Confirmed: Early Adopters Screwed Again

Well it looks like Apple's version of the Madden Curse has struck again. Seems like current batches of 3G iPhones are being plagued by random stress cracks. Both white and black phones appear to be affected, but easier to identify on the white units. These latest problems on top of the continuing MobileME nightmares and the activation issues at launch, make us very glad we stuck with our trusty first gen iPhone.

Apple Store 5th Ave: A Few Nuggets

I was in NYC this past weekend for the New York Comic Con, and ended up checking out the 5th Avenue Apple Store for the first time. This location has been open for a while now so I am not going to bore you with all of my impressions, but a few things did cross my mind while I was there.

1) How exactly do they manage to keep both the outside cube structure and the glass staircase so clean? Having worked at Apple Retail, I was always shocked how dingy our counter tops and floor would be, even after scrubbing by the Mac Specialist. The 5th Avenue store however appeared spotless, even on a busy Sunday. You would expect their famous glass staircase to be filled with muddy foot prints, yet it was pristine.

2) The Mac Specialist didn't appear to be doing very much. Almost every employee I saw, outside of the Genii and Concierge appeared to be just standing around. I didn't see anyone giving "rides" on iMacs or demoing Apple TV, but I also didn't see customers looking around for help either. The store definitely feels more like a tourist exhibit than it does a retail store. I wonder how the Mac Specialist are graded on their performance?

3) Despite the enormous Genius Bar and iPod Bar, I still saw plenty of people with broken iPhones and iPods with that familiar look of disgust on their face. It's the same look I saw daily in my former thirty foot Apple store. I guess large bars and more genii don't solve the real problem which is facing Apple retail. Quality control.

Having worked in Apple retail, and now being away from it for a year, I would summarize the 5th Avenue store as a nice place to visit...but I wouldn't want to work there :)

iPods designed to fail? An old rumor returns...

An opinion piece from the UK's Independent, claims that it's more than coincidence that the iPod fails after about 24 months. The author states that "the fact that these expensive devices rarely last for more than 24 months is hard to swallow. The problem is that as much as I'm frustrated with my Apple experience, I still love my iPod. Even though I know I should take my business elsewhere, it's an addiction."

Well, there's just a few problems with this claim. First of all, is the supposition that all/most iPods fail after about 24 months. I know for me personally, my 4th generation iPod is going strong after nearly four years. Not to mention the first generation iPod my parents still use. Granted, it's battery life is now nearly non-existent, but the thing is functionally sound. It can be unnerving to read these types of articles, and I can only imagine what it's like for the people who have worked so hard on the devices. Of the Apple engineers I've met, none of them seem to be tasked with ensuring product failure. Could the devices be made more reliably? Sure, everything can, or at least it's important to strive towards perfection. I don't know how anyone who uses Apple products could feel that isn't the goal.

That said, I have to say in my own experience, it seems like the build quality/reliability of the newer machines is not on par with "the good old days." While my G4 tower from 1999 is still humming along, I have no expectation for the Intel iMac to be doing the same in nine years. Sure, complaints on the user forums are up, but then again, so are the number of machines sold.

So while yes, there are horror stories of people having their iPods replaced multiple times, it's silly to think there's some sort of directive or intention on Apple's part to make things that don't work. I know when we would see multiple iPod returns when I worked at the Apple store, we became suspect that it may have been the pcs on the other end of the firewire/usb cables that were causing the issues. After all, most of those machines were coming from manufacturers with far less stellar satisfaction/quality ratings than Apple.