6 ms·

Is something rotten at Apple?

40 points by nreece 18y ago

dejb 18y ago
I think that whenever a user base becomes uncritical, lapping up every move a company makes, the quality of the end product is likely to suffer in the end.
- josefresco 18y ago
  I think the user base became "uncritical" the day Jobs took the reins back in 1997. Flaky iPhones are just the most recent example.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Then how do you explain the extraordinary quality of Apple products in the past 10 years?
    - bockris 18y ago
      the plural of anecdotes is not 'data', etc, etc. but... one person I know bought a MBP last year and it's been in the shop 3 times. A different friend has given up on iPods because everyone he has bought has died within the year. He really wants an iPhone but he feels that it would be stupid to buy one given his experiences with other Apple products. I won 2 of the clip-on shuffles in a raffle and the one that I tried doesn't work correctly. I couldn't get it to play all the music that was loaded on it and it would stop working occasionally. They are both setting on a shelf. I don't have an axe to grind with Apple. I've gotten really crappy PCs before. But the only positive reviews on Apple products I've gotten from friends/acquaintances has been the fawning/religious kind.
      - silencio 18y ago
        But here's the problem: How many people do you know who have Apple products also raved about them? Or had no problem? I can come up with a huge list of my friends that have problematic Apple products. But if I gave it some consideration, I could also come up with an even longer list of friends who've had almost no problems with theirs as well. Yes, I've had to go through the trouble of having my retarded iBook G3's logic board replaced multiple times. But I can counter that with my three MacBooks being perfect until I sold/traded them off. The one I have now has had no problems. My second MacBook had a power adapter that died after one year, but nothing else. Et cetera.
        unalone 18y ago
        Furthermore... they last. I know people with 8-year-old Macs running the current operating system... and it seems to work pretty well.
        bockris 18y ago
        My friend whose MBP has been in the shop 3 times still won't speak ill about it. That causes me to discount his opinion a little when he talks about how much he loves his Mac. Another co-worker, whose wife works for Apple and therefore gets discounts, is spilling over the top with praise but he can't quantify it, he can only seem to describe it using the words 'cool' and 'awesome'. I'm sure the problem is with my sample size (very small).
        silencio 18y ago
        Well, maybe your friend isn't speaking ill about it because the reason why it's been in the shop 3 times is because of a mistake on his part? Things do break. I had a neighbor a long time ago whose computer overheated and died quite often. She kept buying new ones and complaining about them all the time about how unreliable they are. The one time she told me about this I had to go take a look..the inside of her computer then was chock full of dust and animal hairs. Needless to say, she no longer has to buy computers so frequently..filters and some regular cleaning do the job well. :P
        jordyhoyt 18y ago
        It's always a size problem! ;) I hear ya though, I have had a few close friends with mac books, I know they've had problems (batteries, speed, etc.) but they still wax poetic any time they talk about apple. My desktop has been going strong for 5 years now with hardly a hitch, but I don't feel the need to say a word about how much I love it: it's a dang computer.
        unalone 18y ago
        Isn't that the difference, though? Some people tolerate their computers. Some people actively love them.
      - unalone 18y ago
        It's odd. I've heard a lot about unreliable iPods too. But I've personally never had a problem, and so I find it kind of hard to relate. My one iPod lasted 2 years. After that its screen cracked and it became hard to use, though the sound quality stayed the same. I saved it for shuffle mode at parties and for use in cars with built-in systems. I think that 2 years is a decent amount of time, considering I flung that thing around like no other. After that, I got a Touch, and that's where I'm at today. I think that Apple inspires a sort of fanaticism. It's like all really top-notch things. Would a Volkswagen driver call a Porsche lover a fanatic? (I honestly don't know this, so I could be horribly wrong.)
        plinkplonk 18y ago
        "I think that Apple inspires a sort of fanaticism. It's like all really top-notch things" This assumes that a mac is "top notch". I thought that was the point of contention?
