I mean, I've seen all sorts of complaints in this web site, things such as "my iBook's LCD got a lot of dead pixels once I've received it by mail", "my battery died in 10 months", "my powerbook's hinge won't work", etc.. Are successful cases more than threats?

when someone has something go wrong, they're inclined to post and bitch about it online

not so much when something works as expected

to quote douglas adams
we don't notice things that work, we notice things that do. we notice computers, we dont notice pencils. we notice ebook readers, we dont notice books.

people dont complain about stuff that works... only stuff they were unfortunate enough to get that dont work.

well obviously, you will most likely get a product that works. however, i guess you could say that with apple, the chances of getting one that doesnt, or stops working after a while, are higher than with other companies. not to say that pc's are perfect, but if you buy a good IBM laptop or something, you know you will have top quality.

I'm 50/50 my iBook broke twice and was repaired swiftly by Apple- No complaints here.

my iPod & Airport Express work fine no problems. so I'm 50/50 I have had bad products from almost all manufactures that I have bought multiple products from.

It annoys me that so many things I have bought fail within there first 6 months of use. And don't think to yourself that I chuck my stuff about or live on some mountain where every year we have a "throw something expensive" contest I am so careful with all the stuff I own I just have such bad bloody luck with purchases.

Not that I know anyone who has never received a malfunctioning product.

I've had at least one mac in the house since 1990. Never had any major problems. I currently have an iPod and a G4 Laptop that have had no problems at all. I beleive they are reliable.

My ibook is a month old and she is working perfectly as she was on day 1 !!

and i.... i ... i love her.

If you didn't pull that out of your butt then let's see a source.

Here's a couple to get you started:


And when something does go wrong, Apple rates higher in overall service than any of the major PC manufacturers


PC Worlds Reliability and Satisfaction Survey also had favorable results for apple:


These two magazines survey approximately 72,000 people (combined) for their hardware satisfaction and reliability surveys. PC World's service survey based results on approximately 30,000 respondents. The PC World survey is one of the most read publications of it's kind and the annual survey is widely cited as definitive by other media outlets.

The industry focuses attention on Apple's every move like a child focuses sunlight on gnats. What other company can update their music player from 4-6gb and make news on 3 out of 4 major news networks later that day? By the same token when somebody names Apple in a lawsuit the world is going to know about it. The attention works both ways for Apple, fortunately (for Mac users) when you ask a statistically relevant portion of the population about the reliability of their Apple gear the results are generally positive.

the Ipods are in their 4th revision and are some of the most unreliable MP3 players out there, plus the LCD problem.

im actualyl surprised emachines ranks high in quality.

anyway, i never said apples were bad, just that they werent hte best. i dunno, but both my friends that have macs have a broken key on their keyboards(apple pro desktop, powerbook), and we also have 9 year old thinkpads at school that run great(except for a little thing called windows 95)

^^ no Mac/Apple discussion is complete without your insightfull knowledge on the subject. Do you even own any Apple products?

no. are you crazy?


but yes i agree, i do get a little carried away sometimes.

some people are more ruff with their items and dont realize it verses others

Only had one apple product, an ipod

it failed 3 months after purchase. The LCD failed, then a week or so later the whole thing stopped working. It was supposed to take 2 days to get a replacement but took 2-3 weeks, but atleast i got a new one i guess.

If you're going to make a blanket statement then have the data to back it up. If you're giving your opinion, then make that clear otherwise: put up or shut up.



"Some of the most unreliable MP3 players out there" isn't true, Apple scored squarely in the middle of the pack for serious problems, and highest in overall reliability. Not a glowing review, but not a total embarrassment either.





You can try and weasel out all you want, but you were wrong.

You said " however, i guess you could say that with apple, the chances of getting one that doesnt, or stops working after a while, are higher than with other companies." Turns out, that the opposite was true: If you buy an Apple machine you have a better chance of flawless operation than with most other companies equipment.

You also said: "but if you buy a good IBM laptop or something, you know you will have top quality.", turns out that Apple handily beats IBM for "reliability" in the PC World survey for both Desktop machines and Notebooks. See page 5 and then the footnote that said there was not enough responses to rate apple for overall satisfaction for notebooks.

The PC Mag Satisfaction survey didn't have that problem:


Note in the "about scoring section" that excellent > very good > good.


An unverified sample size of 3: somebody call the President! We've got a revelation here.

Starting to sound like I was right about you pulling your first statement out of your butt.

That's funny you quoted and replied to PC World there not even someone in this thread.

Anyway when you consider Apple has what 70 - 80% of the personal music player market, there middle defect rate is actually very good compared with Sony's or whoever

Lets say for argument sake:
1 out of 10 Sonys are damaged.
5 out of 100 iPods are broken.

