[Mini Rant] How Apple Treats Their Customer

[blueskull]

After being a long time audience of Louis Rossmann, I finally got a chance to experience this myself.
I just bought a new MacBook to do some work on XCode, and the laptop is perfect in many perspectives, and congratulations, Apple, you did a good job designing such a piece of beautiful machine.
However, when it comes to customer service, I got hit hard today.

I logged in with my Apple ID, and realized I couldn't purchase Apple US Store software because my Apple ID was associated to my Chinese billing address back to before I came to the US.
I thought that would be easy -- just change country settings and I will be good. No, Apple doesn't want this. In order to make that happen, I have to have zero my account balance, so I need to spend the rest 44 CNY in my account.
Okay, I thought. Just spend them. However, most Apps in Apple Chinese Store are in multiples of 3 CNY, so free, 3, 6, 12, 18 or higher. Well, that means I can't spend my 44 CNY completely.
I scrolled for tens of minutes just trying to find some 1 CNY software to spend the money after spending 30+12, so I still need to find way to spend the rest 2. No, no hope.

I tried Apple web chat customer service, and wasted my 46 minutes of life, just to get rid of 2 CNY (30 bloody red cents), and they eventually told me they should be able to cash them out, but they couldn't so that this time for whatever technical reasons.
I then called their phone tech support, after staying on the line for an hour, they told me they will need a senior cust service to do this for me, so I told them to call me back then hanged up.
20 minutes later, a so called senior cust support called me, and told me he was also not able to cash out my money -- keep in mind that I didn't want a refund, I just wanted to get rid of the money.

Eventually, I searched on a Chinese searching engine and found an article about 1 CNY Apps, but the article was too old that none of them are 1 CNY anymore.
Finally, I was able to find some 1 CNY software after another few tens of minutes of searching, and got rid of the bloody 2 CNY.

So, to wrap up, I spent $2000 on a new Apple computer plus $230 on AppleCare+, and they couldn't get rid of my account balance and allow me to change country setting after wasting me totally more than 2 hours of life.
I have to waste another hour to try to spend my own money just to change country, thanks to their stupid AppStore -- no sort by price, and the stupid rule that changing country requires zero balance. What a brilliant customer service!

[Vtile]

Well you pay premium when getting forbidden aples to be special.

[amyk]

Maybe it would be easier (and cheaper, if you count your time that way) to just create a new account?

To pervert an old saying, "Live by the walled garden, die by the walled garden"...

[Halcyon]

I've just spent the last week working on brand new Apple machines at work and I've come to the realisation that it's not just their customer service that blows.

Full disclosure: I've always been a PC guy, but I'm one of the few that doesn't just jump on the Apple haters bandwagon without giving it a red hot crack.

My experience over the last week really made me appreciate Windows and PC hardware design for what it is.

The first issue which is probably the one that stuck in my brain the most was the placement of the USB ports. Sure, every machine has USB ports on the rear, but the Macs that I used only had USB ports on the rear, so that constant plugging/unplugging of thumb drives meant turning the whole machine around (and at one time inadvertently yanking out the power cable in the process).

Worse yet, the mouse suddenly just stopped working, no warning, no low-battery alert, it just refused to work after a reboot. The Mac would detect it but when it went to connect, nothing. No amount of plugging and unplugging fixed it either. So I put the thing on charge (since there was no way of telling what the charge level was or even if the mouse was on at all). Where do you think the USB connector was? Nope, not on the side or the front edge, it was on the BASE of the mouse.  So while it was charging you couldn't actually use the thing because you had to lay the mouse upside-down on the table. I also found the placement of the optical sensor very annoying (on the leading edge of the mouse), so if you over-shot the mouse pad/working surface just a little bit, it would stop moving the pointer and you had to reposition the device.