        unalone 18y ago
        One side thinks Mac is overrated. The other thinks Mac is a godsend. And, call me biased, but I think that that's always the reaction you get with truly top-notch products. It happens in all fields. It's the reaction you get with Samuel Beckett, or The Big Lebowski, or Portal. It's never "awful versus wonderful," it's "wonderful versus overrated."
- raganwald 18y ago
  Makes me think of Windows. A lack of interest in Vista could be the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  whenever a user base becomes uncritical...the quality of the end product is likely to suffer Oddly, as a contented owner of an iPhone 1.0 (best eBay purchase ever!) I'd argue that the iPhone demonstrates exactly the opposite. I haven't used an iPhone 3G, but people seem to think it's an inferior product in various ways. And the reason it's an inferior product is that, in fact, Apple has a very critical user base. And the user base complained, and Apple listened to their complaints and adjusted the design to suit, with bad consequences. Last year, when Apple released an EDGE phone without 3G support, folks like Gruber offered some very reasonable explanations: 3G is faster on paper, but the coverage in the USA isn't as good, and the chipsets aren't as mature, and the battery life is bound to suffer. But the bitching and moaning continued. The public and the majority of tech pundits didn't know or follow these engineering arguments. They just knew that 3G was faster! On paper! So, never one to miss an obvious marketing hook, Apple designed a 3G phone. They gave the market exactly what it was asking for. And the result was a marketing coup: The 3G phones flew off the shelves. And now it turns out that the coverage isn't that great, and some customers are reporting flaws -- flaws of the kind that tend to happen when you design with newer chipsets and a short lead time. And the battery life isn't as good. What a surprise! Another complaint is that third-party apps tend to crash a lot. Apple had that problem solved last year, too: They didn't permit third-party apps. Every app on the phone was directly controlled by Apple's QA team. It wasn't necessarily Apple's idea to allow broken third-party apps onto your phone. It was criticism from the user base that drove them to it. And the fact that the phone is now more expensive? The market seems to love that up-front subsidy. It's what they're used to. Only those of us who actually do math dislike it. So it's not so simple. I think that, on balance, it's a good thing that Apple listened to its users. The market seems to like phones that are faster on paper. The market likes third-party apps, even at the expense of occasional breakages. My one wish is that the company hadn't discontinued iPhone 1.0 when they brought out iPhone 2.0. I understand why they did so, from a marketing and a production standpoint, but I'm going to be sad if and when my original iPhone is run over by a truck. I wish good fortune to the designers who are working away on iPhone 3.0...
  - unalone 18y ago
    Exactly. Apple critics are about as hypocritical as Apple fanboys. Regarding Apple's current problems: I think it's because Apple's getting so ambitious. Right now they're attempting to shut out competitors in a slew of fields at once. Apple has usually done very well at this in the past. However, they launched three things in one (three things, right), and each one has had a set of problems on its own. So it's become noticeable that Apple's products aren't entirely flawless. I got myself an iPod Touch, and while I'm pissed off at the things that aren't working, and the lagging bits, I at least have some perspective. I know that I'd take the Touch over any other MP3 player in existence, and that includes the 1.0 Touch. I gained more than I lost. And while I want Apple to fix things as quickly as possible, that's not the same as my saying "Apple's doing bad."
- jwilliams 18y ago
  I think people also forget that that's isn't really unusual. Anyone who were early adopters of OS X went through a lot of pain. Course, the thing is, Apple took the right risks on OS X - a lot of the pain was to end up with the right end result. I think that is really the part that sets them apart.
j2d2 18y ago
This story seems oddly familiar to the story of Jimmy Cayne while Bear was having trouble. Turned out Jimmy was really sick.
omouse 18y ago
SINGLE-PAGE VERSION: http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/pagenum/all/#page_start http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/pagenum/all/#page_start
bestes 18y ago
