This reminds me of HP. Eons ago at a shop, I purchased an HP IPAQ Palmtop. As we opened it inside the store to check, it had a blue dead pixel. The store clerk, promptly closed the box and picked another one for me. We opened it and boom, another dead pixel. We tried five IPAQs, they all had 1 dead pixel. He phoned HP and told them that. HP answered that 1 dead pixel was okay by their quality standard. The clerk made an ugly face and turned to me and said: "at least you can choose the location of your dead pixel from these five available choices".
Apple - Think Twice
281–290 of 407 posts
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget the old adage that reality is 90% perception. If your customers "think" they have a problem, that in itself is an issue that needs to be dealt with. My customers don't care if their system issues are actually a problem in my software or not. "Not a problem" doesn't work if you want to keep paying customers around.
This also works in personal relationships. If your SO feels hurt by something and you say "oh, grow up!", that doesn't help, even if you think some 'tough love' was needed/adequate. You have to deal with her as someone who is feeling hurt and until she perceives that you understand her, you'll just be sweeping the issue under the rug. I suppose this can be classified as listening but not really hearing.
On the other hand, sometimes tough love is indeed the adequate response and makes the SO to notice (s)he's being childish. Especially if said SO is generally mature enough to notice.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#283My two year old £200 24" LCD showed no signs of ghosting at all.
How is that relevant?
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#284As this article pertains to screen issues how about we discuss this a little bit rather than engaging in senseless rants? The "ghosting" issue the article highlights is a known problem with certain types of LCD screens. With a caveat I'll say that LG LCD panels are known for these kinds of issues much more so than Samsung's. The caveat is that ALL OEM LCD manufacturers have issues, all of them. The other very importa…
One of my co-workers had the same problem OP posted about. He was really excited about the Retina screen, but as compared to every other LCD he's been using for the last 5+ years, it had a significantly worse ghosting issues. In the end, after at least one display swap, Apple let him swap it out for a comparable non-retina Macbook Pro. Problem went away. I think they did good in not telling him his only option was to pay for a screen replacement, but I know he would have been far happier if he could have ended up with one of the Retina models minus the ghosting issue.
So, I don't think those first retina monitors were within the reasonable limitations of LCD technology unless this was somehow specific to the ultra high resolution displays which are relatively new. If they figured out how to fix it in a later iteration, they should pick up the slack and offer to replace the monitors with ones that don't have that issue. The ONE selling point of that computer over any other Macbook Pro is the display. For that reason, they should put every effort into ensuring that it is good as it can possibly be for anyone that pays for it, no matter the cost.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
To rebut his claim though you'd need a survey asking people how many times they've had faulty components/hardware. Not how good they feel about the supplier.
Doesn't how many times a person has had faulty components/hardware from a supplier affect a person's feeling about that supplier?
Not really - basic psych says that a person who needed repairs and had them done in an emotionally pleasing way will be happier about the supplier than a person who didn't need repairs and so didn't care.
But rationally it's quite clear that it is better to not need repairs (=waste time) in the first place.
It's the same as in many jobs - saving the day in a disaster will get more praise than preventing a disaster from happening; but, of course, prevention is far more valuable.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#286My perspective here is in no way Apple-specific, but I was reminded of something quite interesting in this story: if you pass a test and you still have problems, it probably means the test isn't good enough. Worse, passing a test doesn't magically change the state of the world and make these problems disappear. Turning to the customer and explaining, "there is no problem because you passed the test" does not alter th…
I strongly suspect that the testing mania you get on all the technical support lines comes from a mania by companies to control/pressure their customer support people and those people more or less passing along this pressure. "You have to prove you have a problem here because I've got a lot of people I have to help". The last technical support call I had for a Windows network problem (which I had isolated to the OS before I called), I could strongly sense the guy was inching to cut me off with either "not our problem", "not a problem" or "I can't help you 'cause won't listen to me". The implicit threats were strong enough that the table turn from "I'm here to help you" to "you're here to prove there's a problem...". It seems like it's a symptom of making technical support a large, low-wage, heavy control work environment.
Edit: It doesn't help that with large systems like Windows 7 (or modern OSX), there's no "here's the explanation of the problem", it is only "try this generic solution recipe, now try this other one..."
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
No I'm not. I'm saying that there is no acceptable insulation in the device. The chassis for example uses air gap between the board and the base for insulation. Even condensation can bridge it, which is the theory why mine exploded. Regarding appearance, and? Does that really matter? Why you pick a ThinkPad: http://appel.hu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/rollcage.jpg That and you can throw the damn thing across the…
Shucks. I don't even have a dog in this fight except for the following facts 1) I am a current owner of the storied T61 and 2) I have grown fond of the stupendously neat rMBP and am mulling getting one. That and you can throw the damn thing across the room and it'll still work. Mine is 5 years old, has been thrown, dropped, spilled on, yanked off the table, stood on and it's as good as new. Now that I've been made fa…
> rMBP owners: Please do share your insights into the mean level of abuse your units have handsomely survived.
A week or so ago, I was riding my bicycle on the comute from work and had to avoid a psychopath in a car. I'd forgotten to close the straps over the rMBP and it went flying off the back of the bike, skittered along the bitumen for a couple of metres and smashed into a gutter. It's not quite as handsome as it was, but despite landing on the screen corner everything still lines up perfectly, opens and closes perfectly and works perfectly.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still using/caring about their hardware even after they disappointed you so badly.
If not for this issue, the rMBP would be the best laptop for me personally by miles and miles. Of course I care! No one else makes products that get me but Apple, so this disappointment weighs extra heavy. I'm exploring alternatives, but that is years out.
I can totally understand that. For example, the Nexus 4 looks like the perfect phone for me, if only it wasn't so ridiculously large. I'm still going to try to get it when they (hopefully) restock in the UK.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
But your specs for what you repair have to be reasonable if you want to have customers think you deliver a high quality product (and if you want to actually do so). Two dead pixels near the edge of the screen, okay, most of us think, that's still usable, I'll soon stop noticing. (How many is 'most of us'? Enough that a monitor company can do that, and still be considered to deliver a high quality product). The ghosti…
I think I agree, but there's still a tone in your and OP's words that makes it sound like you're appealing to some objective measure of a "high quality product." Obviously, there is no such thing, and different problems will frustrate different people. It's quite possible that 99% of MBP buyers would never even notice that ghosting problem. Does that still make the MBP a "low quality product," and are Apple's policie…
> It's quite possible that 99% of MBP buyers would never even notice that ghosting problem
In general your argument makes sense, but I'm pretty sure in this case 100% of customers WOULD notice this particular ghosting problem.
How do I know that? Because it's visible in those crappy photos on a gray background with the naked eye ... and guess what, HN has a gray background.
You'd have to be blind to not notice the ghosting happening for this customer. And at least on a gray background you'd immediately notice that the display is to be blamed, because when watching pictures or something else you'd blame the noise on your crappy camera, on yourself and so on, which IMHO is far worse.
Re: Apple - Think Twice
#290Apple Bug #314159 - Display exhibits objectionable retina-like characteristics
Steps to reproduce:
1. Stare at bright checkerboard pattern on screen for 1 minute without blinking.
2. Quickly look away at blank white wall.
3. Observe persistence of image.