Speaking of reboots, I had never had to restart a machine so many times in a week. Granted, that some of the software I was using was very specialised and still had a few issues, but it wasn't just that bit of software. Programs would just randomly crash and disappear off the screen (including Safari, Apple's own web browser). No error messages, no dialog boxes of any kind, it would just disappear and I was left staring at the desktop.

You might be thinking that the machine I used had issues, nope, happened on others as well.

Apart from the very polished and nice looking GUI and admittedly some very nice features, for the most part my experience was negative. I felt restricted in what I could do and even scared that I'd lose work every time the spinning colour wheel popped up on the screen. Some of the keyboard short cuts seemed to have been thought up by someone who just doesn't give a crap and it's the only OS I've used where the close button doesn't actually mean close or exit. I also felt that at times, the UI felt sluggish, even with an SSD installed.

I did tend to like the idea of plists compared to the Windows registry, however there were thousands of them and there didn't appear to be any consistency between software and OS versions. Depending on what you were running, you'd have to look in several places to find the same thing and old/deprecated plist files just remained and left unneeded files all over the system.

[Halcyon]

However, in high end audio business... people just use Mac computers

Perhaps it's just different markets but I've found the opposite to be true. In Australia, the high-end production houses and large broadcasters primarily use PCs. Some of the freelance/mid-end of the market do use Apple. Apple also seems to be popular outside of video production, such as graphic design.

[Ampera]

Funnily enough there was a time when Apple was not such a dick. They allowed cloned Macs, and were pretty chill on most things including system upgrades. Unfortunately this is also the time when Steve Jobs left the company, and when Apple came near death.

Apple has had some actually decent stuff over the years, most notably their PPC and 68k machines. Especially with the G3/4/5 towers, they were almost like PCs. You could upgrade everything in them, and add  PCI/AGP cards too. Some of the later G5s even had PCI-E support. They still were assholes about planned obsolescence, but their products weren't as terrible.

[b_force]

Apple products on itself are fine, good working machines.
Nothing wrong with that.

Only the restrictions just drive me nuts.
You can't even hook up a standard mouse, external HDD or game controller by default.
Need special 'Apple ready" products, register your soul etc.

No thanks.

[RGB255_0_0]

Aside from game controllers (I have no idea), you're just flat out wrong. 

[b_force]

Aside from game controllers (I have no idea), you're just flat out wrong. 

Don't know what you mean?
My GF uses a MacBook and she runs into issues AAAALLL the time.
She had to return quite some very standard products because they simply didn't work.

Recently that was a stylus for drawing.
I have a cordless mouse that just simply doesn't work on her laptop
(which even works on a very old Ubuntu laptop)
Also had a lot of issues with some external harddrives.

If you do a search on google, you find a lot more stories like these.
So I don't understand why you say I am 'flat out wrong'?
The compatibility is just very poor.
And going back to customer service, you end up in a loop were Apple blames the manufactures and the manufactures blame Apple for (driver) support etc.

[RGB255_0_0]

The only issue I've had with my MacBook Air is bad 5GHz Wifi (likely USB3 related). As for everything else, could be drivers/software. Some mice can have issues because of stupid proprietary crap (Razer Synapse software inside the mouse) rather than as a HID.

[georges80]

It is simple.

Buying an Apple product is the equivalent of purchasing your own straight jacket and having it put on you.

If you are happy with life in a self imposed straight jacket, then life is perfect for you and no one will ever convince you that life without it is better.

cheers,
george.

[hans]

Apple's also used quite a lot in web development companies. It's a commercial UNIX which is the closest thing to a Linux server OS that the webapplication will likely run on. Compared to Windows, there is really no match.

Also, I think this kind of behaviour is not uncommon for large companies. Not talking any other computer vendor, but any large company. It's setup so that any dummy that can speak fluent english can be put on the phone. All other restrictions are put up by "the system".
Last week I tried to change the shipping address for the SIM card of a new mobile plan at Vodafone. I think I spent the best part of 2 hours, 8 phone calls (of which 4 were  hung up at their side) and my end result is that the SIM card is now delivered to the wrong address, and they can order a new card only after the plan starts. Coincidently that date is also when my old plan ends, which means I can't call them to order the card.