This seems like a news story written about news stories. The idea that a regular user buys an iPhone 3G and has all of these problems and then sues Apple a fees days after the launch is just silly. We all know updates are comming (as they have been). The real story, which I'm guessing is just some troll-like law firm looking to make some money, isn't even very interesting.
- unalone 18y ago
  I don't know about you, but I sued Apple. >_>
  - bestes 18y ago
    Two days after a product release or for a long standing problem that you could not get resolved?
    - unalone 18y ago
      I don't know. I just felt like suing them. You know how it is.
sfamiliar 18y ago
rotten to the -core-? may they have a -worm- in the company? do you think they'd give out -seed- financing? do they -tree-t their employees well? i got nothing. and need coffee.
KirinDave 18y ago
It's interesting that when the iPhone was cheaper than a free smartphone, and way cheaper than a $99 smartphone, the story was "Most expensive smartphone!" But now when the bitter fruit of these demands for lower starting costs via subsidization is harvested, the cry is still "Most expensive smartphone!" Tech media can be terribly depressing sometimes.
awt 18y ago
My iPhone's been working great. 3G coverage is great in downtown SF where I work and also in North Oakland. Berkely coverage is not so great, but with t-mobile I couldn't even use my phone inside my apartment. All the apps I've downloaded are currently working. I've had a few issues where I've had to do re-installs of apps, but overall I'm extremely happy with this phone.
shimi 18y ago
What I don't like about Apple is the we can't do no evil approach (like Google). They are after my buck as the rest of them. I'm sure that if MS would have decided to boot Windows from a specific set of hardware Vista would have been a winning horse. Same with phones, iPhone isn't a good headset if you'll compare it too blackberry and Nokia n series. What iPhone did was getting regular folks to buy smartphones and that is its greatest achievement. After its release MS mobile development blog started releasing articles on how to implement double buffering on WM and the .NET compact framework. Why because iPhone created a new standard, and they had to follow. Other then that it is an ordinary phone. Every smartphone have his drawbacks, iPhone 3G got plenty of them, and apple refuse to admit it, because when that will happen they will admit that they are just like MS: A company that develop software (Oppose to a company that if you'll buy their products you'll look cool)
lallysingh 18y ago
Open Letter to the Tech Media: Please, please just stop the bad Apple puns. If this was 1976-8, it would be ok. But it's 2008. We've heard them all and it's just terrible. Please. Just. Stop. It doesn't matter if you're for Apple's products, neutral, or heavily, hatefully against. We all hate the puns. Think of the poor children who will think that this bad pun behavior is acceptable in civilized society. I shiver at the thought of a generation of people speaking in rhyme and pun like old Batman adversaries -- only without the diction. Please. Just. Stop.
- thwarted 18y ago
  The "bad Apple" puns, indeed. You, sir, are a bad apple. I shiver at the thought of a generation of people putting full stops between their written words. As. A. Way. To. Emphasize.
  - lallysingh 18y ago
    WOULD YOU PREFER ALL CAPS? Sorry, that was rude. The periods were just a bit of melodrama :-)
13ren 18y ago
When life gives you rotten apples, made cider. (a problem is an opportunity).
TrevorJ 18y ago
Every company will have it's ups and it's downs. Cutting edge tech is a risky biz, even for Apple. Or perhaps especial or a company such as Apple who has such a reputation at stake.
siculars 18y ago
tbqh, the problem resides squarely in over expansion. in the last few years the apple user base has swelled by millions. probably triple digit expansion in a very short time. this cause all sorts of quality issues to crop up. first nipping at the edges and then making its way to the core. i passed on the first gen iphone and my sister and i picked up the 3g on a family plan. all in all it is functional but not by much. the problem with the iphone is that its a computer that also makes phone calls. cause , uh, thats what apple knows how to do. its not a nokia or some such that is a phone that also does some computing. as a loyalist im willing to give apple the benefit of the doubt. but now permanently. they need to up their game and be more communicative. also, the quality on the macbooks/imacs is degrading. hard drive failures and all sorts of blow outs. they need to get their manufacturers in check. i really hope apple takes their sweet time with snow leopard and doesnt deliver it half baked.