In the volume Apple are selling them you should expect to find more defects the more you sell the more problems you will find its basic business.

good stuff i would say. i've had my pb for 1.5 years now and no problems really, the latch sometimes doesn't deploy, but thats rare. sure as hell like it better than my sony notebook

well i mentioned the thinkpad, ive never used an IBM desktop so i cant comment.

i dont have "statistics," jsut stating my experience.

macs look nice, but they arent built for reliability. all that stuff takes a back seat to design. apple makes products that are more or less reliable, however, if that is your main concern, then you are better off with a compnay that puts the most emphasis on using quality parts. again, not that apple uses LOW quality parts, just that they arent the best of the best.

judging a products quality on an opinion poll isnt the best idea either. if these polls actually reflected the real world, then john kerry would be our president right now.

PC World and PC Mag are two of the most read business and technology periodicals. I tread the BBcode quote tag as I would treat the HTML blockquote tag: I used it to mark out a direct quotation.


Apple beat IBM for notebook reliability too.


That's not what the results found.


Who are you talking about? EMachines? They're the only people scoring higher than Apple for reliability.


The reliability survey isn't an opinion poll. The questions (which you can read yourself) are factual:
"I own a computer(s) by company:______ model:______"
"Computer was purchased in year: ______"
"I use this computer at:______"
"I had a problem with my computer <yes/no>"
"Problem was related to hardware: <yes/no>"
etc.

The results were given in percentages for DOA systems, component failures, hardware issues, etc. No opinion there.

Customer satisfaction is by definition an opinion so that part of the survey must be based on opinions of customers.

Tell me, if asking a customer to quantify their experience with a product is a bad way to gather information about real-world reliability then what is a GOOD way?

Apple has ranked extremely high with consumer reports as well in both desktop and portables categories when it comes to reliablity and repairs. On top of that they have been ranked #1 in customer support 5 years running. Now that says something, especially coming from CR, a very well known, and well respected consumer mag.

a good way would be to have intelligent people stress test the products and take them apart and analyze how they are built and what that could mean for reliability. do you have a link to a review like that, cause id be interested.

No, but I don't think that would offer anything over a pair of surveys with 70,000 responses from users of those products. I'd guess that most publishers think that way too so I doubt you'd find one in a respectable magazine, industry newsletter or journal. If you disagree then you find something more authoritative to support your position - I'm not going to do your job for you.

If you think such a report is valuable and you think that it is likely to exist then you find it. I've provided authoritative sources that debunk your claims that apple hardware is markedly less reliable than other company.. What you think and post in this thread tends to have little basis in reality (thus far) so I'm not going to go looking for some document you think might exist to dispute information you made up, especially after having already found another source to dispute those claims.

its not my job and i really dont care. i think it would be valuable, however i dont think one exists.

anyway, why do you even bother? what do you get out of defending apple with your long posts and googling for good reviews of apples products? i thought i had too much free time...

this isnt a personal insult or anything, dont take it the wrong way, but im just sitting here thinking about why the hell we are arguing over something this stupid.

lol I never said you didn't use the correct tabs I said it was funny that you shot down a source of information that you mentioned in the first place. I don't have an analogy for this so use your imagination

Well all the Apple products I have owned so far have not yet had any problems. I had an iPod once and slammed a whole heap of books onto it and the Clickwheel had problems, but Apple fixed it for free. People say the iPod has a tonne of problems, but they never consider how many iPods are sold instead of other branded MP3 players.

I must say thou, for some people, Apple products are a nightmare. I have known someone who has needed 5 logic board replacements for their iBook. It seems like bad luck

Not much, but I do get a little joy from showing your comments for the useless drivel that they often are.



Actually I Googled for "PC Reliability Survey", "Computer Reliability Survey", and "Computer satisfaction ratings".

Unlike you, I base my opinions on what I can demonstrate to be true based on a little research and things I have read/done/invented/studied in the past rather than what I wish were true.
I don't need to spend significant time looking for resources to support my opinions because my opinions are formed based on things that are easily verifiable.

Likewise, I find it surpassingly easy to find supporting documents to contradict your fantasy claims because they are the same ones I use to support my own. Defending a position is much easier when you didn't just pull it out of your butt.



You're making things up - I'm pointing out your BS. There's no argument because you haven't got a leg to stand on.

BTW: attacking the debater (you've got too much time, why are you even arguing with me, etc) rather than the arguments is a logical fallacy called Ad Hominem. Even if you don't mean it to be insulting, it's still a pathetic tactic especially when you're as bad at it as you are.






Overall satisfaction is a combination of the scores for both reliability and support.