Anyway, getting off topic, but I hate large companies customer service.

[ruairi]

I had similar Apple ID issues when I moved from Ireland to the U.S., sorry it was so tedious for you.

I've definitely had some issues with Apple over the years but my overall experience has been great.  For the most part things just work but as the Apple universe becomes more integrated and ever larger things will inevitably go wrong.  My 10 month old iPhone 7 has developed severe battery issues, I'm headed to the Apple Store this weekend…

[Electro Detective]

Apart from the very polished and nice looking GUI and admittedly some very nice features, for the most part my experience was negative.

I never liked Apple products, and I don't like it now, and likely I won't like it in the future.
However, in high end audio business (which is my side hobby that I want to start a business to support itself. My daytime job is to design power converters and testers), people just use Mac computers, and as a manufacturer, you just have to test your hardware and write programs to talk to your hardware for OSX.
In other words, I don't like it, but the people who bring me money like it, and hence I have to develop and test my products on it. That's it.
The 12'' Macbook is also a good toy on the go, but for that purpose, I have a good enough phone, so I don't really need a small computer. It's also a good female attractant, though I don't really care about this feature.

No point in preaching to the converted here about Mac vs Windows and Linux flavors.   

I deal with all 3 types and you won't see me smiling when there's a Mac to work on, or try to work with. 

Mac operating systems after Mountain Lion/Yosemite are PLAINLY a resource hogging joke played on customers with misguided -brand loyalty- issues,
who may enjoy wasting time as unpaid alpha/beta testers, and the excitement of random beach balls spinning on their screens 

Apparently a lot of 'high enders' clamped to the Mac app trap are considering bridging the gap between performance and component upgrades, by going the Hackint0sh route   


FWIW re "good female attractant"  you'll do better with a good set of clothes, and or a guitar, than flashing a shiny Mac folding pizza tray   








 

[ruairi]

Apparently a lot of 'high enders' clamped to the Mac app trap are considering bridging the gap between performance and component upgrades, by going the Hackint0sh route   

Perhaps, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.  I work in studios all over L.A., arguably the music capitol of the world.  Everyone is locked into Mac for Pro Tools, it is the industry standard.  I haven't seen a single Hackintosh in use, not one. 

[Cerebus]

You can't even hook up a standard mouse, external HDD or game controller by default.

Just plain not true. This message brought you by an Apple wireless keyboard and a Microsoft USB mouse of around 2000 vintage on a Mac Pro running OS X El Capitan. I've used all sorts of USB storage on Apple machines of various vintages and none of it was ever been Apple specific, it's all been completely generic and it's all worked. Game controller I can't speak to, as I've never even wanted to use one on an Apple machine.

[Electro Detective]

Not sure about game controllers, but can def confirm just about anything USB generic has worked on many/lots of different Mac models, running from Leopard right up to Sierra 

No issue with any mouse or keyboard, if they work with Windows, they will work with Mac and Linux   

 

[rsjsouza]

I've had a few issues with the Apple ID when I moved from Brazil to US, but overall I did not have any customer service problems with the products I owned.

However, I work with the three platforms (macOS, Windows and Linux) and can tell the interface is quite polished for the general user, especially when compared to Unity and Windows 8/10 (XP and 7 I find better). However, I have a personal dislike for the keyboard shortcuts, the absence of certain keys such as PgUP/PgDown on laptop keyboards and the overall fenced environment, which does not allow the level of customization that Windows does without having to resort to a terminal. Another annoyance to me is that an application is not closed when clicking on the top "X" - you have to "quit" using a shortcut combination or the apple menu.

A few other issues I have with Apple itself are related to the proprietary filesystem and IoT formats, which caused me trouble more than once.

[Bud]

However, in high end audio business... people just use Mac computers

Perhaps it's just different markets but I've found the opposite to be true. In Australia, the high-end production houses and large broadcasters primarily use PCs.

