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Why First Generation Apple Products Suck
mmAPP writes "CoolTechZone.com has an article up that pleads with Apple to focus on its quality assurance before releasing new products. From the article: 'If anything, I think Apple should do a better job at quality assurance than Dell, HP or other OEMs that deal with more units than Apple. The benefit of being a considerably small company (in comparison to other OEMs) is to focus on delivering quality products. There's no denying that Apple is perhaps one of the most innovative companies when it comes to consumer electronics, but ignoring quality as a result is not something it needs to ignore.'"
[sigh] Yet another vacuous "story" posted by someone just trying to drive hits to their ads. I'd like to see the day when the text on a page offered up more than a few paragraphs, surrounded by ads/other useless stuff.
... well "interesting"... Apparently a smaller company has *more* resources to devote to indirect profit activities such as QA. Apparently the larger you get, the harder it is to use that workforce. Seems ... odd to me.
Sure, Apple aren't perfect, but let's face it, who is ? Not that I'm at all religious, but I'm fairly sure there's some mention of "let him without fault throw the first stone" in some old book somewhere. Ok, so everyone has an opinion, hell there's no reason why you should listen to me - bitch if that's what floats your boat; but to do it purely to provide profit via another vector *does* annoy me. One more site to ignore from now on...
I'm sure pretty-much every company does their level best, within some budget, to give their customers the best experience - it's only good business sense. I think Apple actually do *better* at that than most. Shame the nay-sayers disagree...
Not to mention that the logic is
For what it's worth, I gave my sister a nano, she's an air stewardess, and it travels a lot, stuffed in a handbag along with loads of other luggage (tardis-like, in fact - another story...). Yes there are some (small) scratches on it, but no more than any of the other plastic items she carries - significantly less than her credit cards, for example. Yes, it's only one data-point, but the pictures of the unusable screens that were floating about the internet seem maliciously-driven to me - you'd have to take a scourer to the surface to get it that bad...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Apple can't ship better first generation products and is having a troubling time maintaining quality
...
Sounds like some other company that makes operating systems. Can't place my finger on their name right now though
I got a custom-build intel mac mini from their education discount hotline here in the UK, took a few days to arrive, and OMG, no problems whatsoever. You see when you buy a computer and it works jsut fine, you don't usually go on the internet to talk about it alot. Whereas if my mac mini was broken, you'd be damn right i'd moan about it till the cows came home/apple fixed it.
Roughly, here's a how a typical product cycle works at a normal company:
R&D --> Production --> Quality Assurance --> Launch --> Marketing and Sales --> Technical Support + Luck (hoping everything works smoothly and there are no serious issues that the company might have missed).
But here's how a typical product cycle works at Apple:R&D --> Production --> Launch --> Marketing and Sales --> Real World Testing (Quality Assurance) --> Recall, Technical Support, Mass Hysteria --> "Re-Release" --> Success (Notice how Apple doesn't need luck. It has already used an early batch of excited loyalists to do real world testing before launching a refined product).
Give me a break, did this guy's nano just die?
Maybe I'm expecting too much. Whatever it may be, if Apple can't ship better first generation products and is having a troubling time maintaining quality, I don't think Apple should focus on increasing its market share. Apple is not responsible enough to handle a small (I use this term loosely) group of users; do we really expect them to be a mainstream company?
Too bad this guy's not in charge
...is actually quite fantastic. I've bought lord knows how many laptops from them, with not a single dead pixel, ever. Never a failed hard drive, never a faulty component.
Where first-gen Apple products do have issues is not with QA, but with design stubornness. They used the scratchy ipod plastic not because they didn't know it was scratchy, but because Steve liked the look of it. The heat issues are not an issue of "whoops! look at that, processors produce heat!" They know that the machines will run hot, but want to keep the sleek form factor anyway.
All in all, I think Apple products have few overall bugs, but the tight design all around makes those few design flaws stick out like sore thumbs. (damn you, TiBook hinges!)
CTZ Exec: We aren't getting many hits lately, what can we do to get more?
CTZ Drone: Post an Apple troll?
CTZ Exec: PERFECT! Do it!
I know a great number of you wait until a new batch of products arrive before opting for one, but is it really too much for Apple to release products that are near perfect (or at least don't have major problems)? Maybe I'm expecting too much. I can't think of one vendor who hasn't had to recall a product which leads to investigate a bit of logic... Nobody is perfect.
don't think Apple should focus on increasing its market share. Apple is not responsible enough to handle a small (I use this term loosely) group of users; do we really expect them to be a mainstream company? Apple will always have a great market share because of their marketing and they've been mainstream since Billy boy was stealing Xerox codes.
Is it me or does this author sound like a disgruntled Apple enduser. Perhaps a Dell employee or other corporate shmoo.
Infiltrated dot Net
The article is 100% Pure Troll.