40 points by nreece 18y ago

dejb 18y ago

I think that whenever a user base becomes uncritical, lapping up every move a company makes, the quality of the end product is likely to suffer in the end.

josefresco 18y ago
I think the user base became "uncritical" the day Jobs took the reins back in 1997. Flaky iPhones are just the most recent example.
- unalone 18y ago
  Then how do you explain the extraordinary quality of Apple products in the past 10 years?
  - bockris 18y ago
    the plural of anecdotes is not 'data', etc, etc. but... one person I know bought a MBP last year and it's been in the shop 3 times. A different friend has given up on iPods because everyone he has bought has died within the year. He really wants an iPhone but he feels that it would be stupid to buy one given his experiences with other Apple products. I won 2 of the clip-on shuffles in a raffle and the one that I tried doesn't work correctly. I couldn't get it to play all the music that was loaded on it and it would stop working occasionally. They are both setting on a shelf. I don't have an axe to grind with Apple. I've gotten really crappy PCs before. But the only positive reviews on Apple products I've gotten from friends/acquaintances has been the fawning/religious kind.
    - silencio 18y ago
      But here's the problem: How many people do you know who have Apple products also raved about them? Or had no problem? I can come up with a huge list of my friends that have problematic Apple products. But if I gave it some consideration, I could also come up with an even longer list of friends who've had almost no problems with theirs as well. Yes, I've had to go through the trouble of having my retarded iBook G3's logic board replaced multiple times. But I can counter that with my three MacBooks being perfect until I sold/traded them off. The one I have now has had no problems. My second MacBook had a power adapter that died after one year, but nothing else. Et cetera.
      - unalone 18y ago
        Furthermore... they last. I know people with 8-year-old Macs running the current operating system... and it seems to work pretty well.
      - bockris 18y ago
        My friend whose MBP has been in the shop 3 times still won't speak ill about it. That causes me to discount his opinion a little when he talks about how much he loves his Mac. Another co-worker, whose wife works for Apple and therefore gets discounts, is spilling over the top with praise but he can't quantify it, he can only seem to describe it using the words 'cool' and 'awesome'. I'm sure the problem is with my sample size (very small).
        silencio 18y ago
        Well, maybe your friend isn't speaking ill about it because the reason why it's been in the shop 3 times is because of a mistake on his part? Things do break. I had a neighbor a long time ago whose computer overheated and died quite often. She kept buying new ones and complaining about them all the time about how unreliable they are. The one time she told me about this I had to go take a look..the inside of her computer then was chock full of dust and animal hairs. Needless to say, she no longer has to buy computers so frequently..filters and some regular cleaning do the job well. :P
        jordyhoyt 18y ago
        It's always a size problem! ;) I hear ya though, I have had a few close friends with mac books, I know they've had problems (batteries, speed, etc.) but they still wax poetic any time they talk about apple. My desktop has been going strong for 5 years now with hardly a hitch, but I don't feel the need to say a word about how much I love it: it's a dang computer.
        unalone 18y ago
        Isn't that the difference, though? Some people tolerate their computers. Some people actively love them.
    - unalone 18y ago
      It's odd. I've heard a lot about unreliable iPods too. But I've personally never had a problem, and so I find it kind of hard to relate. My one iPod lasted 2 years. After that its screen cracked and it became hard to use, though the sound quality stayed the same. I saved it for shuffle mode at parties and for use in cars with built-in systems. I think that 2 years is a decent amount of time, considering I flung that thing around like no other. After that, I got a Touch, and that's where I'm at today. I think that Apple inspires a sort of fanaticism. It's like all really top-notch things. Would a Volkswagen driver call a Porsche lover a fanatic? (I honestly don't know this, so I could be horribly wrong.)
