Dear Apple Customer Service,
I have a story to share with you, which I’m going to put in the form of a DIY exercise:
- Schedule an appointment at one of your stores a few days from now.
- On the day of the appointment, imagine you’re rushing around and you get in an accident, your pet elephant gets sick (don’t judge), you get hit by an asteroid, or something else untoward happens.
- While driving, out of respect, you call up the Apple store in question to let them know you can’t make the appointment.
- You will be greeted by an automated assistant. “He” will offer to send you a text message with a link in it to cancel the appointment. That link is useless unless Apple is now encouraging texting & driving. Even if you can pull over and access it. you will be prompted for your Apple Id. Unless you have it tattooed on your arm, you probably don’t know it, let alone your password.
- So you hang up and try again. You repeatedly scream “Operator” into the phone but get taken down a series of rabbit holes never to be allowed to speak to … wait for it … a human being.
- So you give up.
Your customer service approach is broken, atrocious, and dysfunctional. Customers spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars with your company, yet this is the disrespectful, brain-dead way you treat them.
You’re welcome for the free QA advice that your own employees are apparently incapable of,
Disgruntled Customer 1 of Many
Given Apple’s well-documented disdain of its customers, people who buy into that crap deserve to be mistreated. The slightest bit of research before buying will throw up dozens of red flags.
Caveat Emptor seems to be dead, like all other forms of personal responsibility.
I used to be an avid Apple user for about 15 years. Then, it decided that my long-time loyalty didn’t mean a whole lot to the company when I had problem with my G4 PowerMac.
I got short shrift from that outfit because I owned my machine for more than 5 years. Have it for 6 or more, it’s “tough luck, mate” when it came to support. Forget spare parts–they’re simply not available.
I bought my last brand-new Apple machine in 2007, after which my loyalty to the company ended. When it started going wobbly, I replaced it with a refurbished unit. Second-hand works well enough for my purposes.
But my preference also shifted to machines that can run FreeBSD. Often, I’ve taken a second-hand unit (usually refurbished) and installed that operating system on it. Among my computers are 2 tower machines that run it, one off-the-shelf and the other was a custom-built machine that the original buyer didn’t take delivery of. At least with them, I can make repairs and swap parts, often with bits out of my junk boxes. Can’t do that with Apple.
In all the years that I’ve owned and used Apple machines, I’ve concluded that they largely sell over-priced junk. Just about every one of their computers that I’ve owned developed problems of one sort or another.
BA…
I Agree with you for the the most part…never owned one of their Phones – Apple far far too inquisitive nosing around within – yea I know that goes for Droid phones too…but it’s the ARROGANCE of that company that just don’t sit right with me.
I do own a MacBook Pro 13″ 2012 model – am typing on it as I write. swapped out the disc drive for 500SSd. When it breaks down, I will take it the APPLE guy in downtown Calgary who does impressive work for reasonable cost….But their phones @ 42000 a crack.?? as if.
I’ve been a BB guy since I had an “8320 World Phone” or something like that series ..and find that as a TELEPHONE, BB is hard to beat. I still have a fully functional Z30 which I rocked until ~ 2016, going finally to a Droid version (DTek 60 and then to a Motion) & I much prefer the “hub” where all notifications come to as opposed to 15 icons for ea. individual notification.
I feel I may have to re-comission my Z30 – just to get away from the incessant tracking via Govt et all.
BB was the best. I wish Pinephones would get their act together, software-wise.
I’ve heard good things about FreeBSD, never tried it, though. I’m pretty much into nice GUIs, while I know terminals are very powerful, I find them to be a bit of a pain in the ass, thus my like of Linux Mint, Ubuntu, etc.
I’m gonna have to spring for a win 10 machine, though, for sw compatibility, as my XP machine is getting way to old, and my little Raspberry Pi can’t quite do all I need it to. (specifically use mt eprom programmer and program my e-bike controller.)
There are a number of different desktops available for FreeBSD. Each of the ones I’ve tried has its own quirks, though. Part of the reason is that some of them were originally developed for Linux and were ported afterward.
I find that macOS or whatever it’s called nowadays a pale imitation.
Anyway, you can start here:
http://www.freebsd.org
One of the beauties is that one can do one’s own upgrades at one’s leisure, rather than suddenly and quite inconviently like Windoze does it. I’ve got 4 FreeBSD installations on 2 different machines, so I set aside a Saturday afternoon each month and attend to that. It usually takes about half an hour or so and can be done in the background if one has superuser privileges.
