Respect Sakura

Preface: Just so you know, this article has an intentionally sensationalist title. I don’t pretend to know what Steve Jobs cares or doesn’t care about, and it’s really not the point of this blog posting. It’s really about the state of Apple support in Australia, or rather - the support you get, when attempting to deal directly with Apple.

Now, before I get a whole stack of Windows fanboys poking their faggot fingers and saying “Ha ha, I told you so”, I’d just like to announce that I still believe Mac OS X is the right choice for me, that my new shiny Mac Pro is still the best damned computer I’ve ever owned, the iPod touch is the best portable media player I’ve ever used, and I don’t regret making the switch. If given the chance, I’d do it all over again, only much much quicker than the 4 or so years it took me. Now, is that all out of the way? Let’s talk shitty-ness.

Apple is apparently partially-world-renowned for it’s great support and quality of its products. I say partially, because the whole support thing only seems to matter if you live in a country lucky enough to have one of these. Now.. I’ve been a PC user for approximately 14 years, and it’s almost always been DIY components that I’ve bought myself, and put together myself. Being relatively tech-savvy, and keeping my ear to the ground in regards to what other people have had issues with, I haven’t had to worry a great deal about support in the past. That said, support has always been a pain in the ass, because you don’t have a single warranty or support contact for the whole system - it’s always per component, and more often than not, the cheap store you bought this shit from are the last people on Earth who want to hear about your problems.

So imagine my surprise, when I decided to move to a single primary platform, with a single vendor, that support would still continue to be an issue. Okay, so I wasn’t expecting to be able to “phone fruit” and have some guy drive up to my house in a limo, dressed with a tuxedo, and offer a replacement machine/iPod/component/whatever on a silver platter within 15 minutes of my phone call, but I mistakenly assumed that it couldn’t be any worse than the old days where I had to keep track of every component within the system and try diagnose what exactly was causing the fault. Right? Right? Truth is, the “bad old days” were actually slightly better in the case of my recent purchase, the Mac Pro.

I recently hit the big three-oh, roughly a month ago. I celebrated this by laying the smack down on a brand shiny new Mac Pro. Problem is, it appeared to have a bad case of the Gremlins. Not a day after unpacking and loving it a whole huggy-buggy bunch, it decided to crap out on me. What happened, I hear you ask? Well, I could go into detail, but basically check out this dude’s page, copy and paste everything you see there, and dump it here. Exact same thing. Sounds familiar to this guy here, or to quite a few reports here, and not to mention just about everyone who owns a Mac Pro with a 2600XT in this thread, here. Wow. That’s a lot of screen freezing and graphic corruption going on. Of course, the internet is a great thing for blowing a small, isolated issue out of proportion, but the sheer number of reports detailing the exact same issue I was having made me think “Gee, there’s a pattern emerging here. Surely Apple would notice this as well, right?”

Anyways, before calling, I decide to do what any good tech does, and do a bit of self diagnosis. I try a number of different methods, seeing if I can cause the issue to reproduce at will, testing to see what the screen freeze does, and does not effect, and eventually determine one of two possibilities: It’s either the graphics driver, or the video card. Running Windows Vista under Boot Camp, and hitting the dreaded “Your video card driver crashed and needed to be restarted” issue that one gets when one has a dud video card (or driver) pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. It’s the video card. It’s gotta be. My Aluminum iMac has essentially the same type of video chipset, and has never suffered from this, and a clever bit of hacking to get my iMac’s standard 10.5.1 Radeon kexts running on the Mac Pro further confirmed it to be a hardware issue. I do the usual PRAM zap, and SMC reset, and then phone Apple with the results of my labour (leaving the bit about the kexts and crap out, because I know the level 1 phone goons wouldn’t understand, and would actually freak the hell out). I explain my background, my previous experience with PC hardware fault and diagnosis, and the various other facts such as console logs and that the issue occurs even under Windows Vista. I lie and say I changed the display as well, because level 1 phone goons are a predictable bunch, and fail to realise that the display you use has bugger all to do with graphical corruption issues like these.

Their response is to first run the Apple Hardware Test in a loop for a few hours. I bite my tongue, knowing that most software based diagnostics are generally only good at reporting when you, say, have a burning hole in one of your ram sticks, but I do it anyway. It reports nothing. The next phone dude I get, tells me to flatten and reinstall. I believe he even went so far as to suggest that I do a complete zero-ing out of the hard drive first, in the event that some naughty bits escape a standard format, and play havoc with my graphics card again. He tells me that once this is done, and I can’t get any further luck with it, I’ll have to send the sucker back and get it replaced.

