changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) (06/02/89)
There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I
think I will add some stories on it.
I bought my SE with internal 20 meg drive on September 87. Now it is in
the shop to receive its FIFTH floppy drive. That is mean-failure-time of
5 months. That is not all. My mouse is the third one, the analog board
is the second one, video board is the third one, and the fan is the
second one. Overall, except for my logic board, display, hard drisk, and
the chassis, they are ALL new ones.
I used to have a Macintosh 512 (later upgraded to 512E) which had no
problems whatsoever for three years of use. On the contrary, my SE has
been in the shop about ten times in less than two years of usage. Now,
shouldn't the product quality be improved from the old days?
Furthermore, it is not that I use my floppy drive very often--only
about once in every week or so. Coupled with skimpy 90 day warranty
(definitely one of the shortest in the industry), Apple's quality
control is on the bottom.
Wait, there is more. When I went to the shop, people in the shop gave
me a phone number to Apple's customer service. So I thought, "Hmm. Nice.
Maybe Apple will listen to my story." No way. When I called Apple, the
person who answered the phone told me to talk to Apple's regional
dealer. Sure. Apple's regional dealer is the person who gave the
customer service number to the shop!
Apple. You'd better to get the act together and improve the quality of
the product. Otherwise, you will lose very many customers to other
competitors including *gasp* IBM (which incidentally offers longer
warranty period). Not only Apple has turned itself to "Big Six Colors",
I am afraid that Apple has turned to a dinosaur.
Chang P. Woo
----
Chang Woo changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.EDU
HB 2932, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Don't you love reading disclaimers too?devoz@xenna.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL 1S TL,2622,7568004) (06/02/89)
From article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>, by changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo): > There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I > > Apple. You'd better to get the act together and improve the quality of > the product. Otherwise, you will lose very many customers to other > competitors including *gasp* IBM (which incidentally offers longer > warranty period). Not only Apple has turned itself to "Big Six Colors", > I am afraid that Apple has turned to a dinosaur. > > Chang P. Woo > ---- > Chang Woo changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.EDU > HB 2932, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Don't you love reading disclaimers too? I would love to see a longer warranty, but need to stick my couple of cents in. We purchased a number of MAC SE boxes in the past year and a half at work, and I purchased one for myself. Mine sees lighter duty, but gets dragged to and from work from time to time. We have had no failures of any of the MACs. Not a mouse, not a floppy drive, not a hard-disk (*shudder*), not a pixel on the screen. Sounds like there should be a lemon law. devoz@encore Joe DeVincentis
fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) (06/03/89)
In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes: >There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I >think I will add some stories on it. > >my SE has >been in the shop about ten times in less than two years of usage. Now, >shouldn't the product quality be improved from the old days? > >Apple. You'd better to get the act together and improve the quality of >the product. Otherwise, you will lose very many customers to other >competitors including *gasp* IBM (which incidentally offers longer >warranty period). Not only Apple has turned itself to "Big Six Colors", >I am afraid that Apple has turned to a dinosaur. > Now wait a minute - anecdotes are a poor way to determine overall product quality. My 2 year old SE has never once broken down, even though I transport it between work, school, and home several times a week. I might be led to conclude that Apple makes a reliable product. I'd probably be wrong. However, the machine hangs or otherwise screws up in major ways roughly several times a day. This is not a hardware quality control problem, but a software one. This is where Apple REALLY needs to get its act together. I admit I use a wide variety of software, but even users with the simplest of needs have seen these problems often. The Mac must be at the top of the #boots/CPU-hour statistics among all computers, ever. This is not User-Friendly. IMHO this is far more likely to make people switch to competitors including *gasp* IBM than hardware problems. People still buy Porsches, Saabs, Ferraris, etc that spend a disproportionate amount of time in the shop. But if these cars coughed, hacked, and stalled out several times a day even when the machanic had done everything he could...makes me wonder what percentage of Mac users own old British sports cars! Yes I know the Mac's software is far more complex, but this is a poor excuse. A Symbolics workstation is an order of magnitude more complex, yet rarely hangs up, even with hordes of lousy programmers hacking away. Excuse all the griping; I, like many others, could never voluntarily switch back to those _other_ computers - I just wish Apple would get more interested in the unglamorous area of system robustness instead of gee-whiz features. *end of flame* ======================================================================== Richard Fozzard "Serendipity empowers" University of Colorado fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu (303)492-8136 or 444-3168
florianb@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM (Florian Bell) (06/03/89)
(Chang P. Woo writes: >There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I >think I will add some stories on it. (A list of SE troubles follows) I have a story to the contrary. My Mac II has never given me a problem even though I have used it 9 hours a day for the last year and a half. What about all the satisfied Apple customers who never write in to talk about how happy they are with their Apple products? I tell you one thing. Even if I had to take my Mac II in ten times in the last year, I'd still buy a Macintosh over an IBM! [This is not a promotional for Apple. My company is not connected with Apple Computer in any way. My opinions are my own only.]
rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) (06/03/89)
In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes: >There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I >think I will add some stories on it. > >I bought my SE with internal 20 meg drive on September 87. Now it is in >the shop to receive its FIFTH floppy drive. [Story & Comments Deleted] >Chang P. Woo >---- >Chang Woo changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.EDU > HB 2932, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Don't you love reading disclaimers too? I also bought my SE in Fall of '87 and most likely from the same place since I go to the same school, but maybe not. Anyway, I couldn't be more happy with my SE. I have not had a single problem with it. I got the free fan upgrade that reduced quite a bit of noise. I have system bombs everyday but that's only because I run a pretty funky system with a lot of inits and such. I'm happy. I hope to be able to afford Macintosh and Apple products in the future. Heh, I do have a friend out there that calls it an "Etch-a-Sketch." -rsvp R. Scott V. Paterson Systems Operator Kiewit Computation Center Dartmouth College
rang@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) (06/03/89)
I've owned Apple equipment for years without experiencing any major problems. My Mac 512KE drive did start having problems once; after alignment didn't help, and Apple's test programs didn't show anything wrong, I convinced a friendly dealer to put a new one in for labor cost plus $20 (he figured the rest of the drive cost was covered by the trade-in of my old drive, which he sent back to Apple, for them to figure out the problems). My Apple ][+ has been working reliably for...must be 7 years or so now, I think. My 512K (and then 512KE) has worked fine, except for the disk drive problem (and recently a power supply problem) for 3 years (or so). My SE is working but I've only had it a month :-). About the Mac software problems...I generally find my Mac more reliable than any other computer system I use except for a VMS machine. It hangs up (for me) much less than the Sun systems which I manage, and rarely crashes unless I'm making stupid errors (usually if I'm programming during the day, when I'm asleep, instead of at night :-). An IBM PC which I also work on tends to lock up more-or-less at random; it happens when running most software, and most of the IBM PC's (XT's, AT's, ...) I've worked on exhibit the same problems (surprisingly, the clones seem more reliable in this regard). I don't think the Mac has any more software problems than any other personal computer. Not that Apple can't improve it; memory protectiion would be a great first step, and not too hard to implement on a machine with a PMMU.... +---------------------------+------------------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | "VMS Forever!" | | Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu | +---------------------------+------------------------+
mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang) (06/04/89)
In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes: > I bought my SE with internal 20 meg drive on September 87. Now it is in > the shop to receive its FIFTH floppy drive. That is mean-failure-time of > 5 months. That is not all. My mouse is the third one, the analog board > is the second one, video board is the third one, and the fan is the > second one. Overall, except for my logic board, display, hard drisk, and > the chassis, they are ALL new ones. > [ LOTS OF STUFF DELETED ] Your problems with your Macintosh SE sound extremely unusual (as other people have pointed out). There could be other explanations for your problems other than overall poor Apple quality. For example: 1) Since you rarely use your floppy drive, mabye other environmental factors such as smoke, dust, and humidity are causing your drives to constantly fail even when you are not using them. Could you be more specific in explaining what sorts of problems you have been having with your floppy drives? 2) Mabye the power you are feeding your Macintosh is very erratic and prone to spikes and drops. This could put some unusually large amount of strain of components in your Mac, causing them to fail prematurely. 3) When you say analog board, do you mean JUST the analog board, or the power supply too. On a Mac SE, they are actually two different repair parts. It is possible that you just have a bad power supply and all your other problems are related to that. 4) On a related note, mabye your logic board is bad. Since your video board, floppy drive, analog board, and mouse are all connected to the logic board, mabye something on the logic board is causing the other items to fail (of course this doesn't explain why your hard drive hasn't failed yet). In summary, your reoccuring problems may be caused by something in the environment like bad power lines. Or they may be caused by just one slightly bad component in your Mac, that hasn't been replaced, that is causing everything else to fail. If you could be more specific about the types of failures you have been having, mabye some people on the net familiar with repairing Macs could help you figure out your problem. Another suggestion is to talk to your dealer, and see if you