In general, my conversion to the Mac has gone smoothly. Applications have worked well, and the problems I’ve had are ones I’d expect with a new platform. I’ve made it around most of the them pretty easily.
A few weeks after I got my iBook, I noticed the lower left corner of the computer’s case seemed loose, so I visited the Genius Bar (Apple’s in-store service depot) at Apple’s Michigan Avenue store in Chicago and had it fixed. Well, kinda. The problem came back in a few days, and again after I tightened it myself.
About a month later, I noticed there were white spots on the display. I figured they were smudges, but after cleaning the screen and watching them get worse over a few weeks I realized the LCD was the problem. I brought it back to the Genius Bar and one of the guys told me they’d service it for me (both the LCD and the case), but it would have to be sent in to their repair depot. He entered all my information on a service ticket and I took the laptop home for the weekend to back everything up.
On Monday I made an appointment so I could drop off the iBook. My scheduled time was 11:15, and I arrived at 11:10. I waited 20 minutes, which was no big deal since there was a iPhoto demo going on at the same time. During this time, it went from 4 customers talking to Apple staff down to no customers and two Apple staff members goofing around behind the desk. And there I sat, waiting to be called.
What finally got to me was that two people came off the street to talk to the Geniuses, clearly without an appointment, and they were served right away. While the second customer was being helped, I went to the desk and explained that I just needed someone to write up my iBook so I could drop it off and get back to the office. The Genius who had helped the two walk-ins said “I’m just the iPod guy.” A salesman overheard this and pulled the Genius Bar manager out of a back room; he wrote up my order and I was on my way back to the office.
Today I called Apple’s 800 support line to make sure they had my iBook somewhere safe. They showed no record of it’s being received. Apple’s website showed my service order status as being “closed.” I called the Apple Store and spoke to a couple different people. They had no information on my computer but assured me it would go out at 6:00 this evening.
Now there’s something that instills confidence.
I explained that the reason I brought it into the store was because I figured they would be able to get it moving through the service process quickly. Now we’ve lost an entire day (and maybe even the computer) because someone in the Genius area didn’t pick it up to process it. He had nothing to say to this beyond offering to investigate why it took until now to get to it. I told him all I wanted was his personal assurance that the machine was going out tonight and the new service repair ticket number. An hour later he called with that information.
I’ll update this blog when I get more info.
For the first time since I bought the iBook, I found myself saying “this would not have happened had I bought an IBM or a Dell.” Let’s see if Apple’s progress on this changes my attitude.