This immediately strikes a nerve with me. I know it’s the video card. I’m also selfish in the fact that I bought this thing for my 30th birthday, making it not just another computer for me - but a significant entry in my personal history of computing. I’ve been immersed with computers ever since I learnt how to speak. The fact that me, a guy who works in IT in a highly technical role, who has always built his own machines, has now decided to go with a pre-built box of such magnitude is a pretty big deal. Despite the gremlins, I’ve grown rather fond of my 8-core monstrosity, and have some very specific ideas on how I plan to use her - not just for my personal home use, but for advancing my career as well. I’ve even named the damn thing. I don’t want her replaced - especially when according to reports that a replacement may not even resolve the issue - I want to keep the same machine, and I want her fixed.

Okay, so maybe I’m at best - a little touched in the head, or at worst - downright creepy, for having this sort of an attachment to a machine, but goddamnit, it’s how I roll. While wishing no offence to the man, I would assume that with a guy like Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple, a user could be forgiven for their eccentricities.

So, I throw the Apple support thing to the side for the time being. I first buy a second hand GeForce 7300GT from the original Mac Pro, only to find that the EFI32/EFI64 shenanigans that cause the 8800GT not to work in older models now goes both ways as well. I decide to go a little ahead of myself, and pre-order the 8800GT (which I planned to do anyway, but not until I first loaded her up with stack of RAM and HD space). Only now, I have to wait over a month before I get a working machine. In the meantime, the new 10.5.2 and Leopard Graphic Update makes the video card run a whole lot faster, but at the same time makes the thing a whole lot more unstable. Out of desperation, I decide to purchase AppleCare a little earlier than planned - in the hope that perhaps support won’t suck so bad, and that, as they promised, they’ll send a tech out onsite, and maybe, being a fellow tech, I can talk the guy into trying to swap out the video card instead of taking my precious away, and dooming her to become just another refurb.

I’m on the phone again to Apple. I get through, explain the issue, the guy says “Yep, we can get a tech out onsite” and proceeds to put me through to a product specialist. Awesome. Exactly the sort of guy I want to speak to. I get put on hold. A few minutes later, the guy I originally spoke to comes back and says he’s having trouble getting through and it may take 5 minutes longer. I accept, and sure enough, I’m on hold again for 5 minutes more. Guy then comes back, and says there’s a hell of a long time to wait, and I’d be better off calling some other time.

Awesome.

So that’s pretty much where I’m at with that. Over $800AUD later to try get around the inefficiencies of Apple’s phone support, and I’m back where I started. I plan to give them another call at work tomorrow, and maybe when their product specialists have some free time, they can help solve this outstanding issue I’ve been having without needing to take the lazy route and replace the whole damn machine. The biggest issue I have with all of this, is that if I was born in the United States of America, I wouldn’t have to go to all these lengths for Apple to replace my damn video card, because I could have just walked straight into any one of the roughly 200-odd retail stores, explain my problem to an Apple store “Genius”, and if my American friends are to be believed, have them magically wave their fingers and fix or replace whatever’s at fault, and be merrily on my way. But, because I apparently live in the barren, filth-infested wastelands of a third world country like Australia, such support is clearly too good for one so unfitting such as I.

Okay, so the hyperbole is a tad over the top, and you can’t blame Apple for not having any retail stores in Australia if you think about it properly. My problem isn’t that I don’t have a physical store or location to take my issues to - it’s just that a company that stresses quality above everything else, should have the support channels to back that statement up - and if you’re in a country where the only option is phone support, then it’d better be really great fucking phone support. When you’re dealing with a company that seems to strive for perfection, then you shouldn’t feel compelled to try spend over $800 to fix something yourself, just because you apparently know more than the guy you’re on the phone with. In the case for Apple, when they make the software AND the hardware, that prospect becomes even more worrying.