can't get him to replace some of the parts that haven't been replaced yet, and see if that doesn't fix your problems. Remember, just because you are having major problems, doesn't mean everybody else is. Though Apple does blow it occasional (like with the Mac Plus power supply/analog board), I haven't of any reoccuring problems with the SE and SE repair parts; and I've been working in our campus computer resale center, which repairs many Macs every day, since before the SE was ever introduced. -Michael Wang +--------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael Wang | Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 | |--------------+------------------------------------------------------------| | ARPAnet, BITNET, CSNET, Internet: mouser@portia.stanford.edu | | UUCP: ...decwrl!portia.stanford.edu!mouser AppleLink: ST0064 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
yeung@reed.UUCP (Woodrow Yeung) (06/04/89)
In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes: >There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I >think I will add some stories on it. Don't forget official Apple documents corroborating its products being inferior in quality. What other computer manufacturer leaves its computer out with their lucky penny after 90 days? At least Apple is honest. IBM, on the other hand, lies about their problems (model 70's). Woody Yeung yeung@reed
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (06/04/89)
In article <4050@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM>, florianb@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM (Florian Bell) writes... [stuff about poor Apple quality] >I have a story to the contrary. My Mac II has never given me a problem >even though I have used it 9 hours a day for the last year and a half. > >What about all the satisfied Apple customers who never write in to talk >about how happy they are with their Apple products? > >I tell you one thing. Even if I had to take my Mac II in ten times in >the last year, I'd still buy a Macintosh over an IBM! Same here: have had my Mac for over 1.5 years and not one problem. Very satisfied. And I'd still buy a Mac anyway, even if they were having some QC problems. A longer warranty (say, 6 months) would be nice, though. But then again, I never had to use mine. Robert ------ ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu ------ generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine ------ MOFO knows!
hutches@beowulf.ucsd.edu (David J. Hutches) (06/05/89)
In article <3627@tank.uchicago.edu> ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >Same here: have had my Mac for over 1.5 years and not one problem. Very >satisfied. > >And I'd still buy a Mac anyway, even if they were having some QC problems. A >longer warranty (say, 6 months) would be nice, though. But then again, I never >had to use mine. I've had my Mac for something like 3.5 years, have moved it all over the place (three different states), and use it at least 4-5 hours a day. Admittedly, I've had two problems with it, a broken trace and a dead potentiometer. But both of these things happened long after any reasonable :-) warranty would have expired. Considering the fact that it's been banged around from one side of the country to the other *and* that it's been taken apart by me to install various enhancements, I think it's held up remarkably well. Given the chance, the need, and the financial wherewithal, I would buy a Mac over an IBM (or clone) any day. --david == David J. Hutches Computer Science & Engineering - Mail Code C-014 == == University of California, San Diego == == Internet: hutches%cs@ucsd.edu La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 == == UUCP: ...!ucsd!cs.ucsd.edu!hutches (619) 534-6994 ==
xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) (06/05/89)
mouser@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wang) offered some suggestions as to what Chang's problems with the SE might have been. Now, I do not wish to say whether Apple's service or product quality is bad, but I can offer some facts: First, if the environment is the cause of his problems, then why doesn't every other campus in the dorm (or the campus for that matter) have the same problem? Since Chang doesn't smoke, his room has the same environment as mine, which is next door, and everyone else's here at Dartmouth. Second, the power supply for the dormitories, as well as all buildings on campus, is exceptional, since we rigged the buildings specifically for computers (each room has one or two hardwired appletalk ports, and the dorms' electrical systems give constant voltage with little spiking, etc.) Also, if it were a bad power supply that was his problem, then why didn't the technicians detect that the second or third time in? Regarding power supplies, mine went on my SE/30 1 day out of the box. I had it repaired and it has been working well for about a month, but it didn't make me feel any better about the quality. Every fall we sell about 1,000 macintoshes to the incoming freshmen. Half are SE's and half Pluses. I would say about 99% have no problems, but the other 1%, about 10 people, seem to get lemons. They bring in their computer to be serviced several times during the year and still have problems. ALot have to pay