing much less. I will never say that aesthetically dell can even hold a candle to apple on desktops or laptops, and I do know that can cause a rise in cost.

I can use whatever I want, and I use a MacBook Pro. However, when I ordered it the other guy that I work closely with ordered a dell at pretty much the same time, within a week. Our computers have the EXACT same processor, memory, similar video card, etc. Spec are nearly identical, same warranty (3 year applecare on mine.) Mine was about $3400, his was about $2200. Of course his is about twice the thickness and I look cooler with mine than he does

On a side note, dell now offers a comprehensive warranty that covers drops, spills, etc. It's more money but it covers everything.

On another side note, wearing my corporate hat, apple does some stuff that annoys me. Take for example road maps. Once a quarter we have a conf call with dell and they lay out the new products they have coming out, when current ones will be discontinued etc. Apple on the other hand doesn't believe in that. We find out when the rest of the world does, which is fine most of the time, but sometimes is a real kick in the pants. Like when they switched to Intel processors in their laptops and immediately discontinued the G4 laptops. I understand the move, it's a great move, but being an ad agency with about 150 laptops all running Photoshop, etc., it would have been nice to know they were doing this ahead of time so we could have loaded up on G4 laptops to hold us over the 9ish months it took for intel versions of photoshop, etc. to come out. They don't need to tell us about ipods, iphones, etc., but desktops, laptops and servers would be nice.

That said just try to take my mac away.