Perhaps blueskull is talking about audiofoolery people.

[Monkeh]

No issue with any mouse or keyboard, if they work with Windows, they will work with Mac and Linux   

Unless they violate USB specifications and nobody has added a workaround yet. And no, that's not the fault of Linux (Or OS X, if it has the same 'problem').

[Electro Detective]

Pro Tools isn't the only high end DAW game in town, nor is it the best by any stretch of the imagination or hype,

it's standard 'follow the leader' software that's laced with too much installer security to keep cheapskates out,

and hardware requirements that change like the weather with each update,

rather than functionality and reliability. which other DAWs excel at, even before PT appeared on the scene. 

AFAIK, Pro Tools is the 'standard' just because Pro Tools said it was, putting advertising money behind it, till the industry 'got the message'

I'm guessing OP has his hands tied in this matter and has to play along to make a buck   

[b_force]

Also 90% of professional video, arts and photo editing is done on MAC.

I personally,on the other hand, CAN'T run 90% of my programs (without weird emulators, tricks and dual boot things)

[Mr. Scram]

Also 90% of professional video, arts and photo editing is done on MAC.

I personally,on the other hand, CAN'T run 90% of my programs (without weird emulators, tricks and dual boot things)

That used to be true 20 years ago, but has changed significantly in recent years. Hardware and software in general has become very good and Apple has moved towards the general consumer market. It hasn't really helped Apple that they neglected the high end. If you want a serious rendering or video editing desktop, you're pretty much forced to go with something else than Apple.

Of course, Microsoft has launched an assault on the prosumer market with their Surface Pro line. Especially for drawings artists, it is a very interesting proposition.

[tooki]

I logged in with my Apple ID, and realized I couldn't purchase Apple US Store software because my Apple ID was associated to my Chinese billing address back to before I came to the US.
I thought that would be easy -- just change country settings and I will be good. No, Apple doesn't want this. In order to make that happen, I have to have zero my account balance, so I need to spend the rest 44 CNY in my account.

To be honest I had no idea one could even change an Apple Store account country. I, like basically everyone who has lived in more than one country since the advent of the iTunes Store, have multiple accounts, because I can't access everything I need from one country. (Thank the media industry for this originally, with its intricate web of licensing agreements for each damned country.) And then because the store is country-specific already, app developers limit their apps to specific countries to avoid confusion. So I must have a US account to download my US bank's app, and must have a Swiss account to download my Swiss bank and cable provider's apps, for example.

At least Apple isn't like Netflix, whose accounts are global, and only let you view the content that's licensed for the country you're physically located in, regardless of billing country. (Imagine if, for example, I couldn't download or update my US bank's app from Switzerland.)

(I assume the zero balance requirement is to avoid the legalities of currency conversion, which could put them into banking territory, which is a legal minefield.)

[tooki]

Only the restrictions just drive me nuts.
You can't even hook up a standard mouse, external HDD or game controller by default.
Need special 'Apple ready" products, register your soul etc.

What nonsense.

As others have said, OS X has very good generic device support, and has had it for a long time. There's NEVER been a time (even pre-OS X) that you couldn't just plug in a generic USB keyboard or mouse on a Mac with USB. When devices don't work on OS X, it's almost always because it doesn't conform to the standards. (Linux and OS X have this in common.)

External storage has been standardized for a damned long time. A Mac will always read a PC-formatted disk. Depending on format, you can write to it, too. (And there's always the magic of reformatting if you need to write.)

Registering your soul? A) you can choose to not register anything with Apple and it'll still work. (Though you will need to sign up to the App Store for apps, but if you use only prepaid cards and never link a credit card, then it doesn't need any real data linking it to you.) B) Because selling customer data isn't how Apple makes money, they are by FAR the most respectful of your privacy of any of the big computer vendors. In contrast, Google's entire business is based on selling your privacy to advertisers.