for service since they still might be having problems after the whimp of a warranty has expired. I think there should definitely be a lemon law for computers. Just to cite two examples, it was common knowledge a couple of years ago that anyone who owned a Mac shouldn't be surprised if his/her power supply failed about a year out of the box. It just happened. The thing of today seems to involve the 800K drives. I have talked to the service people here and they have complained to apple that the product is faulty, because they have to fix so many of them. It seems the same type of thing, too, since most of them go about a year or so after the computer is purchased. I know my 14 month old SE was having problems with the internal 800K drive, and I know many other people who claim the same thing. Much the same thing holds true for the "older" SE internal 20 meg hard drives. At least three people I have talked to say their hard drive got louder and louder until it just died. It happened to the 9 month old SE we use as one of the cash registers at the computer store. Apple's product quality shouldn't be condemned, but I think that everyone would agree that at least THEY should show confidence in their product by giving it a longer warranty. I've heard the absurd argument that BECAUSE Apple is confident in their product they give a short warranty, but they are the only company who uses this logic. I'm sure that the number of people who would buy Apple's products because they have long warranties (former fence-sitters most likely) will make up for any sales that Apple loses with decreased Apple- Care purchases, and service fees. Macintoshes are the best. Apple is great. But they need some new financial consultants to tell them how to manage their marketing strategy. _james.Osborne@mac.dartmouth.edu ".sig file? Oh yea! That's the one we archived yesterday!" C Also, if it were just a bad power suppl
nghiem@ut-emx.UUCP (Alex Nghiem) (06/05/89)
[ discussion about poor Apple quality] Talk about product loyalty! Most of the people who laud Apple quality have OLDER Apple products. The problem is with the NEW product line, which have many "no name" Taiwanese components substituted for parts that were formally labeled "Sony" (for example, the mac two power supply.) We have had two 3.5" floppies fail, Three HD40's fail, and a motherboard fail on a total of three mac two's. Fortunately, most of our repairs were under warranty.
rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) (06/05/89)
In article <13786@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) writes: > >Second, the power supply for the dormitories, as well as all buildings on >campus, is exceptional, since we rigged the buildings specifically for >computers (each room has one or two hardwired appletalk ports, and the dorms' >electrical systems give constant voltage with little spiking, etc.) Yes, the college does have its own power plant that supplies power to most of the buildings on campus and to all the dorms, but count how many times the dorms experience sudden black and brown outs and you'll get quite a high number. When I lived in a dorm, you could always count on hearing someone scream as soon as a blackout occurred. I wonder if this affects the mac in an adverse way, especially in an environment that has power outages so frequently. -rsvp R. Scott V. Paterson Kiewit Computation Center Systems Operator Dartmouth College
ge@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl (Ge' Weijers) (06/05/89)
In article <9169@boulder.Colorado.EDU> fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) writes: >several times a day. This is not a hardware quality control problem, but >a software one. This is where Apple REALLY needs to get its act together. >I admit I use a wide variety of software, but even users with the simplest >of needs have seen these problems often. The Mac must be at the top of >the #boots/CPU-hour statistics among all computers, ever. Weird. we have about 8 Mac+es and 5 Mac-II(x)es, and we don't experience those problems. Personally, I take the following precautions when installing a system: - build it from scratch (copy system folder, reboot from floppy, remove original system folder, run installer to get a fresh system, run Font/DA mover to install fonts/DA's from their original files (not from the old system), and copy trustworthy init's. Then make a copy of the whole lot). - run virus checks regularly. I caught a virus once (NVIR a or b). If infected, do not repair but remove the application/system and get a fresh copy. - don't use fishy INIT's and DA's. We do not experience crashes normally, only in specific software, like MacDraw II. For the time being we've given up on Claris. Their quality control must be lacking. I'm ordering FreeHand. If you program the Mac yourself, use the programmer's key and a debugger to save yourself from tricky situations. Good luck. Ge' Weijers Internet/UUCP: ge@cs.kun.nl Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, (uunet.uu.net!cs.kun.nl!ge) University of Nijmegen, Toernooiveld 1 6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands tel. +3180612483 (UTC-2)
peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (06/05/89)
A couple of years ago when we started our Mac lab, we bought 13 Mac SEs.
