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my ipod nano broke after 2 weeks it when you conect it to the computer it wouldn’t be detected you know how when you connect something the computer beeps it was like if nothing was being connected and then a week later it wouldn’t stay charged.

forgot to say we have a imac and its always worked and a apple tv

I’ve never had issue with my ibook when I had it or my ipod when i had it, and I still have a shuffle, but its a trend im starting to notice.

I have three systems from Apple, the first 2 are fine but my most recent purchase the very first intel systems, I had to return it 7 times, 4 times they gave me new systems.

Apple said they put to much artic silver on the chip

Of course the people at the Genius bar are going to look less than happy because they have a problem.  If you go to a Vista support forum what do you think the likely hood of negative posts are?  Probably something along the lines of 98% of the posts are complaints. Does that mean Vista just doesn’t work? Come on Michael you’re smarter than that. As Apple’s market share increases I would expect the level of hardware problems to rise proportionately. BTW if you really looked at the Genius bar support #’s, the vast majority of hardware problems are damage (of kind or another) by the user.

We aren’t talking about an OS though mac guy, we are talking about product problems.

Most of the problems with Apple products don’t seem to be OS related.

Having memory swapped out, a battery that doesn’t hold a charge are not related tot he OS.

Doesn’t make a difference. The principle is the same. What do you think hardware forums would be like for the PC if all of the hardware was manufactured by one company?

I don’t see it as the same principle, as an OS won’t cause your systems keyboard to get stuck nor would it cause too much artic silver between the CPU and Heat sink to be a problem.

Problem is, Apples demand is growing and they are either cutting corners on the materials they use or on quality control.

You’re wrong. It is the same in that you’re using a sampling that would historically be biased by it’s very nature. AA can esplain it to you

I have a macbook, I spilled water on it and I took it to the apple store, they wanted 1300 dollars to fix it, and the notebook didn’t even cost that much when I bought it. The guy told me to take it to this computer repair shop and got it fixed for 100. All they did was change some rubbery thing or someting.

If there was a Dell retail store, you’d probably have a long line of people.  Every company has software/hardware problems.

@Michael, thanks for posting this.

I agree that every gadget company has defective/poorly designed products from time to time.The thing that’s bugging me is virtually ALL of my Apple products are taking a dump at the same time. This is a huge contrast to Apple’s ‘it just works’ slogan and the fanboys’ belief that Apple products are superior by default.

@MacGuy Check out the original post and you’ll see why I’m so negative on Apple right now. The iMac I bought to replace a dead iMac died after 6 days of use. My iPhone is crapping out and my MacBook Pro’s 6-month battery died. All within the past four weeks.
One reason people look so depressed at the Genius Bar is because it feels like crap when you pay a premium for an Apple product and it’s a P.O.S. People look depressed at the Genius Bar because you often have to wait way past your appointment time to actually talk to a genius.

I expect more out of a $2,000+ notebook’s battery. I have higher expectations from a $400/$600 phone.

Another thing that’s annoying is a lot of Apple employees/fanboys act so shocked and surprised when my Apple products die.

I don’t consider myself an Apple lover, but I guess I am compared to Michael. Despite all the b.s., my wife dropped her phone in the toilet and needed a phone right away. I stopped by the Apple store and got her a 16GB iPhone...guess I’ll never learn.

http://www.notebooks.com/2008/03/20/apple-products-dont-just-work/

On the flip side I own/owned 12 different Macs, 6 ipods and an iPhone and to date I have had exactly one hardware failure. That was 4 years ago with an iBook who’s logic board died which Apple replaced and had back to me in 4 business days. Of the friends and family I have that own Mac products, one has had a hardware problem. The lower memory slot in my brothers PowerBook won’t register the full amount of RAM in it. Have I been incredibly lucky ? Possible I guess but then it’s equally likely you’ve been incredibly unlucky. In the last year I have bought a 15” MBP, 17” MBP, 24” Aluminum iMac, iPhone (8GB) and an iPod Touch (gift) so my experience is with current hardware,

I’m calling BS on this one. I go to the Apple Store here in San Diego quite a bit and the *vast* majority of people at the Genius Bar are not there because of hardware failure or something is wrong with their rig. They are there because they want to learn how to use their Mac or software they purchased. Hardware failure happens. It’s a reality of life. If Apple’s overall quality was slipping; their market share would not be increasing.....and it is.

Actually skinny with increased market share comes more problems.

And their quality has been slipping for some time, they have released a lot of devices over the past year or so that have had problems with the first batch sent to the market and corrected later on.

Just like the xbox 360 had with the first bath and a few other well known products.

Double BS......

To begin with, I have no doubt that Apple had more hardware failure issues last year because they sold more computers last year then in years past. The *real* question is whether the hardware failure rate is disproportionate to the increased units sold.

Secondly, what do you base your *facts* on? How about some hard cold numbers? Anything less is nothing more than pure speculation. Point being; if you’re ‘gonna make a statement as you did, you better be prepared to back it up with statistics.

That would require effort and reasoning

It goes both ways, Apple nor any company for that matter releases numbers for the failure rate of their products, people have to depend on surveys done by 3rd parties.

For example notebook PC’s seen an average of 14% failure rates in the first year, while desktops see a 4% failure rate in the first year.

However if you break it down by product, you will see that those numbers drop significantly or increase a lot.

Example the iMac a desktop saw a 33% failure rate
But the iBook only saw a 12% failure rate

Dell XPS m1330 supposedly saw a 33% failure rate with an SSD drive (dell and samsung denie that)

It really depends on the product

I don’t know where you are getting your statistics but I’m finding it *really* hard to believe that, “Example the iMac a desktop saw a 33% failure rate.” You *do* understand that would account for 1 out of 3 iMac’s sold?

What has my experience been? I’ve purchased a Rev1 Intel-based iMac, Rev1 iPhone and Rev1 Apple TV; all of which run flawlessly to this day. I am also fairly rooted in the Mac community and the *vast* majority of people I know who have purchased Mac hardware have had similar results.

It’s funny that despite the efforts of those who would see Apple fail, their market share keeps rising....

Not sure where that person got their stats from but what I found doing a google search for imac failure rate was

iMac G5 20” 31% failure rate
18” version saw a 18% failure rate

but these are all third party surveys and some of the numbers are too low to even consider valid.