> a product recall which is your fault in the first place
First: it's not a mandatory recall. You didn't need to replace the iMac hard drive.
Second: Western Digital hard drive failures are not directly Apple's fault. Apple package the product but it's only indirectly their fault -- Western Digital screwed up here.
Third: The affected products are all past their warranty date. Apple are being better-than-average by offering this recall at all.
Does this makes Apple look like a "dysfunctional, hideous and dystopian company"? Not in my opinion. In fact, you sound like you've gone completely off into ridiculous hyperbole-land.
> I am surely able to do it, considering the poor skill level of your staff. You should offer this as an option.
You don't have any backups of your hard drive (which is why the easy options all disappointed you) but you think you're skilled enough to replace an iMac hard drive? Do you have a full set of Torx screwdrivers and suction cups? Maybe you should sell your Torx screwdrivers and buy a backup drive.
A part from the fact it's Seagate, they provide the product as-is and they make the choice of what's inside it. Therefore they are responsible for it.
Secondly, I do have backups. I didn't have a last-minute backup. The kind of backup you do right before shutting down and changing a hard drive. What makes you think I can't do it myself? I've build my own PCs since I was a kid... :-)
Note I am not the person you just replied to, but the fact that you would wait two weeks for a phone call made me think that you wouldn't replace a hard drive yourself.
I have a feeling you don't appropriately value your time. I got the recall notice. You know what I did? I made sure the backups were working and sent the recall notice to the trash.
A comparable 1TB hard drive is $100. If you value your own time appropriately, it is not worth your time to proactively replace it. I appreciated the heads up as it was a chance to double check my backups.
I never consider a hard drive "safe." The fact that I got a recall notice for a two year old hard drive was shocking to me.
All that said, my last "genius" experience was abysmal, as well, but I can give high praise to the business sales team at my local store.
I don't know which model of iMac you have, but on the recent ones, replacing the HD requires removing the glass pane on the front, which is a very tricky operation. The pane is very thin and very large, which means if the force is applied unevenly, it can crack. Apple techs have a stiff aluminum frame with suction cups that they attach to the glass, then they use that to pull the glass off.
For the 2009 models you can remove the front glass with suctions cups. You can get the suction cups from Bed, Beth & Beyond. Removing the screen itself is trickier and requires undoing a lot of screws.
Regardless of all the other issues here, that is a triumph of form over function. Consumer hard drives are not noted for their reliability (or they'd come with 5 year warranty like the enterprise version).
I agree with you on form over function. But I'm not aware of any independent study that validates the higher MTBF numbers that manufacturers claim for "enterprise" HDs. The better warranty seems to be mostly a convenience factor that some enterprises are willing to pay for.
Your second point is completely irrelevant. Apple sold it, Apple is responsible. The buck stops at them. They cannot divert responsibility, at least not in front of the customer.
If they want to get back to whoever sold them the hard drives, fine, they can do it. Just don’t use it as an excuse.
(Though I’m really not sure why he had so many problems calling Apple. That has always been very easy for me and there have never been two week wait times. What’s going on there? Also, yes, Apple Stores prefer you to have an appointment, but they will try very hard to squeeze you in if you don’t have one. What’s inexcusable to my mind is waiving the appointment if you are five minutes late.)
>Second: Western Digital hard drive failures are not directly Apple's fault. Apple package the product but it's only indirectly their fault -- Western Digital screwed up here
You make it sound as if he bought a WD drive on Newegg. Doesn't Apple charge a hefty premium on hard disks, especially if you chose an upgrade? One would be right to expect a higher level of support than a similar cheap purchase on Newegg for the same price.
Yeah, Apple never was the pinnacle of support, and that wasn't any different when Jobs was at the helm. I did a short stint as a hotline supporter, so for a change I actually know what I'm talking about… The products on average were quite good and the process was friendly enough, which in addition to the RDF got Apple some good marks regarding customer support, but the big competitors (HP, Dell, IBM) usually had better warranty handling, especially for desktop products (pickup etc.). And Apple had a hard time with the increased warranty periods enforced by European countries (which is still part of their excuse why their products are that much more expensive over there).