      - plinkplonk 18y ago
        "I think that Apple inspires a sort of fanaticism. It's like all really top-notch things" This assumes that a mac is "top notch". I thought that was the point of contention?
        unalone 18y ago
        One side thinks Mac is overrated. The other thinks Mac is a godsend. And, call me biased, but I think that that's always the reaction you get with truly top-notch products. It happens in all fields. It's the reaction you get with Samuel Beckett, or The Big Lebowski, or Portal. It's never "awful versus wonderful," it's "wonderful versus overrated."
raganwald 18y ago
Makes me think of Windows. A lack of interest in Vista could be the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
whenever a user base becomes uncritical...the quality of the end product is likely to suffer Oddly, as a contented owner of an iPhone 1.0 (best eBay purchase ever!) I'd argue that the iPhone demonstrates exactly the opposite. I haven't used an iPhone 3G, but people seem to think it's an inferior product in various ways. And the reason it's an inferior product is that, in fact, Apple has a very critical user base. And the user base complained, and Apple listened to their complaints and adjusted the design to suit, with bad consequences. Last year, when Apple released an EDGE phone without 3G support, folks like Gruber offered some very reasonable explanations: 3G is faster on paper, but the coverage in the USA isn't as good, and the chipsets aren't as mature, and the battery life is bound to suffer. But the bitching and moaning continued. The public and the majority of tech pundits didn't know or follow these engineering arguments. They just knew that 3G was faster! On paper! So, never one to miss an obvious marketing hook, Apple designed a 3G phone. They gave the market exactly what it was asking for. And the result was a marketing coup: The 3G phones flew off the shelves. And now it turns out that the coverage isn't that great, and some customers are reporting flaws -- flaws of the kind that tend to happen when you design with newer chipsets and a short lead time. And the battery life isn't as good. What a surprise! Another complaint is that third-party apps tend to crash a lot. Apple had that problem solved last year, too: They didn't permit third-party apps. Every app on the phone was directly controlled by Apple's QA team. It wasn't necessarily Apple's idea to allow broken third-party apps onto your phone. It was criticism from the user base that drove them to it. And the fact that the phone is now more expensive? The market seems to love that up-front subsidy. It's what they're used to. Only those of us who actually do math dislike it. So it's not so simple. I think that, on balance, it's a good thing that Apple listened to its users. The market seems to like phones that are faster on paper. The market likes third-party apps, even at the expense of occasional breakages. My one wish is that the company hadn't discontinued iPhone 1.0 when they brought out iPhone 2.0. I understand why they did so, from a marketing and a production standpoint, but I'm going to be sad if and when my original iPhone is run over by a truck. I wish good fortune to the designers who are working away on iPhone 3.0...
- unalone 18y ago
  Exactly. Apple critics are about as hypocritical as Apple fanboys. Regarding Apple's current problems: I think it's because Apple's getting so ambitious. Right now they're attempting to shut out competitors in a slew of fields at once. Apple has usually done very well at this in the past. However, they launched three things in one (three things, right), and each one has had a set of problems on its own. So it's become noticeable that Apple's products aren't entirely flawless. I got myself an iPod Touch, and while I'm pissed off at the things that aren't working, and the lagging bits, I at least have some perspective. I know that I'd take the Touch over any other MP3 player in existence, and that includes the 1.0 Touch. I gained more than I lost. And while I want Apple to fix things as quickly as possible, that's not the same as my saying "Apple's doing bad."
jwilliams 18y ago
I think people also forget that that's isn't really unusual. Anyone who were early adopters of OS X went through a lot of pain. Course, the thing is, Apple took the right risks on OS X - a lot of the pain was to end up with the right end result. I think that is really the part that sets them apart.