Out of those 13, 4 had problems, with 2 not working at all and 2 others
having other problems which made them unusable. These were straight from
their boxes. I do not consider 4 bad Macs out of 13 good quality control
at all, especially considering considering they were broken when we got
them. Since then, we've had various machines break in some fashion or
another, but no more than PCs. My Mac II has worked flawlessly for some
time now. My Mac SE has worked without problems at home.
--
Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst
Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121
UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter
BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDUGFX@PSUVM.BITNET (06/06/89)
In article <13786@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>, xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) says: >Apple's product quality shouldn't be condemned, but I think that everyone would >agree that at least THEY should show confidence in their product by giving it >a longer warranty. I've heard the absurd argument that BECAUSE Apple is >confident in their product they give a short warranty, but they are the only >company who uses this logic. I'm sure that the number of people who would >buy Apple's products because they have long warranties (former fence-sitters >most likely) will make up for any sales that Apple loses with decreased Apple- >Care purchases, and service fees. Warranty is valuable iff the cost of repair represents a large fraction of the total loss you incur. We acquired a Mac II recently. The machine crashed two days before an important conference for which a few hundred pages of exhibits/documents had yet to be completed. We couldn't care less about the cost of repairs. In my opinion, the dealers can be much more effective than a warranty if they can provide back-up support to users faced with such problems (lending replacements for free, etc.). I don't know what is the situation in the private sector today. A few years back, support was excellent. In the academic sector, though, repair turnaround is good but you are on your own in the meantime. And that is no fun at all. I would like to re-emphasize the idea that the coverage provided by a warranty is only a small fraction of the overall quality management policy of a firm. In the automobile market extensive warranty coverage is sometimes less expensive and always faster to implement than quality production is to achieve. As it turns out, quality and coverage are now inversely correlated. I would also like to re-emphasize that we were totally pissed-off by our Mac II failure, for which the source of the problem has not been diagnosed with certainty. While this runs counter to my general experience with Apple products (I found them to be reliable), it is when these machines die in front of you that you realize how your language can become colorful. I don't mind a short-term warranty. But I will not use a machine that may fail for unknown reasons. It is in the interest of Apple to tighten it's quality control. Or we'll switch to oranges. (actually keep using oranges...)
englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (06/06/89)
In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes: >I bought my SE with internal 20 meg drive on September 87. Now it is in >the shop to receive its FIFTH floppy drive. That is mean-failure-time of >5 months. That is not all. My mouse is the third one, the analog board >is the second one, video board is the third one, and the fan is the >second one. Overall, except for my logic board, display, hard drisk, and >the chassis, they are ALL new ones. Sounds like a bad power supply. Did they replace this too? I once went through four drives because of this. -- - Scott
twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) (06/06/89)
Just to add another data point I have the following Macs at home: 512K, ex'84 128K - Still gets used as a word processing machine & runs old 64KROM compatable games & applications - Never had any problems. '85 512KE, my old work Mac. Was 512K upgraded to E in 86. Never had a problem with the Mac. However It went through 3 HyperDrive 20s in 3 years. Mac+, this is an early Plus. Never had any problems until I upgraded to 2.5Meg RAM. Initially the RAM didn't work. I shipped the digital board back to Mac Products USA, and they decided one of the Macs chips was bad. It came back with another problem & after shipping it back was told that another Mac chip had gone bad. SO, except for problems that poped up while in the hands of MacProducts USA, I have never had any problems with the Plus. Early LaserWriter Plus. Never had any problems. My data points for 3 Macs indicate that they are reliable. HOWEVER, ALL 3 Macs have fans sitting on top of them. >machanic had done everything he could...makes me wonder what percentage of >Mac users own old British sports cars! I have 3 Macs & 3 old British Cars (TR3, Land Rover, MGBGT) I do not have problems with the old British cars either {other then routine replacement of worn parts} TeriAnn
straka@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Straka) (06/06/89)
What about the self-destructing upper head in the 800K floppy drives? I have had 2 of them go belly-up on me (on two different machines) after about a year or so of non-abusive use. It seems that the phosphor-bronze spring assembly that helps the head align itself to the disk media is a little bit too narrow in one particular area, and fatigues and eventually breaks. I looked at the new assembly of my latest replacement, and found the design of the upper head alighment spring to be MUCH heftier than the old one. Sounds to me like a known problem to Apple (/Sony)! I like my Macintoshes, but frankly, I'd be a lot less nervous if Apple were more forthright about some of the quality issues. -- Rich Straka att!ihlpf!straka MSDOS: All the wonderfully arcane syntax of UNIX(R), but without the power.
rlk@telesoft.UUCP (Bob Kitzberger @sation) (06/07/89)
Please, no more anecdotes about supposed horrible product quality. Horror stories like this lead to unfounded fear - e.g. one's tendency to overestimate the danger involved in air travel based on media coverage of a few dramatic crashes. Anecdotal evidence <> proof. What *would* be interesting are statistics gathered from a large, unbiased pool of users (i.e. corporate microsystems group). Gathering statistics from comp.sys.mac readers who *choose to reply* isn't an unbiased sample. .Bob. -- Bob Kitzberger Internet : telesoft!rlk@ucsd TeleSoft uucp : ...!ucsd.ucsd.edu!telesoft!rlk 5959 Cornerstone Ct. West at&t : (619) 457-2700 x163 San Diego, CA 92121-9891 "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word." -- Andrew Jackson ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (06/07/89)
> In my opinion, the dealers can be much more effective > than a warranty if they can provide back-up support to users faced with such > problems (lending replacements for free, etc.). I don't know what is the > situation in the private sector today. A few years back, support was > excellent. In the academic sector, though, repair turnaround is good but > you are on your own in the meantime. And that is no fun at all. At Acadia, we sent our resident technician to an Apple course and now we provide the campus support for Mac problems, not the local dealer. We have three levels of maintenance: level 1: We come and pick it up, provide a loaner until it's fixed, and bring it back when it's done. level 2: Same as level 1 but we don't provide a loaner. level 3: You bring the broken whatever in yourself, we'll fix it as soon as we can, and then you come and pick up the fixed whatever. Each level, of course, costs the customer more per year, but our rates are reasonable. We do this for Macs, printers, PCs, terminals, etc. It's a *lot* better than relying on the local dealer. -- Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121 UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) (06/08/89)
In article <7492@xenna.Encore.COM> devoz@xenna.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL 1S TL,2622,7568004) writes: >From article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>, by changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo): >> There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I >> Apple. You'd better to get the act together and improve the quality of >> the product. Otherwise, you will lose very many customers to other >> competitors including *gasp* IBM (which incidentally offers longer >> warranty period). Not only Apple has turned itself to "Big Six Colors", >> I am afraid that Apple has turned to a dinosaur. >I would love to see a longer warranty, but need to stick my couple of cents >in. > >We purchased a number of MAC SE boxes in the past year and a half at >work, and I purchased one for myself. Mine sees lighter duty, but gets >dragged to and from work from time to time. > >We have had no failures of any of the MACs. Not a mouse, not a floppy >drive, not a hard-disk (*shudder*), not a pixel on the screen. > >Sounds like there should be a lemon law. The thing that never seems to be mentioned is how are these Macs that seem to continually fail actually handled? Are they used constantly? Are they powered on & off all the time? Is the environmentt unusually hostile. I have had different Mac's since 1984 and in a Plus had one power supply fail in 3.5 years of 24 hour operation on my BBS, I have an SE that I have on 24 hours a day as well...no problems at all. Had a Mac II for 1 year, on 24 hours a day, no problems at all...And so far about 2 months with a new IIcx on 24 hours a day, no problems yet, and do not expect any either...While perhaps some people are just unlucky, or perhaps there is something else that is not posted that contributes the failure that we never hear about...While I too would like to see longer warranties from Apple, you can always buy Applecare if you are one of those people that seems to break your Mac on a regular basis since that would save you some $$ in the long run... -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything) UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM
kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) (06/09/89)
I seem to remember a story a year-or-so ago about the reliability of Macintoshes vs. IBMs in University settings. The figures were something like a virtual certainty that a given IBM would need `fixing' in the first year, and much less for the Macintoshes. (Was it 25%?? Well, whatever.) The point was not that the Macs didn't break as much as the IBMs did, the point was that the IBMs are so difficult to use that normal behavior was mistaken for `it's broken'. Most of the time the repair people could find nothing physically wrong with the `broken' IBM. I guess I am not commenting on Apple's product quality in the traditional manfacturing sense, rather I am reminding us of the greater underlying level of quality. (Translation: Kent's just another IBM Basher.) P.S. Let's hear it for the 1 year warranty! Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent
ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) (06/10/89)
In article <89156.130832GFX@PSUVM> GFX@PSUVM.BITNET writes: >In article <13786@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>, xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) says: >I would also like to re-emphasize that we were totally pissed-off by our >Mac II failure, for which the source of the problem has not been diagnosed >with certainty. While this runs counter to my general experience with >Apple products (I found them to be reliable), it is when these machines >die in front of you that you realize how your language can become >colorful. I don't mind a short-term warranty. But I will not use a machine >that may fail for unknown reasons. It is in the interest of Apple to >tighten it's quality control. Or we'll switch to oranges. (actually keep >using oranges...) Somehow the above statement makes no sense, specifically the statement that "I will not use a machine that may fail for unknown reasons." That statement makes absolutely no sense. Any computer can fail for reasons you do not know, chips can fail, power supplies can fail, etc. And until the problem is diagnosed and the appropriate component replaced, you are not going to know what happen to your Mac or your PC, or your workstation, mainframe, Cray, it makes no difference what it is. If it fails, unless YOU caused it but digging under the hood, you can only guess how or why it failed... -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything) UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM
mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) (06/11/89)
In article <415@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: > I seem to remember a story a year-or-so ago about the reliability of > Macintoshes vs. IBMs in University settings. The figures were > something like a virtual certainty that a given IBM would need > `fixing' in the first year, and much less for the Macintoshes. (Was > it 25%?? Well, whatever.) Well, at Ball State we have about 300 of each. These are my estimates on the problems that have been encountered with the 100 Macs that were purchased by the campus' Computer Competency program in the last year: Bad (misaligned) floppy drives: 15 Bad SE display 1 (kept getting dimmer until it couldn't be seen any more.) Bad keyboard cable 1 (this bad cable was connected to three machines. Each machine that it came in contact with blew a fuse on the ADB circuitry, requiring a motherboard swap in all three machines) Bad hard disk drive 2 (controller problems) Bad video card 1 Bad LocalTalk connector kit 1 Two-thirds of the floppy drives, the video card, the connector kit, the keyboard cable, the SE display, and one of the hard drives failed within the 90 day warranty period. On the IBM side, the CC program bought about 100 PS/2 model 50Zs. Here is a list of the problems that I remembered: Bad mouse 2 Bad monitor cable 3 Bad internal hard drive 1 Bad floppy drive (3.5" internal) 1 Bad printers 7 (Proprinter XL24s: 3 of the 10 purchased had problems with the print heads and paper feed, 3 had problems with the control panel lights shorting out, 1 had all three problems) All problems occurred within the warranty period (of course). The printers seemed to be out for repairs about 50% of the time. > The point was not that the Macs didn't break as much as the IBMs > did, the point was that the IBMs are so difficult to use that normal > behavior was mistaken for `it's broken'. Most of the time the repair > people could find nothing physically wrong with the `broken' IBM. Like deleting the COMMAND.COM... The one thing that amazes me is how much people notice when the Macs have problems (most of the time there are people waiting in lines to use them), but could care less when the IBMs are not working (there are plenty of them everywhere). -Michael -- Michael Niehaus UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas Apple Student Rep ARPA: mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu Ball State University AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)
nghiem@ut-emx.UUCP (Alex Nghiem) (06/11/89)
#In article <13701@ut-emx.UUCP>, nghiem@ut-emx.UUCP (Alex Nghiem) writes:
#> [ discussion about poor Apple quality]
#>
#> Talk about product loyalty! Most of the people who laud Apple
#> quality have OLDER Apple products. The problem is with the NEW
#> product line, which have many "no name" Taiwanese components substituted
#> for parts that were formally labeled "Sony" (for example, the mac
#> two power supply.)