It's not like Steve personally delivered your fixed product with a ribbon 'round it back in the days.
Actually to that end Apple last year lost their retail lead (Ron Johnson) to JC Penny, and more recently fired their current head of retail during the most recent shakeup. (Who'd tried to cut costs by reducing retail headcount - a mistake they actually reversed).
The retail experience did have a bit of an off year post-Steve, but it seems like loosing Ron Johnson was a bigger hit.
I have two 27" iMacs under this recall and I live in Brooklyn. I simply called Apple and told them it would not be possible to transport these iMacs to a store in Manhattan for servicing as I do not own a car (which I don't). They sent a service person to my house to do the drive swap. The tech was a 3rd party contractor and highly knowledgeable. We had a good discussion about the engineering in the iMacs as well as the current state of tech.
In short, I called Apple and politely walked through the issues and they did not hesitate to help me out, even after noting that I lived geographically close to many Apple stores (Grand Central, 5th Ave, etc), but also acknowledged the difficulties in actually getting to them.
We got a list of our machines, called Apple, and a tech did the work. Low pain.
I have had the best luck with Apple and IBM since they send techs. HP (which has some sort of hard drive problem with the netbooks Verizon is selling) is a call / RMA / Ship company. Acers were just eat the cost when they fail.
Agreed. Apple has replaced two logic boards in an old MBP (one for bad video card and one for fried firmware), the drives in my iMacs and swapped out a faulty power supply for an old Mini. I've found that if you're polite and competent the Geniuses will help you out. Doing some preemptive research and work like making sure you have backups, etc also goes a long way to ensuring a smooth experience.
I used to be an Apple store employee in the Family room (where the devices get fixed). In fact I used to work as the exact employee who mainly checked people in for their appointment. The store I worked in had an extremely high volume of people coming in for repairs. Our store policy was, if the person had missed their entire appointment (E.g. 15 minutes late for mac appointments and 10 minutes late for mobile) then they would be turned away, except for in exceptional circumstances (multiple repairs etc).
We reserved some appointments each day for "walk-ins" and these became available every hour, however they were immediately snapped up within 5 minutes of become available.
My point is that, this is a reservation, much like an eye checkup or dentist appointment. If you miss your reservation, that is your responsibility and not ours to try and fit you in. The booking process is explicit in reminding you not to be late.
If the OP genuinely did get turned away for being 5 minutes late, then that is quite harsh, however I think its more likely that he missed his allotted appointment time and in that case it is 100% his fault for not making it. And oh yeah bringing up the Steve Jobs point is so irrelevant and is just hyperbole.
The recall itself is another matter which IS Apple's responsibility and probably should have been handled better.
> If the OP genuinely did get turned away for being 5 minutes late, then that is quite harsh
He was not turned away. He wrote:
Also — I arrived at 12:20, wholly 5 minutes late. The first thing the “genius” told me is that I was late and that my appointment was forfeit. When I told him it was for the HD replacement, he “magically” found some time for me.
So yes, he did not show up on time but was helped anyway. I think that is great service and not something to "magically" complain about.
I'm getting a little bored with all these negative postings. I don't need to get all torqued off at Apple just because some guy had problems getting his computer fixed by them.
I've had good experiences with Apple, and I've had horrible experiences with them. The bad bits usually correpond to me being in a foul mood or being short tempered when I'm talking to them. That, interestingly enough, correlates with my desire to tell everyone and their dog about how bad it was while I was dealing with them.
Let's all take a moment to be grateful we live in such wonderful times. Technology like Apple makes is awesome, it works more of the time than it doesn't, and yet it does not define who we are at our cores. You are alive and human - take the time to go out and smell the fresh air, talk to a stranger and find the things that bring you joy.
