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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/11/03/mac.ars.looks/

Mac.Ars looks at Apple's quality control

updated 09:10 am EST, Mon November 3, 2003

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The latest Mac.Ars column looks at : "Panther and Firewire 800 drives. iTunes 4.1 for Windows and Windows 2000 installs. Really, really loud Mirror Drive Door G4s. And there's more. Apple's recent successes with the G5, iTunes Music Store, and Mac OS X 10.3 have been tempered somewhat by some rather nasty bugs that slipped out the door. Does Apple have poor quality control, or is the occasional severe bug an inevitable part of software and hardware development?"

by MacNN Staff

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11/03, 09:34am | report spam | close Reply |
Bugs!

Bugs may be inevitable, but the more you test, the more you remove, the longer it takes, the more we wait.

How many people would be happy if the G5 came out in December?

How many people don't care how long it takes as long as there are no bugs?

I guess that's why they have Rev. A for the first group of people and Rev. B for the second group of people.

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11/03, 09:41am | report spam | close Reply |
get real

Apple is a total failure of a company with over priced stock and bad product, especially that c*** called OSX.

The only way Apple will succeed is to get rid of their current incompetant board and that hideous excuse for a CEO that is running the company into the ground.

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11/03, 09:44am | report spam | close Reply |
re: get real

Ok kid, mommy and daddy want to use the comptuer now, so go take your ritalin and then play with your PlayStation...

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11/03, 10:03am | report spam | close Reply |
blah

Anyone know of a good Windoze fanboy forum? I'm flattered that so many of them seem to hang out here tho.

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11/03, 10:05am | report spam | close Reply |
Because no else posted it

Apple Computer, proudly going out of business for over 25 years.

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11/03, 10:13am | report spam | close Reply |
Oh here we go again...

Apple does well and the media shifts into bash-Apple mode and blows up every problem they have out of proportion. No computer company is perfect, but from the media, you would think that Apple is the worst of all - which is the opposite of the truth.

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11/03, 10:32am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Oh here we go again..

Generally, I agree with you. But, I also recognize that because Apple is an industry leader and they sell what are arguably some of the best computers and software titles out there, they are then held to a higher standard. Part of this higher standard is quality control.

Is it fair? Probably not. But I have just accepted it as part of Apple's niche in the market. In the end, it doesn't really have a big effect on my day-to-day enjoyment of using their products (and as someone who detests rampant consumerism, that's saying a lot).

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11/03, 10:46am | report spam | close Reply |
quality

Apple quality control is s***. Going further downhill every month this year...

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11/03, 11:07am | report spam | close Reply |
I agree

Come on guys - Let's be honest, much as we all love Apple they have let some glaringly obvious stuff get out recently. My �3500 ($5000) G5 Dual still needs CHUD to be installed to stop it making weird high pitched squeeling noises when certain windows open or the dock pops up. I mean, is that really acceptable? The worrying thing is that a lot of the bugs seem to be really obvious ones. Remember the Modem bug that Apple missed in God knows how mn ay releases that a 12 year old kid squashed?

The more stuff they sell, the more careful they have to be. Maybe they'll use this article as a wake up call............Here's hoping!

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11/03, 11:20am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Oh here we go again

um, did you even READ the article that is being cited here??? it's reasonable, level-headed, and gives the benefit of the doubt in apple's direction probably far more than most might when presented with the latest "apple's update may erase your -- fill in blank --." story.

please read the article, and then make your comments. you CAN read, can't you?

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11/03, 11:22am | report spam | close Reply |
!grackle Ars

AWK AWK MOTHAFUCKA!

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11/03, 11:25am | report spam | close Reply |
Portables = c***

I love my iBook, but it has had its screen replaced, and logic board too. I know 6 other iBook owners. All have had a screen replacement within the first 3 years, 3 have had logic boards replaced.

Apple's QA problems are serious in the hardware department. According to my service invoices, the repairs on my iBook have cost Apple more than what I paid for the machine. This is not tenable in a business.

Now, all 7 of us iBook owners want to know if we will need more expensive hardware fixes when our AppleCare expires...

We love our iBooks, and they look great, but customers should not have to tolerate shoddy design on the inside.

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11/03, 11:36am | report spam | close Reply |
re: portables

well, you've had the logic board and screen replaced, so you should be set for a while, right? ;-)

seriously, though, my pismo powerbook just lost its logic board last week, but it should be back here by friday good as new. and it'll be three years old in january (when the applecare runs out). three years is a LONG time to hold onto a computer these days, much to my chagrin.

in fact, while it was an admirable design computer for photoshop 5, os 9, and quark 4 back then, i have had to retire it to simple word processing, email and web browsing abilities. at least its battery life is still quite good, and my linksys airport card has truly given it new life.

personally, if i were you, sell the portable and take those funds and use them towards the purchase of a new portable while you can still get some money for it. you have to admit, apple's offerings retain their value eons longer than your traditional pc, so why not take advantage of it while you still can?

