apple gets it right
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
The other day I wrote about my dissatisfaction with Apple's support for our PC's and other equipment. I'm happy to report that they came through for us last night.
While I waited for someone to help me, I watched another fellow go through various problems with the three Apple systems he'd brought in to have fixed. One was his son's laptop, which had a badly smashed screen that would have to be replaced. The second, an older laptop of which he said, "I don't know whose this is," had problems that would require more analysis. The third, an iPad, needed an SD card prized out of some gap in the system. He made the remark, "I can't believe my wife bought one of those," as the tech worked.
To my left was another fellow with a problem. He told a complex story of the history of the iPad he was having looked at. "My friend owed me $300, so he bought me this iPad. I wouldn't have bought this model, I wanted the 64GB model. And he didn't buy me the support contract which would have been discounted at purchase time, so I had to pay for the first repairs out of pocket, and then buy the support at full cost myself. Now I'm supposed to hand this unit to my other buddy's wife and buy myself another one. I'm already into this model for, like, $900. Can I transfer the support contract to the other unit?" All the while, the technician he was dealing with kept trying to say, "I can't find a problem with the system. What's the problem you're having?"
I turned my attention away from that before I unwittingly learned any more, only to see some young Frenchman practically snapping his fingers at one of the techs, explaining that the world had come to an end. "I am having a problem with zis phone! Who can help me, I must have eet fixed!"
There were also two others with more or less the identical problem that we were having with our laptop. Now I see why Apple can't just serve walk-in customers.
The technician I was finally able to see was able to run diagnostics on the hardware and operating system and determine that there was no problem with the laptop itself. Upon reviewing the symptoms and testing our laptop with some other chargers, he was also able to figure out that the charger itself was the problem. Because I'd bought the extended warranty for the problem laptop, we were given a new charger at no additional cost.