They said apple rated higher for overall satisfaction but was bested by both sony and creative for reliability. Apple scored 16% for reliability, the mean is 14%, Apple sits in the middle of the curve which is what I said in the first place.

If that wasn't clear then, I hope it is now.

How does the number of revisions the iPod has had have any bearing on quality? They add features, refine the interface, etc.; revisions aren't an indication of problems. iPods are just as reliable, if not more so, than other brands.

Yea thats the largest load of bs since bush being elected in 00 "fairly". I have an iPod U2 and its the most amazing mp3 player i have ever used. no problems what so ever.

I have a ton of apple products.

iBook, purchased Jan 28 04 (i think thats the day) flawless, no dead pixels, no lcd problems.
then i got a iPod in June. 3rd gen 15 gig Flawless (aside from the scratches i put on it) no OS problems, no freezes... great battery life, no LCD problems... no nohthing.
then i got a Airport Express, perfect again
20 inch iMac, had problems.. after 2 repairs, i got a new machine. this one... spectacular!
mom got me a iSight for christmas, no problems there.

All you really hear is about people with problems, you rarely see "got a mac, everything;s fine.. ok...thank's for reading this post... bye"

If you do have a problem with your mac though, apple will usually (in my experience) go the extra mile to satisfy the customer.

they better are for those prices!

I had an iPod that was incredibly problematic and many other people I know also have major issues with them (battery-life tanking, skipping, headphones failing, case coming apart) - these are not individual issues as each one has happened to at least two people with different models (3G, 4G, mini, etc).

When you spend a lot of money on it you expect problems with the quality of a product, so it is irritating when things like that the plastic casing on the firewire dock plug is not secured properly, causing it to fall off everytimes you unplugged it, exposing the wiring.

It's a No vote for me - that's not to say I dislike Apple, but I am not impressed by them.

well did u ask apple to replace it, i mean if thats happening then ask them. I got my U2 iPod, i get around 18 yes 18 hours of bat life, no skipping and i have ran, ridden off road in a jeep, exercised in general with it, the headphones are well the stock phones, eveyone knows they suck, but they are even not that bad, just lacking imo. i have about 6 other friends that got one for xmas and they range from shuffles, to new minis, to the standard white 4g, and no issues at all.

I personally am very impressed with apple, they actually seem to care about their customers which is something you dont find very often any more. If there is a problem, and i mean problems do happen, we arent saying apple is God, but if there is one, apple will fix it, and look out for you instead of their profit.

Ironically, I found this thread right before I was about to post a new one complaining about my bad LCD on a 1 month old Pbook (and I'm the type to pamper my electronics).

I think there are two questions involved though: 1. the basic quality and reliability of the Apple product; 2. the customer service if/when something goes wrong. The difference is e.g. Toyotas, which arguably come among the closest to hassle-free cars irrespective of customer support, and Hyundais, which offer great warranties but can't compare on the basic "quality of construction and materials" factor.

The reported consensus (PC World and everyone I've known too) seems to be that Apple has great customer service. When i went to the Apple Store to report my LCD, I noted they didn't even hassle me about terms of the warranty or anything. Actually, they didn't even ask how old the Pbook was. Of course, that could imply that they are so used to seeing the problem...

On the first question though, I have to admit I'm disappointed that such a costly and supposedly high quality piece of machinery has such a simple problem. After surfing the internet, it doesn't seem to be that rare of a problem. This is my fourth laptop, and the first one that's had LCD problems. I didn't search for the occurrence of LCD problems on each of my previous laptops (Vaio, Fujitsu, IBM), but I'm just personally a little frustrated that I thought I was moving up to better quality hardware and software, and within one month I get this problem. Completely unscientific and not necessarily logical reaction, just my gut. My previous workplace also used Macs (about a dozen or more in the office), and almost everyone's mac had a hardware issue at one point or another.

EDIT: before I get flamed, for the record I know it's arguable that Apple is better hardware or software, and given that my prior workplace had so many problems I should have known better than to think anything exceedingly glowing about Apple. There.

they are the most reliable computer stuff out there

also about the ipod? i think ur stoned! the ipod has no flaws except for the sound which i think we can forgive because everything else is so perfect

Well I have never Owned a thinkpad, or a powerbook/ibook so I can't really talk about how they hold up....I have been using Mac desktops for years though.... I think it is about 10....way back when the OS was called System In fact I was a bit of a Mac fanboy before I got my first PC two years ago That cracks me up just thinking about it In my experience I have never had any Mac part die on me, be it hard drives or whole systems, only one thing has ever broken and that was the IDE cable for one of my hard drives For the past four, almost five years I have been running 24/7 on a dual 450MHz G4, and I have never once had a problem with it..... It has been rock solid.... ANY computer that lasts that long without something breaking is reliable IMO In fact even IBM's computers do not last that long in my experience. At the place I work they got a few IBM desktops about the same time I got my G4 and they are now slowly dieing one by one....while my G4 is still running great........... So YES Apple Products are reliable