His "questions" he'd like to ask sound exactly like "Have you stopped beating your dog?"
Do you really do real world testing on early adopters?
Why is it that nearly all products you unveil are plagued with serious setbacks?
Why is your quality assurance department so incompetent?
Do you ever learn your lesson from previous mistakes?
If so, how do you correct them? If not, why not?
Could you please admit that you will continue to release products with serious flaws in the near future (that will at least give us something to count on)?
I notice this problem mainly with small devices (notebooks and nanos). I got the first generation G5 and it chugging along with no problems. I also got the first g4 and it is working OK. But the first Titanium notebooks was a problem. The DVD failed, the screen has vertical lines, and and the case cracked. The nano get scratched easily. A general rule of thumb with those devices is to purchase an extended warranty. I really do wish Apple will settle on a design and focus their attention on quality control akin to the IBM with Thinkpad line.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Why did he mention Dell several times in the article. They have considerably more QA issues than Apple and develop very few of their lines to a stable state. They have never released and Inspiron that did not require a BIOS update for thermal stability, at least not one worth using. Fact is some issues are hard to find in a controlled QA envionment. The nano screens was the glaring case of a failure in QA and Apple has acknowledged that.
From the colors, I'd say this doesn't look like Digg.
Who accepted this article again?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have a first-gen MacBook Pro so I can attest to Apple's first-gen foibles. I got a MacBook Pro 2 months ago. Before I downloaded 10.4.6 it was slow, clunky and crashy as hell, and my iSight and FrontRow didn't work.
I think it's due to the rapid innovation cycle Apple operates on. If Gateway takes an extra 6 months to ship some beige box, who cares? But Apple, as a niche operator, is much more conscious of staying up on trends and must constantly put out improved and upgraded product. Hell, my 1.83 Ghz MBP isn't even made any more.
The good news is that Apple continually sends out fixes and OS updates, both software and firmware, and its user base is an active and (generally) technically savvy bunch who love sharing what they learn. Being an early adopter isn't always easy, but it's very rewarding.
So let me get this straight, this guy is arguing that because he's read a lot about first generation Apple products being buggy, they are not doing as good of a job as everyone else? And he has no numbers to back this up? And we're just supposed to assume he's right?
Apple products get more press coverage. They are high profile and do a better job attracting the press than most other manufacturers. They also tend to be more cutting edge than is average and since many users want OS X and there is only one practical source of hardware that runs OS X, people care about their releases. Thus, when there is a problem, everyone hears about it. Does that mean they have more problems? Independent reviews of their hardware reliability put them at or near the top of the heap. This is despite releasing more "cutting edge" features that can't benefit from the mistakes of others. I've heard it said they update their product line less often, which may mitigate this somewhat. Still, from what I've seen their products, first rev or otherwise are no worse than anyone else's. I don't buy first rev cars, or other expensive, engineering heavy, devices. I usually don't do the same with computers, from any manufacturer. Basically, I just don't see any evidence that Apple is worse (or even as bad) as the average.
Just because Apple is a smaller company doesn't mean you should expect better quality assurance out of the same Asian factories that output HP or Dell products. I mean, overseas, its all the same. Apple's stuff is made in China, just like Dell or HP. Apple only designs their stuff and once it is in production, they have little control over quality assurance. If an Asian manufacture is screwing up, then Apple will find another manufacture or take steps to improve the process, but I think the opposite is true.
Dell make 10x the amount of computers that Apple does in a quarter. Dell NEEDS better quality assurance because they make more products. By the same logic, Dell has a lot more potential to find problems and fix them then Apple. If Apple sells 1 million iMac's in a quarter, they may not see glaring quality problems until months later, where as Dell will see glaring problems if 10 million units are shipped.
It may be growing pains for Apple as they have never had the kind of successful product as the iPod. They sell 5+ million iPods in a quarter, more product then they ever used to ship. For Apple, this is new, and finding the right manufacturer to assemble the units while balancing finding the right design that will work for mass quantities is key.
I still think that people over exaggerate Apple's "Quality Assurance" problems, but I do feel that Apple's biggest flaw is style over substance. They want the thinnest and lightest notebooks, but forget that putting a hot processor in a metal box is going to make the box get hot. Plastic wrapping aside, you can't get enough airflow in a thin notebook in order to exhaust the heat without the case getting hot, and I find the Power/Macbooks biggest flaw is the fact the case becomes uncomfortable during heavy processor loads.
Apple needs to learn that there is no point being the smallest, or thinnest or lightest if you can't be the coolest!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
This guy has no idea what he's talking about. I've gone through countless Apple laptops (okay, maybe ten or so) for various friends and family. One dead pixel on one of them. It got fixed free of charge a couple of years later. I did get a DOA new mini (core Duo), but they fixed it -- and the part which was bad wasn't a "new" part, it was an Airport Extreme card, something that's been out for years and Apple doesn't even really make.