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11/03, 11:42am | report spam | close Reply |
15" Powerbook

I hate to say it, but the new 15" Powerbook also has a lot of problems. I've been pretty lucky so far. The latch doesn't close great though. You have to close with a more rapid push to get it to latch every time. It's the minor kind of thing I would expect from a $800 Dell built from some outsourced, overseas company. Not from a high-end $2600 Apple. Of course, they don't build any of their stuff any more either.

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11/03, 12:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
please people

The quality control is no different than it's always been. If anything, all of these "complaints" are true compliments to the high level of quality Mac users are used to.

Unlike Windows users, we're used to things just working, trouble free without any problems. Then when, god forbid, a product has a defect everyone acts like it's the end of the world. Us Mac users are spoiled, and rightfully so.

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11/03, 12:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
ars is right on the money

The problem is not just apple's QA, the problem is apple's communication with it's customers. Remain silent about a problem too long, and people will start to believe that you don't care about it, and you're not going bother to fix it. Which tells people that you don't care about your customers.

Apple is NOT doing itself a favor when a report comes out stating that apple is not going to patch a bug in 10.2.8 because it want people to buy the fix in 10.3, and then apple simply ignores the report. All they had to do was post a report saying that they're working on a patch for 10.2.8, and all the damaging comments would go away. Obviously if it's patched in 10.3, the patch EXISTS, so it would be rather simplistic to make it for 10.2.8. But apple's silence tells people that the FUD about them not going to put out a patch is true. Why would you willingly shoot yourself in the foot like that, especially when the the solution to this (putting a press release) is so extremely simple?

It's the same thing that perplexes me about apple in general, why they do the things they do. People complain about a one button mouse. All apple would have to do is make a BTO with a two button mouse as an option, and all the damaging remarks would go away. Put out a email-only option for dotMac at a cheaper rate, and all the whining about dotMac being a ripoff would go away. And so on and so forth. WHY does apple do these things to inself? It's not that hard to just simply LISTEN to your customers and react accordingly. Or at least not make it look like you're blatently s******* over your own customers. You almost get the feeling sometimes that apple is doing this for fun, just to piss us all off.

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11/03, 12:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
quality and secrecy

part of the problem is the excessive secrecy surrounding apple products these days.

But of course, if they beta tested more widely, then their new products would leak out and some cheap shmo company would be ripping off Apple faster than you can imagine.

Oh well, c'est la vie

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11/03, 12:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
Stuck iMac power button..

...was a huge pain! The whole assembly was just too complicated and the spring was too weak. AND to make it all worse, they removed the power-on key from the keyboard.

If Apple is guilty of anything, it's over engineering! Keep it simple, stupid...

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11/03, 12:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
HMm

I rather Apple take its time and do the right thing i.e. QA rather than announce/make things prematurely. Can you imagine if we had a buggy iPod? In any case, Apple is almost always late in its announced by/ship data anyway. I would have loved to see the G5 and AlBook and Panther all announced together in Dec, all ready to ship and avail on the same day with none of thise PSU whine, white spot, and FW800 problems! Think about how much these negative publicity is costing Apple?

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11/03, 01:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Apple Waits...

I'd guess that Apple waits a bit before acknowledging problems just to be sure that there really IS a problem.

What good would it do Apple if they got a few scattered reports of trouble with a new product and IMMEDIATELY released a press statement. Apple needs to weed out real trouble from those who cry wolf before committing themselves with a statement or an announcement of a fix.

Let's face it, Macs ARE generally better. We're USED to it. We EXPECT it. But there ARE also a lot of whiners out there who scream first, then realize they didn't follow instructions and screwed up all by themselves, without any help from Apple.

If you want to be trouble free, never buy Rev.A or version dot-0.

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11/03, 01:17pm | report spam | close Reply |
Face it...

The FW800 issue is a BIG deal (ask anyone who lost data). The iTunes install problem on windows was a BIG DEAL. Apple seldom tests beyond its own hardware and everyone one KNOWS it. But no one likes being a guinea pig for a new OS or new sw.

As for the loud MDD problem, what's the big deal with a loud computer? Cubes they ain't!

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11/03, 01:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
compared to what?

this analysis of Apple Q&A is not necessarily out of line, but I have one major point of contention...who is Apple being compared to?

On the software side, Apple is not doing any worse than any other software company in existance. Every Linux distro and every version of Microsoft Windows has had bugs; in comparison OS X 10.2 and OS X 10.3 may not have had the least, but they are a lot closer to the top of the list than they are to the bottom of the list. Likewise for all of Apple's apps.

On the hardware side, Apple is a rather unique company that year after year continues to introduce innovative products that are unmatched in the industry. It is much much more difficult to maintain flawless quality control when you are producing something different than what everyone else is doing.

It is easy for Dell and most other PC makers because there is nothing special about the computers that they make. They rarely make any signifigant changes to their systems and so the bugs are usually not very signifigant either. Still though there are a lot of Dell systems that arrive DOA. Why do we not see articles written about DOA Dell systems? Because it is an everyday occurance that just is not newsworthy.

