« Home is Where This Guy Is Not | Main | Snow Day! (And a plea for help with a mystery) »
December 30, 2003
iSchnookered
The really discouraging thing about The Register's coverage of Apple's dud iBooks is that Apple is several iterations into the snow iBook design, and yet the problems that plagued the line when it first arrived are still happening. I was pretty much set to "go Mac" for my laptop a second time, but I've already been through the whole "dead display" thing (twice, in fact), and I'm not so sure I feel like putting up with it again. Especially since AppleCare would represent a 25% markup on the price of whatever I buy.
Isn't this sort of weird for Apple? I know the conventional wisdom is to let Apple get a few revs of a new design under its belt before bothering, but the snow iBooks have been through at least three revisions and a jump in the CPU. What's up?
Posted by mph at December 30, 2003 10:30 PM
Comments
I suspect beancounting is an issue, the cost to replace or repair a number of dead iBooks doesn't outweigh a significant revision in the materials or engineering involved.
I remember the 5300 laptop circa 1996 had a major battery issue which was resolved, eventually -- blowing up batteries isn't good press. Even the 1st Gen TiBook had silly little problems which were not really solved until rev C, like the keyboard screen issue and the Airport antenna stuff.
Posted by: Gummi at December 31, 2003 05:29 AM
Dude, maybe I should stick with my ol' clamshell, or look into super-hotrodding a Pismo for my next trick. :)
Posted by: Ed at December 31, 2003 11:51 AM
>>Dude, maybe I should stick with my ol' clamshell, or look into super-hotrodding a Pismo for my next trick. :)
No argument here.
In the year+ since I had the repairs done, the machine has behaved itself and even gotten better with the arrival of Panther. But the thought of buying back into a product line that just hasn't been improved for what gummi credibly attributes to anti-customer cost analysis despite well-documented and persistent design flaws doesn't make any sense to me.
Posted by: mph at December 31, 2003 11:58 AM
Glad to know -- in an odd sort of way -- that I'm not the only one who has had these sorts of problems. I bought my iBook in late-February of 2002, and had to return it within 4 hours because of a dead screen. Now, close to two years later, the screen goes blank every now and again. Closing the book and opening it after a minute or so seems to fix the problem, but that's still unacceptable.
Posted by: Mikal at January 1, 2004 06:29 AM
I'm disappointed to hear your comments, as I had hoped to pick up an ibook when I could afford it. I hear the G3 powerbooks are going for under $800.00, though. Any comparisons? I love my iMac.
Posted by: Davei at January 1, 2004 09:49 AM