#>
#> We have had two 3.5" floppies fail, Three HD40's fail, and a motherboard
#> fail on a total of three mac two's. Fortunately, most of our repairs were
#> under warranty.
#>
I've received a nasty message from someone, possible from Taiwan, who
was upset about this posting knocking Taiwanese components. It was not
my intent to knock anybody's nationality, and I'm quick to admit that
Taiwan does fill a very real need for low-cost hardware affordable by
the budget user. My personal machine is a Taiwan Clone.
But, I will note that he claims
that all the components that fail on Macs are made in Japan. He also
stated that maybe I have a power supply problem that are knocking out
the other components.
The Macs I work with have been in and out of the shop several times, and
nothing was mentioned about our power supplies being defective. If there
is a power supply problem, I hoped the Apple trained and certified
technician who worked on our machines was trained to recognize
and rectify the problem.
Also, two out of our three Mac II power supplies
are made in Taiwan by ASTEC, the same company that
makes the IBM-PC power supply. The IBM-PC original OEM power supply
was not known for being very reliable and, unfortunately,
we just had an ASTEC power supplies fail in one of our PC's. Hence,
my doubt of durability of the
power supplies of the same Taiwanese manufacturer in the newer Mac II's.
Our older Mac II has a Japanese manufactured Sony power supply and
as of yet, there is no indication of failure.
It is true that the components that failed are labeled
"Made in Japan." On this point, I stand corrected.
Nevertheless, I believe it is significant that many of
us have observed that the quality of the newer Mac's seems less that
previous models. For example, there were several
flames about the new, lighter Apple mouse.
I've seen the new mouse on pair of new SE/30's and from outward
appearances, I have to agree with the fire starters, especially
when we dish out several thousand for one of these machines. When
we spend that much money, we expect to get a quality Mac, not
an Apple-built MacClone.
Now, my question is where do the sub-assemblies that make the new
Japanese components come from?
nghiem
standard disclaimer (as usual (:->) ).
David.Morgenstern@f444.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (David Morgenstern) (06/15/89)
>What about the self-destructing upper head in the 800K floppy drives? >I've had 2 of them go belly-up on me (on two different machines) after >a year or so of non-abusive use. You might be interested in the new INIT that a couple of hard-headed BMUG members created. It is a parking program for 400 and 800K floppy drives. It moves the heads to the innermost track before the disk is ejected. This stops the caught-head syndrome! The programs name is SafeEject and is on BMUG Utilities 14 disk. daviD morgensterN BMUG CheerLeader We're in the Business of Giving Away Information. -- ------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNet: 1:161/445 UUCP: sun!apple!bmug!<User.Name> INTERNET: bmug!<User.Name>@apple.COM or <User.Name>@bmug.fidonet.org USNAIL: BMUG, 1442A Walnut St. #62, Berkeley, CA 94709-1496 ------------------------------------------------------------- BMUG Newsletter articles due June 15! Authors get free membership. Send articles to: pub@bmug.fidonet.org