One Big Reason For Apple's Market Share Gains. | Hacker News Reader

One Big Reason For Apple's Market Share Gains.

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47 pointsMaysonL28 comments

This is fine and dandy if you live near an Apple store. If you don't, especially if you go overseas with a US bought product, things get much less pretty.

Non-US Apple has refused to handle my US warranties, so the only recourse was to ship it to the US for repair, which means you're without your machine for several weeks.

I think with companies like lenovo or dell that cater to corporate customers worldwide you probably end up with better service in more "remote" locations.

When I was living in NYC, owning Apple products was relatively painless because of the Apple stores there.

Tell me about it. I had Macs in the nineties in Chile. It sucked.

If the non-US Apple stores are authorized re-sellers, my experience has been that they have to honor your warranty (it is applicable worldwide).

I'm currently in the Philippines and have had my share of needed fixes.

> I think with companies like lenovo or dell that cater to corporate customers worldwide you probably end up with better service in more "remote" locations.

I had really good results with a US-bought laptop here in Innsbruck, Austria, which in some ways qualifies as 'remote'.

http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/11/20/and-were-back-in-actio...

I was dreading dealing with who knows what sort of awful bureaucracy, but instead it was simple, fast and convenient.

his is a ridiculously fast turnaround- Apple took less than half of the estimated time to complete the repair.

Promise less, deliver more.

Even if you think you can find a solution for your client in three days, tell them it will take a week. If your estimate is accurate, they will (probably) be happier than if you told them it would take three days originally.

This type of service really depends on location. A store here in Boulder is so backed up you cannot make a same day or even next day appointment which means the 5-7 day repair is suddenly 7-10 day repair and even then its closer to 10 business days than 7. While thats not the case in less busy areas, it really does depend on the store, so they aren't delivering more because they're Apple, but because they don't have as much work to do.

The other reason they might be gaining so much marketshare is that some of their customer base is opting to buy new machines rather than have relatively minor repair work done.

(The Mac Book he bought for $325 comes to mind.)

Todo: get in a position where people are looking for excuses to buy my products.

From your lips to God's ear but, that they have so many problems in the first place would scare me off of Apple.

I agree. If this was a post about a Dell laptop you'd read endless amounts of comments lambasting Dell / Vista / PCs and hear every single PC-to-Mac switch-story about how the Mac does everything short of being a free energy device that powers homes.

Of course when it's an Apple product that fails constantly it's just a "lemon" or "fluke". We'll see how Apple support turns out once they get their dominant market share every Mac fan dreams about.

P.S. It doesn't involve free upgrades to new computers. Secondly, I'm sure we all remember how Dell was renowned for their amazing customer support before they got to #1.

But it costs more to provide customer support as a smaller player - you have to provide the same geographic availability of service providers, the same ratio of support techs per customer, all without the advantage of economies of scale. IMHO Dell's fall from customer service heaven is purely a result of their own obsession with budget computers and the race to the bottom. So long as Apple remains a premium brand I don't think they'll have trouble keeping good service.

I am a Mac user myself, and while my laptop has been far from trouble-free, I've had zero trouble with customer service. Every single time my phone call has been answered in less than 2 minutes, nobody's ever hassled me or tried to weasel their way out of a genuinely defective part, and many reps have even offered more expensive solutions (i.e. shipping the machine back to Apple instead of visiting a local shop, or full machine replacement) instead of me having to badger them for it. I am currently entitled to a "new" (read: refurb) machine because I've had so much repair work done on mine (twice to the shop).

While it certainly sucks that my laptop has had these problems to begin with, the fact that the service is there to back you up means I will be an Apple customer for some time yet.

I run Windows & Ubuntu, and I would shudder at the thought of having to ship my laptop in. That's a lot of time to be without my computer.

I've honestly never encountered a problem that required the manufacturer's support. More than a handful of my Mac friends have had to ship theirs in.

This is, of course, anecdotal, but my roommate had his Dell break down a while ago. Spent about 5 hours on the phone arguing with one support rep or another before they agreed to send a tech out the next day to look at it. His computer was hunky dory the next day (better than Apple, who took 4 days round-trip from time of call to time laptop was returned), but IMHO the aggravation required for it just isn't worth it.

Also, FWIW, you don't ever have to ship your laptop in (unless you are doing a full replacement like me). Plenty of service providers will look at your machine without taking it away from you for extended periods. They won't come to your house though.

When you manufacture something millions of times over, problems are inevitable. It's not unique to Apple.

"The process was painfully slow and took nearly three and a half hours to complete"

wtf do you do at the genius bar for 3+ hours? I can imagine maybe 1 hour talking to the bored apple genius guy, convincing him that i am just as geeky as he is, but anything longer than that and I'd be annoyed.

I was in the Apple Store for a similar amount of time - Windows XP's install disc utterly trashed my computer, and it took two reinstalls to get it working right. (System Preferences is still messed-up for me.) I spent the first 30 minutes or so checking out the iPhone 3G, which had just come out. After that, I spent my time backing up my computer and restoring my original settings.

Just drink in the genius.

I know it's fun mocking the Geniuses, but they've always given me pretty excellent service. The name's kind of ridiculous, but don't knock a good thing.

Hm... I get exact same stripes about twice a month, usually when it gets really hot, most commonly when watching a movie via Hulu or iTunes. But it always goes away if I turn it off/on. I never bothered going to an Apple store because I couldn't reproduce this reliably. Perhaps I should. Has anyone here tried to fix a similarly unreliable problem?

You should consider getting a laptop cooler. It does a good job of keeping my macbook cool.

I considered (and agreed with myself) Thinkpad T500 which is in the mail. :-)

Wow. That counts as a positive experience?

I've had good and bad experiences with different apple "genii". One time I needed to replace the little detachable extension cord segment that goes from the power adapter to the wall outlet and the guy at the palo alto store was hostile to me and flat out refused to give me a part number or any useful information (other than to suggest I purchase a whole new $100 power adapter). I eventually found someone on craigslist who was willing to sell me theirs for $15. But another time when my GPU failed a guy at the emeryville store saw to it that I was sent a new powerbook by overnight delivery.

If you're going to experience failure, it's awesome to have the company make that easy. I do have two Dell laptops at home (ages 4 and 5 years) that have never had a single issue. My wife's macbook had a battery failure within 2 years, but Apple replaced it even though it was out of warranty. We've since sold that one, and got a new one, and I hope it continues to work without issue.

Are macs really that crappy?

I can see why you'd ask that, considering that two incidents could so rationally be considered a representative sampling. I don't know, do people really pose such stupid questions?

I've had a MBP since 2006 and the only time it had to be repaired was after a drunk guy poured a litre of Sprite into it. I've also owned a Mac Pro since February that has given me no issues. Provided this clearly superior anecdotal evidence, I must wonder, "Are all macs really this good?"

I've had nothing but positive experiences with Apple at their Genius Bar, and on the phone. I don't know of any other manufacturer that has such an in-store experience, but it sure was nice not having to ship my machine out and instead just get to leave it there for a couple days while it was repaired under warranty. my previous Mac, a 12" powerbook, worked perfectly for the 3 years that I had it.

Apple is for faggs only.

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