Worst Apple product ever: The "saucer" power supplies. I've seen at least ten of them fail, some in ways that involved visibile flickering sparks over a period of time. We've had to mix and match parts to cobble together working power supplies. They sucked so much it's unbelievable... Even three years after they came out. Why? Not "rushed to market". "Fundamentally stupid design."
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The real question is, why does Apple get all the grief for this? Remember pretty much every release of Windows ever? Remember the PS2 read errors?
All the heat problems people had with Inspirons in '03? The Pentium floating-point bug? It's just that Apple happens to release new products more often than most other companies, so they crop up now and again. I have a first-gen iPod that still works okay (though the battery is pretty much shot after all this time), and one of the first white iBooks that still works grandly.
I would say from my personal experience, Apple's biggest problem is breaking stuff with software updates. In the past, I've had sleep, cd burning, and fink unexpectedly broken with minor revisions; currently (10.4.6) airport is flaky. But that's not what people are talking about when they complain about first-gen products.
It's so funny that the biggest complainers about Apple products are people that generally don't even own an Apple product. When these people post to the Apple message boards, if you ask them simple Apple-centric questions to try and help them with their supposed problems they don't respond or when they do, they respond with things that clearly indicate that they aren't using, and never have used, any Apple products.
I've had four first gen Apple Desktops with zero incidents. I own a first gen iPod that still runs great, yes the battery still works just fine. I have a first gen nano with zero scratches on it, but I also don't carry it around in my pocket with my friggin' keys. I'm on my second first gen Apple laptop with no issues.
Granted personal experience isn't going to define a company, but my experience has never run into any of the problems complained about.
Sometimes you just have to wonder.
The most obvious reason is of course money, but also it's because of the culture surrounding Apple. Apple is a darling of the tech and consumer industry. People love their iPods and are getting turned onto their computers, and for the most part investors are warm to their financial performance.
So, when someone has some bad experiences, they cry louder than, say, someone who has a problem with a Microsoft product. "Oh, Windows broke again? Well, it does suck, that's just the way things are, oh well, no sense in complaining."
Being in support, I know all about the hyperboles users make when complaining about their problems. They go on and on about how this is a critical problem that must be fixed, how there's no quality assurance going on, and that everyone else in the world must be experiencing this same problem. Meanwhile, no one else has reported this problem, there are confirmed tests of this problem not occuring in many standard configurations, the user has a highly specialized configuration, and the affected area is not in fact a critical function.
The guy wants a little extra satisfaction, and wants to be heard. However, he wraps it in the cloak of an editorial, like most bloggers, so called journalists, and other web writers do.
Did the guy get into a crap situation? Probably, and that sucks.
Did the guy get crappy support? Maybe, and that would suck.
But making a sweeping generalization that the products just suck when millions of human beings completely disagree with you is not going to get you any points with Apple or anyone else.
Whatever happened to writing about the facts? If you want to editorialize about any technology company, you have to go find the facts and then lay them out. Finding the facts means getting information on other peoples experiences, surveys, reviews, etc. You then take that information in context and write your own article.
However, if he was going for ad hits, congratulations. Good job there.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Apple has a greater market capitalisation (worth) than Dell. (finance.google.com)
This erroneous concept that Apple is, in some way, a 'smalltime' player, an equal to the likes of, say Atari, Acorn, etc. deviates hugely from the truth.
This sig has been deprecated.
GNOME 1.2 anyone?
Mozilla 1.0?
Fedora Core 1?
And now for the obligatory MS bashing:
DOS 1.0?
Windows 1.0?
NT 4, Win98/ME/XP without service packs?
Generation 1 of anything sucks.
What, no one's posted a link to the famous Apple Product Cycle yet?
First thing that came to my mind. Not that I agree with the article (pretty far from it, actually), but it seemed an obvious link to post here.
Really? A simple software update fixed the perceived problem, but that makes the MacBooks suck. So sayeth Gundeep Hora, the same person that starts out the article by stating:Nice preface to your FUD and blatantly unbiased attacks against Apple.Gundeep Hora just said that only 1% of the nano's were affected and replaced and that the MacBooks had a software update address a perceived problem. Where are all the examples of recalls? One percent does not justify the concept that first generation nanos were replaced, only those, seemingly, owned by the careless and ignorant needed replacement. So where does Gundeep Hora come off making such a vast generalization? Well, regardless of what he claims in his preface, Gundeep Hora obviously does hate Apple and their recent success. How does this article classify as a "featured story" on CoolTechZone? How does the "editor-in-chief" release such garbage? Maybe he just sucks?