j2d2 18y ago

This story seems oddly familiar to the story of Jimmy Cayne while Bear was having trouble. Turned out Jimmy was really sick.

omouse 18y ago

SINGLE-PAGE VERSION: http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/pagenum/all/#page_start http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/pagenum/all/#page_start

bestes 18y ago

This seems like a news story written about news stories. The idea that a regular user buys an iPhone 3G and has all of these problems and then sues Apple a fees days after the launch is just silly. We all know updates are comming (as they have been). The real story, which I'm guessing is just some troll-like law firm looking to make some money, isn't even very interesting.

unalone 18y ago
I don't know about you, but I sued Apple. >_>
- bestes 18y ago
  Two days after a product release or for a long standing problem that you could not get resolved?
  - unalone 18y ago
    I don't know. I just felt like suing them. You know how it is.

sfamiliar 18y ago

rotten to the -core-? may they have a -worm- in the company? do you think they'd give out -seed- financing? do they -tree-t their employees well? i got nothing. and need coffee.

KirinDave 18y ago

It's interesting that when the iPhone was cheaper than a free smartphone, and way cheaper than a $99 smartphone, the story was "Most expensive smartphone!" But now when the bitter fruit of these demands for lower starting costs via subsidization is harvested, the cry is still "Most expensive smartphone!" Tech media can be terribly depressing sometimes.

awt 18y ago

My iPhone's been working great. 3G coverage is great in downtown SF where I work and also in North Oakland. Berkely coverage is not so great, but with t-mobile I couldn't even use my phone inside my apartment. All the apps I've downloaded are currently working. I've had a few issues where I've had to do re-installs of apps, but overall I'm extremely happy with this phone.

shimi 18y ago

What I don't like about Apple is the we can't do no evil approach (like Google). They are after my buck as the rest of them. I'm sure that if MS would have decided to boot Windows from a specific set of hardware Vista would have been a winning horse. Same with phones, iPhone isn't a good headset if you'll compare it too blackberry and Nokia n series. What iPhone did was getting regular folks to buy smartphones and that is its greatest achievement. After its release MS mobile development blog started releasing articles on how to implement double buffering on WM and the .NET compact framework. Why because iPhone created a new standard, and they had to follow. Other then that it is an ordinary phone. Every smartphone have his drawbacks, iPhone 3G got plenty of them, and apple refuse to admit it, because when that will happen they will admit that they are just like MS: A company that develop software (Oppose to a company that if you'll buy their products you'll look cool)

lallysingh 18y ago

Open Letter to the Tech Media: Please, please just stop the bad Apple puns. If this was 1976-8, it would be ok. But it's 2008. We've heard them all and it's just terrible. Please. Just. Stop. It doesn't matter if you're for Apple's products, neutral, or heavily, hatefully against. We all hate the puns. Think of the poor children who will think that this bad pun behavior is acceptable in civilized society. I shiver at the thought of a generation of people speaking in rhyme and pun like old Batman adversaries -- only without the diction. Please. Just. Stop.

thwarted 18y ago
The "bad Apple" puns, indeed. You, sir, are a bad apple. I shiver at the thought of a generation of people putting full stops between their written words. As. A. Way. To. Emphasize.
- lallysingh 18y ago
  WOULD YOU PREFER ALL CAPS? Sorry, that was rude. The periods were just a bit of melodrama :-)

13ren 18y ago

When life gives you rotten apples, made cider. (a problem is an opportunity).

TrevorJ 18y ago

Every company will have it's ups and it's downs. Cutting edge tech is a risky biz, even for Apple. Or perhaps especial or a company such as Apple who has such a reputation at stake.

siculars 18y ago

tbqh, the problem resides squarely in over expansion. in the last few years the apple user base has swelled by millions. probably triple digit expansion in a very short time. this cause all sorts of quality issues to crop up. first nipping at the edges and then making its way to the core. i passed on the first gen iphone and my sister and i picked up the 3g on a family plan. all in all it is functional but not by much. the problem with the iphone is that its a computer that also makes phone calls. cause , uh, thats what apple knows how to do. its not a nokia or some such that is a phone that also does some computing. as a loyalist im willing to give apple the benefit of the doubt. but now permanently. they need to up their game and be more communicative. also, the quality on the macbooks/imacs is degrading. hard drive failures and all sorts of blow outs. they need to get their manufacturers in check. i really hope apple takes their sweet time with snow leopard and doesnt deliver it half baked.