I have a quick question for everyone that purchases Apple products, what the hell are you thinking?

Over the past couple of years Apple has had so many dangerous faulty products that harm you; I just don’t understand why people purchase their products anymore. I myself have fallen for Apple’s tricks numerous times. They get you with the sleek and stylish products, they advertise with actors and musicians, they make you think all is well in the world of Apple. But all is not well. We as consumers are blinded by actual good products these days. Yes the iPhone is an absolute marvel, this is undeniable, but over the years the iPod, iMac, and PowerBooks have just been a consumer nightmare. It’s a crap shoot now days to get a product from Apple that works to its full functionality as advertised.

I am not angered by the innovative UI’s or even ease of functionality. Apple’s UI’s are usually the best compared to other products in the sector they are in (except for this), what I am talking about are the actual devices, the hardware. Do you sacrifice health, safety and sanity just for something that is slick and stylish? Obviously the overwhelming rate of which these Apple products sell at are the end answer. So I ask myself why? I feel like since I purchased my faulty iPod touch I have seen more and more people bringing up the fact that Apple’s hardware simply blows, in more ways then one. So let’s take a journey into Apples sometime scary and shady past and present of hardware failure…….

2002: We will start with the past, with the eMac. The eMac was made essentially for public education purposes but was soon released later to the public. Well this gem had a ton of issues, we first start with a thing called raster shift. Raster shift can mean a lot of things, but in this case it meant only about half of the screen was viewable. Then we add the attraction to static because of lexan like plastic. Then later down the road owners discovered that the motherboards in the eMac were riddled with bad capacitors.

Raster shift at is finest moment. Don’t forget these piles were intended for our public schools.

2004: Nothing like a little MagSafe melting, lets add a little fire. Everyone that owns an Apple notebook knows about that MagSafe power adapter. It’s a neat little feature included in all Powerbook power adapters. It creates a magnetic connection to the power input. It’s a neat feature, but none the less it catches on fire.

2005: The macbook, what a disaster. This one would take just too long to describe. So click here to see a laundry list of problems it had. This device might be close to the worst.

2006: The start of something scary, the original iPods start to get their bloat on. Just like the macbooks, and PowerBooks, the batteries were starting to bloat up from the battery. What happened next was inevitable, iPod nano’s started to blow up and catch on fire while they were being charged. These issues are still happening to this day!

2006: Welcome to Judgment day, computers are finally trying to kill us. (I knew we should have listened to Sarah Conner) Now PowerBooks are trying to drive hot molten Lithium Ion into your body.

2007: Present day, we are now riddled with the same problems of the past, just with new devices. People are complaining of dead screens and tilted screens in about every version of the iPod, the new iMac screens are an utter disaster (raster shift again?). Just simply poor build quality with every device.

So why do we all still purchase their devices? I think we buy from them because Apple still makes us feel warm, fuzzy and unique. They have excellent customer service and great marketing. But overall Apple has fixes for these issues usually pretty quick. I have only listed a small fraction of the faulty products Apple has made, but for that list they have came out with a fix for each one. Frustration and anger overcome my thought process every time I purchase a DOA device. I will on longer purchase Apple products until I feel that Cupertino wants to make an effort in proper build quality. I have been burned to many times by Apple, no pun intended.

So I leave you with this question, why purchase a device that will leave you frustrated, stressed, burnt, and possibly blind?

Sorry for the childish title, but I am genuinely upset today. The other day I thought I would get a nice gift for my fiancé, just because. So I go on down to the closest Apple store at our local mall. I walk in and was nicely greeted by a younger attractive female Apple employee , she asks me if she could help with anything, and I told her that I would like to purchase an iPod Touch. So she grabs one from the back and then I proceed to check out. Before I pull out of the mall’s parking lot I get it out of the box to make sure it powers up. But I really just wanted to play with it before I handed it over to my fiancé. So it powers up fine, and the UI is glorious.

I get home and I am so excited to give it to her, but before I give it to her I was going to load a bunch of her favorite tunes. So I take it out of the box once again, plug it in via USB, power it on, and then hear this weird sound. I instantly knew it was dead.

So I called Apple support, and once again was helped by a very nice technician. The technician and I came to the conclusion that the device would not power up properly. The tech told me I could either send it in, or I could take it back to my local Apple store. I pack everything back up and drive back to the mall and tell them it is dead and they go through the process of trying to get it to boot up. I was so upset at that point I told them I just wanted my money back and I did not want to exchange the device. 

I had plans for a great review of the iPod Touch, but after I saw some of the recent articles of the iPod touch being either DOA or people getting a dead touch screens it made me think a little more about the iPod Touch and Apple.

They usually have great products, the concepts, the user friendly UI’s, but the actual hardware sometime just “Sucks”! With all the reports of bad touch screens, bad monitors in the new iMac’s, bad batteries in everything, overheating in the notebooks; it just makes me go mad. But I have found out why consumers keep on going back to Apple, it’s because of the employees, the support, and just how friendly and attractive their employees at the point of purchase are. But today I’m not going to be that sucker, we are sticking it out with our Zunes! Sorry Apple.