While we’re on the topic of lack of support options, here’s another interesting scenario I ran into just recently. Picture this - you bought an iPod touch the second they came out, from the Apple online store. You’ve even gone out and gotten a case to hold it in, and have never treated it badly, or dropped it, or anything. A few months later, the sleep/wake button appears to have gotten stuck. This causes the thing to constantly turn on when it’s off, or when it goes off, it goes into a cycle of starting up and shutting down, and makes it nearly impossible to get the thing to work. Even worse, when it does work, the constant sleeping/waking it does sucks the life out of the battery, and instead of the week or more it usually lasts, you find the thing doesn’t even last a single day. Kinda shitty, when you have a 2-hour commute each morning to work, and each afternoon back home, and you haven’t much else to do on the train and bus ride.

So.. off to apple.com/au/support to get the sucker fixed. You know it’s a hardware fault, and it’s not something you knowingly caused. Only now, you’re stuck. When you enter the serial number in their little “check warranty” box, it tells you the hardware is still under warranty, but your 90-day phone support is gone, and what’s worse - under service options, it gives you only two options: Jack and Shit - and Jack left town.

A bit more investigative work, and searching for “Apple Service Providers” gives you plenty of places who service iPods, like Harvey Normans, or Myer, or Dick Jones… oh wait, they also sell iPods, don’t they? That’s right. They’ll only deal with you in the case you bought your iPod from them. But you didn’t - you got it straight from Apple, and that’s who they’ll tell you that you need to speak to. Apple. So you dig out Apple’s phone number from their support page somehow, and phone fruit. But wait - right after you give them the serial, they ain’t gonna do shit until you fork over your credit card information and then they arbitrarily decide that whether your report of a hardware fault constitutes a support incident or not, and charge you for it if they consider it to be. So - depending on who you get on the phone, you may or may not have to pay money to report a hardware fault, and get your iPod serviced under warranty. Apple’s support pages tells you you’re fucked. Shops like Myer, etc, tell you to go to Apple, and Apple’s wonderful phone support won’t do shit unless you cough up your credit card, or some other way for them to get money. What do you do?

The correct answer, of course, is to go to this site, and log the fault yourself. From here, you put in your serial number, date of purchase, and explain the fault. You then enter shipping information, and other such stuff, and Apple then e-mail you with a URL to a shipping label. You then print out the label, and take it - and your iPod (not boxed, or with any of its accessories, like headphones or USB cables - just as it is) and hand them over to your local Australia Post office. No shipping fees, you don’t need to package the thing, they’ll take care of it. With any luck, a week or so later, you should receive either your old iPod fixed, or a brand new one to take its place. Easy, right?

Problem is.. how did I know to go to that site? I didn’t. I stumbled across it by accident, trying different URLs in the hope that I’d get a page like that. I’m not sure if the US site has it linked somewhere, but go and visit apple.com/au/support, and just tell me exactly where to find a link to the self service site. Go on. Try. I can assure you that if it’s there, it’s certainly very fucking hard to find, because I couldn’t see it anywhere.

So again, we’re back to the lack of support options. I was impressed how easy it was to go through the self service process, how easy it was to get the thing sent to Apple, and the speed of which it was diagnosed, fixed/replaced, and promptly sent back to me. What I wasn’t impressed with, is the fact that I merely stumbled across that site by accident, and in desperation - because the Apple support page would have me believe that I’m entirely fucked in regards to getting a faulty device replaced whilst still under warranty. Again, if I had lived in the US, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.

When you take into account the length of time it took for the iTunes music store to come here, the fact that the iTunes TV and movie store hasn’t (and most likely won’t for quite some time), the high likelihood that the iPhone probably won’t be here in an official sense for another year at the least (pure speculation on my part - I don’t have a shred of proof to back that statement up, but it’s something I can clearly see happening), and with the whole support issue seeming like they only sell shit here as an international courtesy, considering we’re a country primarily full of white people after all… well.

Now I get into the final paragraph where I need to wrap this shit up, because it’s already three pages long, and half of you assholes have lost your attention span, and meandered off elsewhere. So… yeah. I live in Australia, and Apple’s support options here seem to make me feel they couldn’t give a flying fuck about their customers who’re living on the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe this isn’t the case. Maybe I have bad karma or something. Having a website devoted to a fictional 10 year old girl would certainly do that. Regardless of that, I’ve found Apple’s support to be downright fucking woeful in both times I’ve had to deal with them, purely because of the initial hassles on getting the actual goddamn ball rolling, and having someone to try resolve my issues. Seriously, is wanting decent support too much to ask?