That sounds like a pretty dismal support experience. My own experience is that I've had good interactions with apple support, but mainly because I knew what I wanted and I was willing to push the "I'm not happy" button, which I understand is hard wired into all Apple Geniused at the factory in China, and automatically flicks them into "maximum helpfulness mode". But if you don't know about the magic button, it can be a bit tricky, I guess!...
This is certainly something Apple should look into. Their main customer base is the mass market of tech-unsavvy consumers, people like my parents, who don't know how to find that button and believe, rightly, that Apple stores are full of condescending youngsters who treat them like idiots and give them bad advice.
The Apple Stores in the Bay Area are great, in my experience, if you schedule an appointment, show up on time, and are pretty clearly competent -- "I've already backed up this machine, these are the specific symptoms, ...". "I'm a developer" also helps. The Geniuses have wide latitude in what they can do, so being friendly, polite, and easy for them to serve goes a long way -- I've gotten a MBP3,1 fully replaced, 3 replacements of my new iPhone 5 in the days after launch to solve a not-fully-understood-by-Apple WPA2+AES wifi problem, fixing machines where I'd replaced the HDD+ODD with SSD (but the problem was unrelated), etc.
(I really should just do the $300 certification to become an AASP so I can fix my own stuff with Apple-provided parts, though.)
That said, their tier-1 phone support is horrible. Doing whatever is possible to get bumped to 2/3 as soon as possible is essential. (it's all contracted out, actually). I wish there were an easy way to pay a one-time or annual fee to get bumped automatically to tier 2/3.
Replacing the hard drive on an iMac is about as difficult as replacing the LCD panel on a laptop. Not impossible, but does require removing a large piece of glass with multiple suction cups, etc. I don't think self-repair would be a great choice in this case, at least as a standard option.
Next time buy your computer at Best Buy and see how that goes for you.
Not to be too terribly snarky hopefully you've learned some valuable lessons here in dealing with Apple. You should have expected tech support to have regurgitated the contents of the email. The only reason you would have had for calling them is finding the name of the 3rd party company that would be fixing your computer and how to go about arranging that service.
The second thing you've learned is the Apple geniuses aren't, well, geniuses. They're simply more knowledgeable than average, which takes care of 80% of the problems a typical customer will experience. The important thing to know is they're not doing the work. And, hello, since this was a general recall there were probably a boatload of machines "upstairs" waiting to be repaired. They told you 2 weeks because they prefer to under promise and over deliver and have your machine back to you in a few days.
I know Apple can do seemingly amazing things, but good grief you need to have realistic expectations.
> The second thing you've learned is the Apple geniuses aren't, well, geniuses
Sorry, but how did you come to that conclusion? They helped him correctly right?
The procedure for a recall is very simple: you bring your mac and they take it in and you get it back when they have replaced the drive.
The OP made things more complicated by not planning ahead and backing up his drive. Even though the email clearly states that you need to backup your Mac before you bring it in. He did not. So what did he expect? A free external 1TB drive? A magic backup that happened in a few minutes?
It is the OP that did not do the right thing by coming in late and not being prepared.
Apple is rather polarizing in this regard. For every one of these nightmare stories that you hear, there's always one about someone getting their 5-year-old laptop replaced for a brand new one for free. I guess the human element comes into play here more than anything else.
I have never seen this blog format - html uploaded and shared on Dropbox. What are the benefits? Anonymity?
It seems that many blog for publicity or driving traffic (both valid reasons), which leads to using simple publishing tools (tumblr, svtble, weebly, etc), custom domains, links to the author's other content, a personal profile, and an overall media-centric approach. Curious why the OP went with this approach!
I think you are complaining too much. You should realize that the majority of Apple customers are not technically-inclined, so the support procedures will be geard towards them. Seeing as how you are smart enough to read and submit articles to HN, you should know to expect these kinds of things when dealing with any kind of tech. support (let alone, a drive replacement). You should have already backed-up your data and wiped the drive before going to the Apple store. You submit articles to HN and you expect (and trust) Apple to move your data from one drive to another?! Come on, man...You should know better... And posting stuff like this just makes you look bad.
