Every Apple Product Defective? …. Eh, no
The Mac Night Owl has an interesting editorial on the problem of the Internet Echo Chamber when it comes to reporting faults with electronic products, Particularly Apple’s. He has a few good points to make:
“there is clearly no such thing as perfection in any mass-produced product. When there are hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of something out there, even a small percentage of failures may seem extremely high.”
he goes on to say that…
“It is also very true that people are not apt to be inclined to talk about things when they just work. That is what you expect, and while you will see favorable reports too, online discussion forums and troubleshooting information sites are going to be heavily-weighted towards the problem reports.”
From my own point of view I’ve found that Apple’s online forums virtually useless because its filled with disgruntled people who clearly have an axe to grind. IT’s almost impossible to find help because users just go off on anti Apple rants. You find this on certain blogs often too. Someone has a single bad issue with a product or a bad experience with tech support and they hold all of apple to blame.
Case in point, here is another story I came across on Digg today. Robert Scoble, famed blogger is in a bit miffed with Apple. In a post on his blog he argues that the mainstream press is unfairly biased towards apple, and are ignoring issues with Apple’s products. This of course stems from an issue Scoble had with his sons laptop that had developed a fault and had to be returned to Apple for repair. Now, I know it is frustrating when a new product develops a fault and has to be returned for repair, but companies have been doing this for years. I remember numerous sony products that were faulty and had to be repaired under warranty, yet I still buy Sony products. My iMac G5 had to have its screen replaced shortly after I bought it, but I didn’t throw an online temper tantrum. If your radio or dvd player or computer develops a fault it’s not the end of the world. If you get a bad tech support person, just call again and ask to speak to someone else. The age of mass produced electronics has brought plenty of problems, but these are in general pretty minimal.
Is it not equally possible that the mainstream press loves Apple products because they make good products? If Apple products are so defective, if there are so many problems as mr scoble seems to believe, why are so many surveys showing Apple scoring incredibly high in both customer satisfaction and technical support. To just assume that all the mac fans out there just love their Apple products because they are being deluded by a brainwashing religious like effect is highly insulting. To accuse the likes of the new york times of being easily swayed by getting advanced products for review, and getting press passes to events is equally insulting. But perhaps this stems from certain bloggers feeling that they are above the press, that their style of journalism is somehow more valid, and perhaps they might be a little bitter because Apple doesn’t recognize them as such?
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