Apple's flaky hardware strikes again

[drscott]

Well, friends, my two recent purchases from Apple have divergent fates.

Purchase A, the iPod Nano, is doing well. It's almost too small and elegant to live in the real world, so I'm not taking it into the cold, cruel outside until I have a protective case for it. I've cleaned up my music library using iTunes and downloaded more than I'll ever need into the Nano, plus a few photos (not much point to that, since the screen is so small, but it was fun.)

Purchase B, the Mac Mini Core Solo (the cheapest new Intel-based model), has been flaky from opening the box. According to what I see on Apple chat boards, a large number of these are going out with defective PMUs (power management units). The machine does not start up unless you reset the PMU *every single frickin' time*, and it never wakes from sleep either. So I'm on the line with Applecare in India right now trying to report yet another DOA machine so they can fix the problem. Waste of my time, since I'm just sending it back to Amazon when I get off the phone. And yes, I did check to be sure it is plugged in.

Comments

nano cases

[cruisebear.livejournal.com]

Go ahead and use your nano. The screen is too small anyway and it is the best player as far as flash memory goes. Mine is a bit scratched but it works well and i got the 5 pack nano skins.

Did you get a white or black nano?

Re: nano cases

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Black -- much more my style. I'll probably get a black silicone skin for it.

[markbuster.livejournal.com]

I had been begging my hubby to switch back to Apple since we left college (800 years ago)... and when the mini came out, I went and bought one. WHOA... have I been paying for it since! He has a giant case of the "I told you so's", and I can's argue. It's a nice doorstop. Piece of fucking crap. I am so ashamed of it. My 4 year old dell works better.

The iPods are great, though. As long as you can cope with the short battery life. I use a Dell DJ for longer excursions, as it can run for about 36 hours.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

The Mini is a wonderful concept for people who don't need much of a workhorse (like my mother.) If you do anything beyond surfing and email, something more powerful is called for....

[markbuster.livejournal.com]

It's a good concept, but it doesn't pay to buy early with apple. We do use it as a second machine, but it is sloooooowwwwww
and it can't do complicated things like printing at the same time it's opening a new document. We just use it for email and porn now :)


I had really wanted to make this an apple house. Maybe if I rent one of the new desktops for a month I will convince him (and now me). This old dell will need replacing soon enough.

[goldibehr.livejournal.com]

Your icon is a bit of history. I wonder how many people still recognize "Symbolics"? At least it has a wikipedia entry.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I was only at Symbolics for about 9 months, and the decline had begun. I was supposedly working on porting the microcode to the Ivory VLSI processor, in my ninth-floor office with my own 3600 overlooking MIT, but I had really been hired to help with the multiprocessor version. Alas, they cancelled the multiprocessor, MIT stiffed Rich Zippel (who was supposed to work on that project) at tenure time, so he went to Israel to found a new school and eventually landed as head of HP Labs Cambridge.

All of this was the result of DARPA's first overfunding AI research, then trying to force everyone to buy Sun machines and use Lucid / Richard Gabriel's Lisp for delivery, cutting the heart out of Symbolics' market. This killed the best programming environment ever created and resulted in, among other things, my leaving Boston for BC. :-)

I'm not a genuine Symbolics veteran, since I was off in a skunkworks away from the main campus....

[ozdachs.livejournal.com]

Apple's customer service is in India, too?

Damn.

After my trip to Dell Hell I was considering something from Apple for the next notebook. But, if they've gone to crappy service, too, I'll use some more paperclips and gum and hold off for a while longer.

India? Say it's not so, Steve.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

First-line support was a thickly-accented clueless Indian working from a manual, just like everybody else's. But after readign him the riot act, he passed me off to a clueful native speaker of English. My guess is that a call center in India takes care of the oh-I-didn't-plug-it-in variety of call and passes on the residue to a US-based support center. The first 30 minutes was a waste of time, the next 5 minutes (where the clueful guy cheerfully agreed with my diagnosis and wanted to have the machine sent directly to them for analysis, since they still need examples of the bug) were satisfying. So I'd say they are still in the top 10% supportwise. Though if their designs weren't so often defective you wouldn't need much support...

[ozdachs.livejournal.com]

And how long are the waits on hold? Anything that doesn't have to be described on a geological time scale beats Dell.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

On hold most of the first 30 minutes, though first answer was very quick -- the holds were for "I need to consult my supervisor" and the like.