Wow, verifiable facts, I love those. "Mass hysteria" comes from 1% of the users, now that's mass hysteria... I'm sure that Apple does no QA before releasing to the public, I believe Gundeep Hora, he's some kind of expert. I had no idea that they were so lucky. What a hack this moron Gundeep Hora is. Somebody should really reconsider his position.This article is tiring. Gundeep Hora's incomepetence is tiring. Those two weak examples of Apple's supposed incompetence aren't sufficient for these extreme anti-Apple sentiments. What has this douchebag got against Apple? Did Steve Jobs run over his cat or something? Sheesh...
Some people believe the exact opposite. Get the first generation products because they are so solidly engineered.
After the first generation, manufaturers start looking for ways to cut costs.
I saw a great show on the BBC once about washing machines. They took apart an old first gen washing machine and showed a beautiful machined flywheel. The thing was a work of art and I can't imagine how long it must of taken to make or how much it must of cost. The latest version of the same style of washing machine had the equivalent of a coffee can filled with concrete fulfilling the same role. I kid you not.
When I look back on CD players or VCR's that I bought, the first generation models were like tanks. They weighed a ton and held up under constant use for over a decade. I bought them in the mid-80s, and I gave them to the Salvation Army when I moved in 2001, I'm sure they're still running still 20 years on unless someone tossed them out. I only switched to newer models for the new bells and whistles.
We have 25 dual processor G5 DDL (AGP GeForce 6800s with 2 dual link DVI to drive 2 30" Apple Cinema Displays), 17 2.7 GHz and 8 2.5 GHz. Of these, 10 of the 17 2.7 GHz have blown up (I saw sparks and heard loud popping the one time I was in the lab to witness this) due to their out of the box liquid cooling failing. While Apple has repaired all of these w/out charge, it's still a very scary percentage of failure. Also several of the machines will get aqua blue pixels randomly distributed around the screen as the video cards get too hot (even while just running idle for a long period) and have to be restarted. This is clearly a case of a new technology (Dual Core G5s with DDL video technology) which did not receive propper QA. Also we bought one of the new shiny core dual laptops because it can drive a single 30" Apple Cinema Display. That has similar problems with the video colors getting distorted after non-intensive use. It also died earlier this week and Apple had to replace the battery (which, consistent with their good customer support, they replaced w/out hassle). So, from my experience thus far with new Apple technology I can say this...yes, they have a staggeringly high rate of failure of new devices, which is balanced by their mostly hassle free customer support. BUT, the real question is whether or not it's worth the risk/hassle/downtime of a temporarily broken product. Personally, I'm leaning towards NO.
... at least that's my personal experience -- anecdotal & unscientific, but here goes:
I've bought numerous Macs since 1994 (about 50 or so, small graphic-design firm). During this time we've had four real "1st-Generation-Lemons" (one PM 6100/60, two G4/400, and one iBook/500).
In each of the four cases Apple was extremely helpful and fair. Yes, each of those machines did cost me time & nerves (and my coworkers learned many colourful new words), but the way Apple handeled these issues are one of the reasons why I'll stick with Apple for the forseeable future.
sig? Oh, that sig...
Newsflash: Apple uses the exact same drives as the rest of the computer market, there's nothing proprietary about them. I seriously doubt the veracity of your statement but the laws of physics dictate that mechanical devices with moving parts will eventually break down.
That being said, the complaints most people have with Apple products are typically perception issues: too hot, too noisy, scratches too easily. Everyone has their own tolerance of what they will accept and despite the limitations of current technology, Apple users typically expect Apple to wave a magic wand and make a superquiet, supercool, indestructable device that will last for infinity, despite that no one in the industry can do this. And even though every other company faces the same limitations with heat, noise, and wear and tear, Apple complainers are typically the noisiest about it.
But dissatisfied customers have a tendency to argue from an emotional standpoint than a logical standpoint. Scratches on an iPod? That's a non-issue... buy a case. MacBook too hot/noisy? Get an Etch-A-Sketch. No, seriously, get a cooling pad for the heat, IT'S NOT A LAPTOP DESPITE YOUR INSISTENCE IT MUST BE. Get some headphones and music if electrical or fan noise bothers you that much. Do you bitch about your air conditioner and TV, too? I'm not ranting about anyone specifically but these are the big things people like to complain about nowadays in regards to Apple products. Now iBook G3 video issues, there was a legitimate complaint. Thermal paste? FUD, plain and simple. Been common practice since the powerbooks and never was an issue until people complained about the heat of 2.0 ghz CoreDuo procs. Better too much than too little. People are just wishing that their issue was as easy as too much thermal paste.
Its like the 360. In order to meet the initial demand, QA may slip a bit as they try and get as many units out the door as possible. Quality goes down. Once the initial rush has gone though, they settle down into their regular working practices. Quality goes up. its not first gen but just the first few deliveries that have probs. Same with PS2. I'm gonna leave it a couple of months for them to flog all those first boxes and then get a MB.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.