Also, Apple issues tend to get blown out of proportion because of the Apple hosted support forums. People go to those forums and see people talking about problems and for some reason they then jump to the conclusion that EVERYONE is experiencing those problems. Those forums are there for discussing problems; people do not go to those forums to rave about how great their new Mac works. Although on one hand the forums are a nice service to provide to Mac users, it is debatable whether or not it is actually beneficial for Apple. How many other computer companies provide a public place for you to complain about them? Maybe there is a good reason why most companies do not. Airing your dirty laundry in public like that causes misconseptions about the extent of problems.

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11/03, 02:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
Face it...

"As for the loud MDD problem, what's the big deal with a loud computer? Cubes they ain't! "

Yeah, but I didn't buy a Cube. I bought a dual-gig MDD G4 and I HATE IT. I'd love for another shark lawyer to sue Apple so I can get my money back on this peesash*t. Or a trade for a whisper-quiet G5.

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11/03, 02:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: MDD loudness

"As for the loud MDD problem, what's the big deal with a loud computer? Cubes they ain't! "

i can only guess that, by this comment, you NEVER heard the offending units. good god, it was LOUD. even my dual boot dual 1.25 G4 roars in mac os 9, but i rarely need to do that, and it now finally cranks itself down after a few minutes.

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11/03, 05:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Right

"If you want to be trouble free, never buy Rev.A or version dot-0."

Now you are sounding like a Windows person - are you an idiot or are you just defending Apple at all cost?

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11/03, 05:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
yea

"Apple needs to weed out real trouble from those who cry wolf before committing themselves with a statement or an announcement of a fix."

Understandable. As well as Apple not wanting to make itself look bad if they always jump up and say "we screwed up". It's like a politian who doesn't want to confirm a report that says he groaped another women (*cough* Arnie *cough*). It's just damaging when you admit stuff like that.

But what's worse? IMHO, I would MUCH RATHER the person come clean and ADMIT they screwed up then go on and on ignoring it, hoping somehow that it will go away. Because it won't go away. And the more you ignore it, the more people will talk about it, and continue to blow it completely out of proportion in the process. Even if what apple did was intentional, you don't just ignore the report, because it makes you look guilty. It's even worse then simply coming out with a press release that says "Yes, we did this. This is our policy." People might b**** over that, but at least at some level they can respect that Apple gave them a response when they needed it. Or even a press release that says "We aren't sure, we are looking into the issue." EVEN THAT is better. But saying nothing... that just tells people that A) You're too stupid to look into things and compose a reasonable response and B) You're not only s******* your customers, but you're too lazy or indignant to even tell them that that's what you're doing.

All this is moot now of course, with the apple statement. But I'm just talking in general.

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11/03, 09:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
In addition

I am one of the people whose late 2002 iBook batter got hosed by 10.2.4. Neither the hardware nor the software is revA or dotzero. At least I got a new battery out of it but it too took Apple a darn long time to admit it when # of users are coming out and proving that this problem (going from a charge of 100% to 90% in 10 minutes and to 0% in 1 minute for a total of 11 minutes).

Of course, there are apologists out there saying the this may be due to FW800 drive makers fault, blah blah.

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11/04, 12:21am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Right

"Now you are sounding like a Windows person - are you an idiot or are you just defending Apple at all cost?"

gosh, which option do i pick? oh yeah, i pick the option that means i haven't suffered any trouble since adopting this philosophy.

god, don't you just love the anonymous internet? people can just spout off like they've got balls the size of basketballs, when in real-life, they would just shut their trap and be done with it.

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11/04, 10:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: In addition

"Of course, there are apologists out there saying the this may be due to FW800 drive makers fault, blah blah. "

Well, considering that the chipset maker has come out and said as much, I tend to believe this. Something similar happened recently with certain CD drives in Linux, and it was found to be a bug in that firmware that happened to be brought to light by an update to the system software. These things do happen, and when they do, it isn't always the fault of the software.

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11/08, 11:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Uhm

AHEM!

I had two Compaq laptops before my 17" Powerbook purchase.

The first bought at a very 'best buy' if you catch my meaning.
It was fried after 3 months and had to be replaced, and I will add
that it took my getting red, and blue in the face to get a replacement!

Then, the second POS crashed and burned in 6 months, in which
I decided this must be a friggin sign!!!

There are many, many more horror stories of PC laptops and
computers going to s***, than Apple and I can safely say, it is
in greater proportion to the scale of the marketshare difference.

Skewed reasoning is definately behind this debunkle of an article.

-M

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Mac.Ars looks at Apple's quality control

updated 09:10 am EST, Mon November 3, 2003

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Bugs!

get real

re: get real

blah

Because no else posted it

Oh here we go again...

re: Oh here we go again..

quality

I agree

re: Oh here we go again

!grackle Ars

Portables = c***

re: portables

15" Powerbook

please people

ars is right on the money

quality and secrecy

Stuck iMac power button..

HMm

Apple Waits...

Face it...

compared to what?

Face it...

re: MDD loudness

Right

yea

In addition

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Re: In addition

Uhm

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