I hate Apple — hello, are you guys at Apple listening??
I can’t even bother to make the links to my previous woes with my iBook, but this is a quickie recap: sometime last summer, my iBook broke. It needed a new motherboard (to the tune of nearly $1K with Canadian taxes). …Ok, you bite the bullet, you get it fixed, not least because you don’t want to switch to Microsoft. Then you learn that Apple admits, “yes, the motherboards on iBooks are wonky, it’s our fault,” and you submit a claim to the company (which is filed, but not yet addressed) to get your money back (only, I’m wondering: do I get my 14.5% tax back, or is that just a bonus for the government?). Ok, I’m still waiting for my money, no sight of it yet. Fine, but meanwhile, I notice that I only have to tilt my screen ever so slightly toward me and the visual display goes black. I’ve been living with this condition for months now, avoiding any tilting of the lid/display once the iBook is on and running, because if I do, click!, black screen, and the cure is to close the lid completely, wait 10 seconds and then open it again. Sort of the high tech equivalent of kicking the appliance. For some as yet unexplainable reason, I was temporarily insane enough to be convinced to let the local computer store/ maintenance guy have a look at the iBook today. This very competent technician (and really, he is, this is not sarcasm on my part here) told me that the cable connecting to the display is stretched and worn from use (duh, that’s what you do with a laptop: open and close it, which I guess means using it!, EXCUSE ME if this was a mistake!!!!! ), and this is causing the problem. The cost to fix? Well, it appears some genius design dude made it so that you cannot replace the cable — a mere 25-cent component, no doubt — and that “the fix” requires installing a completely new display to the tune of $420 plus tax (14.5%, remember?) and labour. Oh goodie. I said no, of course, but guess what? When I got home, the cable decided that it had been stretched and used enough and now the display doesn’t work at all. So, I’m still out nearly $1K for the new motherboard, and if I ever want this stupid iBook to run properly again, I can shell out nearly 50% of that sum again. I’m not doing it. And I hope that someone — ANYONE — connected with Apple is reading this, because your people and my person need to talk. You need to know that you have a supremely shitty product here. It might be white and modern-looking, but underneath it’s a piece of badly-designed crap, and I am not happy. At all. On the plus front: I found out on Tuesday morning that I do have a city storm drain connection in place and won’t be required to spend $4070 to get one brought to my property. Having brought the topic up in that last post, I had intended to write something about money and property, not least because I’m relatively new to both these things, but that’s going to have to wait. My thoughts on money and property had something to do with sex (what doesn’t?), and how money circulates and is everywhere, just like sex, but that somehow certain generations never talked about it. Neither my parents nor my inlaws owned their own homes. Their parents however had, so it’s not a case of geezer Europeans not being hip to the North American Money Making Monster Machine Land Grabbing Co. But our parents didn’t, though: they never got into property ownership (well, my parents did for nearly one year in Winnipeg and for just over a year here in Victoria, before returning to the safety of renting). For them, home — or even condo — ownership was an impenetrable blob, not spoken of, incomprehensible, not to be encompassed. It was not “the new black,” ever. What I think was missing in their perspective was the notion of distributed self, which I really don’t have a problem with: I don’t mind if the mortgage company “owns” a part of me, or if my “assets” are tied up, or if the house is a portal of orifices that are entered at will. (Look, the alternative is paying rent, right? So, you want to make a landlord rich? Come on, who’s being kinky now?) What it takes is coming up with the down payment, after that you just let the money flow, in and out — too often out, if you ask me, so you have to learn to take it in, too. If you get fixated on downpayments, mortgage payments, and all that stuff, you’re in the realm of fuming over submission. It’s ok, submit. I could make a double-entendre remark now about getting slicked up enough, but I’m a nice girl. Ok, that’s it, end of post. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it ain’t. Say good night, Gracie. And say good bye iBook.
Ouch on the iBook. Apple is not very good about customer service, tis true.
I got one of the first tiBook’s. No aircard though, even though they’re advertized as installed. Called and found out that the first run of the tiBooks did not have an aircard installed. And no, they wouldn’t upgrade mine.
Having said that, I abuse my tiBook horribly. I’ve dropped it, I drag it around by the open lid, my cat sleeps on it — and it still does great.
But I also have my Huge Dell workhorse, just in case.
Comment by Shelley — March 3, 2004 #
I’m much happier about owning than renting myself. To go back to renting and the feeling of powerlessness that went along with it strikes me as the equivalent of having my root canals undone in some fashion so that I can go back to all that pain.
Comment by Joel — March 3, 2004 #