Not to knock the Dropbox solution but a very convenient format for this situation is: Markdown formatted Gist. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: https://gist.github.com/1900350
Getting an email about a recall is painful? You think the vendor posting a recall notification in a newspaper works better? Or did you expect a personal phone call? Really, what is the problem?
Why did you call tech support? This is a recall, not something that can be fixed over the phone. You should have followed the first advice to make an appointment.
And really, what is the problem of having to make an appointment for the Genius bar? Have you ever been in an Apple Store recently? It is crazy busy. You want an appointment.
I've done this three times now, including for an iMac that needed something fixed. You make an appointment through their web site, show up on time, things get fixed right away or they take your hardware in. Both times it worked really well. I have nothing good to say about Apple support.
I once owned a PowerBook 5300 and at the time Apple's tech support process was horrible, and the company didn't stand behind its products.
It took me years to be willing to buy another Apple product, which was an iPad Shuffle. Turns out I really liked that product, and Apple had finally started to fix its tech support process.
I now own tons of Apple products, including several macs, an Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, etc. My last stop by the Genius bar resulted in no questions asked replacement of a few pieces of Apple gear that had broken (headphones, a bluetooth keyboard). I was extremely impressed.
A recall is a different thing, since it is ultimately a decision about the cost of the recall vs the harm to the brand of not doing the recall... this leads to the desire to have the recall be as inexpensive as possible.
Nonetheless, I hope this isn't a sign that Apple is reverting to its old ways.
I think because this was part of a product recall. Apple says "hey, we screwed up, we need to replace your hard drive", so you'd think they'd provide the new one and do the back up themselves, instead of "we screwed up, you should drop $100 to fix the situation we put you in".
He really should have been backing up his own data anyway. And if you really have important data on your computer, why would you send it off to strangers to back up anyway? I'd format the drive and zero it out before returning it.
I do, but you still need to back up the last days or so right before replacing the drive. That is also why I didn't want to buy a HDD - I already have a back up solution.
Except that the email (I also got one) clearly states:
Apple recommends replacing your affected hard drive as soon as possible. Before you go in for service, please back up your data. Learn more about backup options.
So instead of assuming they would do a backup for you, you should actually follow the advice from the official instructions.
You're coming across as a spoiled customer. An "if Steve Jobs were" statement, really? Sometimes I fail to understand why Apple consumers feel so entitled. I think it's more acceptable for less technically-inclined consumers to feel like Apple should be kissing their feet, but I expect that tech people (who read and submit to HN, at least) know better than to put quotation marks around Apple's Genius employees.
I mean, I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but you could've inflicted less pain on yourself by doing your own last-minute backup on the first indication that it was difficult to get a hold of Apple Support. I'm sure you have your reasons why you chose not to, but dude you waited two weeks. In that window, you could have backed up your drive so that you'd be free of worries when Apple finally comes around to replacing your hard drive!
First: it's not a mandatory recall. You didn't need to replace the iMac hard drive.
Second: Western Digital hard drive failures are not directly Apple's fault. Apple package the product but it's only indirectly their fault -- Western Digital screwed up here.
Third: The affected products are all past their warranty date. Apple are being better-than-average by offering this recall at all.
Does this makes Apple look like a "dysfunctional, hideous and dystopian company"? Not in my opinion. In fact, you sound like you've gone completely off into ridiculous hyperbole-land.
> I am surely able to do it, considering the poor skill level of your staff. You should offer this as an option.
You don't have any backups of your hard drive (which is why the easy options all disappointed you) but you think you're skilled enough to replace an iMac hard drive? Do you have a full set of Torx screwdrivers and suction cups? Maybe you should sell your Torx screwdrivers and buy a backup drive.