Major operating system upgrades, like recently from 12.x to 13.0, can often take much much longer, but then that’s usually because the OS is being overhauled.
Thanks! I’ll look into it. With my little linux box, I pretty much do an update before I install anything. I wonder if my linux knowledge is transferable to FreeBSD? I’d like to keep using my 32-bit Atom dual-core that I’m running XP on now, and if FreeBSD can run on it, I’m in!
Advice: Don’t tell anyone what the B stands for. 😉
Whether FreeBSD will run on your machine will depend on the processor. I inherited an older HP laptop from my father and I think 11.x was the last version that could run on those machines. Unfortunately, 11.x is no longer supported, so good luck in installing that.
You’ll notice significant differences between Linux and FreeBSD. Yes, they are derivatives of the original Unix, but Linux has its own way of doing things, such as how drives are formatted and directories are set up.
But, if you’re familiar with the basic commands of Linux, I don’t think you’ll have much problem with FreeBSD.
If you happen to have a spare hard drive, you might try swapping out the one in your machine with it. That way, you can install something on that drive and break it. I’m so leery about installations that I don’t even try to re-partition an HD.
Same juggling act appears wherever you call for service. Several times I’ve waited over an hour listening to monotonous repetitious elevator muzak and the exasperatingly insincere “your call is important to us” pledge, when the line goes suddenly dead. How such “accidents” happen I couldn’t hazard a guess. Perhaps there’s some sort of algorithm that discerns the degree of agitation of those waiting, to sift out the unappreciative.
I think they closed all the stores in Canada, so we have to ship our device to them for service. I think
I live close to one of the biggest shopping centres in Edmonton and the Apple store there is still open.
Whenever I had problems with my Apple machines, I often took them to a third-party repair shop. Unfortunately, good ones in the city are few and far between. One well-known outfit in Edmonton had a bad reputation for being rude and belligerent with customers. Another one I deal with was run by a bunch of snotty kids, but I think that outlet closed a few years ago–no loss there.
The only place that I actually got good service at was Compusmart, but that outfit closed all its retail stores about 15 years ago and shifted its business to the Internet.
I dropped Apple years ago when I tried to get warrantee service for a failed optical drive in a one-year old tower. I was told that they would not up-grade to the latest speed drive but only replace with the original specs (even if I paid the difference), that the original part would have to be returned to Apple, and the repair would take 6 weeks. I was not allowed to service the tower myself, as the fasteners were all hidden, and it was a proprietary secret at to where they were and of what type they were. It’s like buying car but not being allowed to look under the hood. I see their customer service has no improved. No thanks.
6 hrs today on BMO , RBC help lines to change home address. the sites after typing in loads of information came up with service not available at this time. Add to it two hours on the camping reservation line for a Banff registration , now located in Ottawa , was in the park or downtown calgary , does anyone see this as an improvement. Any way , going 75 km back country . just more than a km per year of my age. BTW im sure the reservations were done in ottawa not mumbai
60% of parks canada employees are located in Ottawa . when i was an employee 48 years ago , i would bet on 5%
And here I thought waiting a hour to talk to Telus was bad.
It depends on when I call. I called BMO about renewing my credit card this morning, right after 6 AM local time, and I had to wait less than 5 minutes. Other times seem so long that one could perhaps play a round of golf before someone answers.
I worked on a wind farm construction project in Southern Alberta. The cell phone service was okay for android phones but not apple. You could tell which of the office people were using apple phones as they had to go outside in the winter to make or receive a call. My wife used to be an apple freak. Then she found out they had remotely diminished the performance of the video card in her apple mac book with an update as the video cards were faulty and would not make it over the warranty deadline unless they were made much slower. As it turned out, the warranty expired on the adjusted mac book just before the cards were failing. They timed that just right and they saved many millions on faulty mac book warranty. Sleazy pricks.
F*** Apple, the only Apple product in my house is a 10 year Ipod (not charged for the last eight years). There is nothing that they do, that other don’t do at least as well, or better. FETE.
Rumor has it that most Tesla owners and pedophiles use Apple products.
Apple hasn’t been worth buying since the Apple IIe, and even then, I was an Atari 800 man.
Never had one of their products, ever.
As you said “There is nothing that they do, that other don’t do at least as well, or better.”, but I would also add “and cheaper.”