Edit:
One more thing, almost every year consumer reports has a computer issue where they rate what people are buying and stuff and who has the best tech support and holds up the best and Apple almost always is in the TOP 3 in all the categories

None of my Apple products has had any serious problems

15" Titanium PowerBook - Some paint is chipping off the hinge area but no other problems, no dead pixels
Mac mini - No problems
20" Cinema Display (Alu) - No dead pixels, no problems
3G iPod - No problems
40GB iPod photo - Minior software bug, no real problems
iPod mini - No problems
In ear headphones - No problems, good sound
iPod Socks - No scratches on my new iPod since I have been using them
iSight - I have two both work great
12" PowerBook - No problems
14" iBook G4 - No problems
AirPort Express - No problems

As far as overall reliability goes, Macs havent really let me down. My iBook was perfect, except for the slight hinge problem which was entirely my fault. Then my Powerbook's problem, but as far as I know, these problems only affect the models of laptop I own.. just my luck I suppose. I have an iPod that works great as well, and overall I couldnt be happier with Apples customer support. You can read all about it here:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=302433
Go Apple! I love their stuff. Got a new dell the other day and setting it up really brought me back to the days where I would spend hours upon hours installing things and getting it back to where I wanted. Mac's are the way to go, and probably the most reliable computer out there. Whoo!

Oh, and Ninjamonkey, I like your sig.
And congrats to macssuck for the constant ownage of noobs.

I think I can count the number of times I've had anything Mac-related fail on me.

#1: Quicksilver G4 867mhz model. These things shipped with IBM Deskstar drives. We had the misfortune of getting a Click-of-DeathStar drive. That wasn't a pretty experience. I promptly replaced it with a Seagate! And even with that damn windtunnel, the Seagate drive still quieted it down substantially.

#2: iPod Mini hard drive decided to die. Hey wait, those things pack Hitachi drives! Hitachi drives = IBM's old drive division. Ironic... RMA'd and replaced with a brand new Mini.

#3: Got shipped an Apple Pro Keyboard that had a dead right-Command key. Should have RMA'd it, but it took me a long time to actually realize it was dead, as I wasnt using it primarily.

Most of my problems have been hard drive related, but then again Apple doesnt manufacture the hard drives they use. And HDs are still perhaps the most unreliable computer component. So I can hardly hold it against Apple.

I voted yes because anything Apple (so far) has never died on me. However I am just barely touching the Apple world. I own two ipods (a 3G & Mini) and both are greated pieces of equipment.

However I have been very interested lately in getting an Apple computer. I decided against getting one from ebay because of the amount of fake auctions there are ($1000 for a 20" G5 shipped for free from the UK to the US via UPS 2day... and the seller doesn't use the Buy It now option) and the fact that I'd just like to get it new or apple certified.

There in lies the problem. I have done some research and yes people are quicker to complain about a product then praise it. However the Apple Computer I am interested in is an Imac G5 17" or 20". I have read a lot of posts / discussion threads on MacNN, Apple's own discussion board and other websites about the midplane and power supply problems not to mention noise level. At one point Apple was backordered power supplies (macssuck... do a search on MacNN / Google for my proof ) which either could be:
A. Apple is producing a lot of Imacs and can't keep the service channel full of power supplies
B. There are a lot of macs with the problem.
This same could be said for their midplanes which also produce a lot of problems (again macssuck, please do a search on google... i'm lazy to get the links sorry)

So should one either go Apple Certified and if I were to go Apple Certified am I guaranteed to get an imac that works properly or one that will suffer from the noise problem (apparently its 50/50... 50% of the crowd saying its quiet, the other 50% saying its loud) or should I spend the extra $200-$250 (after education discount) on a new imac. Either way I hope it is safe for me to get a imac. I hope to think that Apple just had a bad batch in the beginning of its release last year and that by now they have worked out the kinks. Rumors suggest that they are releasing an update to the imac g5 line with a 2ghz proc. Obviously they had to have fixed the noise (fan) problem by now if they are increasing fan speed.

No! NO WAY IN HELL!
I've had mulptiple G4's and G3's, one G5 die on me. Either apple hates me, or they're just not reliable within my hands.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=290308
You can read ALL ABOUT my recent experience right up there.

Argh. However, on the brighter side, they finally offered me a new iBook G4 1.33GHz.