I bought my first Mac nearly 30 years ago and that was after Apple dropped the prices on their product by a significant amount. It also helped that I was teaching at Armpit College at the time, so I got an educator’s discount.
butt R~4 colon drives a chevy bolt, and uses a bell phone, how bi-sexual of him
Just in case you’re wondering: no improvement, you still produce pure cringe and fail at funny.
do you trust apple?
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/08/06/coming-soon-apple-scanning-icloud-photo-libraries-for-child-abuse-images-n1467558
If it saves just one kid from a cuff ’round the ear, it’ll be worth the millions of brutal takedowns.
..masochists have money to squander too….
Interesting that this thread can exist for so long with no-one bringing up “right-to-repair.”
I wonder what Kate’s take on it is?
We all know what Apple’s take is, and most of the other North American manufacturers, even if they do most of their work in China, whereas Chinese manufacturers, not contracted to the west, will generally give you schematics, etc, when you ask, and some will give a bit of tech support that actually works, and sell you a cheap fuse or cap.
I don’t care what kinda phone you gots, it, or most of its components were made in China. Same goes for power tools.
Deal with it, or demand poverty, like the rest of the reset crowd. People are disturbingly easy to play, and their willingness to bend the knee is a design flaw.
As I mentioned earlier, Apple won’t sell the spare parts. If, say, an optical drive on your machine craps out, it’s either take the entire unit to a repair shop or buy completely new.
Most people would probably dump the device. Me, I’d try to take it apart, if possible, and see if it could be fixed or cannibalized for spare parts.
Sometimes tenants in my building abandoned old tower machines in the lobby. I’ve managed to resurrect some of them by first disassembling and cleaning them, and, after I’ve put them back together, added the necessary parts. They may run a bit clunky, but I saved myself a lot of money plus I know what makes it tick.
It would be nice if Apple finally came to its senses and allowed users to tinker under the hood, so to speak.
As I see it, the power supplies alone in these towers is worth saving. A bit of work, they can be tripled and more in value, at best…or start to take up space, at worst.
Actually, power supplies are dirt cheap nowadays. One can get a Chinese-made 300 W unit for well under $50 now. RAM may or may not be useful in other machines, as with each generation, the pinout patterns change.
I’ve also salvaged fans and heat sinks, which are useful in other devices as well. Maybe one of my fellow hams would be interested in them.
Assorted other items, such as cables and the coin batteries for PRAMs, are also worth saving.
One machine that was abandoned couldn’t be salvaged as either the motherboard or the CPU was shot. I didn’t dump it, though, as I use the case as a ground plane for a quarter-wave antenna. All I do is stick on a magnetic mount, screw the antenna in place and, depending where I locate it on my balcony, I can get on the air.
$50 is pricey for a power supply. Can get full pc’s that don’t work for $20.
I like the idea of HAM, I’ll get a cheap SDR soon, but my landlord, bless his little heart, is nervous of me putting up any kind of high antenna on the existing, unused tower. Sigh. On the bright side, I have harvested unused coax from the side of my building.
nervous of me putting up any kind of high antenna on the existing, unused tower
For me, it’s written in my lease. However, for what I do on satellites, a hand-held dual-band Yagi does nicely.
I’ve tinkered off and on with an SDR kit that I bought last year. Take a look at:
http://www.rtl-sdr.com
It has the dongle, and two dipoles of different lengths plus the mounting. As for software, there are a number of open-source programs that are available for free. I use gqrx on my iMac and my Pi-Top. I have a Windoze palmtop that I picked up at a ham flea market a while back and I added an SDR program for that.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had as much time to devote to my radio activities in the past few years due to my having to travel back and forth to my house in B. C. It takes me a day or two to recover from each trip.
The price for the power supply I mentioned earlier was for a brand-new unit. I’ve salvaged them from defunct units and they lasted about a year or two before giving up the ghost.
Rather than chuck them out, I disassemble them for the parts. There’s a transformer, often a fan, some power transistors, and ferrite toroids that are worth saving.
Apple has always shown disdain for the intelligence and capabilities *and desires* of its customers – and now it wants to openly spy on you.
Just dump them.
As a public service to Apple customers, they aren’t the only company that makes cell phones.
How soon till the first family gets destroyed by a mistaken report of child porn on an Apple product. I predict one week after implementation.
Can we submit politicians names to be looked at more closely by Apple? Asking for a friend. 😉
I’m sure Apple people would never target political opponents, nope it could never happen in such a fair and equal company.