I know I'm going to get downmodded for this but I have to agree with Captain-M.
The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need to improve" is toxic, and usually fatal for a company in the long run (... the others aren't going to be content with sitting in second place forever).
My earlier-gen MBP, iPhone, iPods etc are all rock solid (I'm delighted with them all), but I could easily see a situation where quality could go south on new products in the rush to cut costs and get to market faster.
I hope that's not the case. It would be little comfort to me as a new buyer if my machine bricked for no reason, and some smug fanboy pointed out that other people who bought Macs in the past had no problems (making me the problem?)
for a masochistic corporate culture that has the motto for something pretty good as 'it doesn't suck', I somehow doubt Apple will have the 'Resting on their laurels' GM syndrome until after Jobs leaves
(I have had no problems with the new intel macbooks and pros)
It's a mix of finally finding a product that satisfies your needs perfectly with the pseudo anti-establishment that comes with it. People complaining about apple fan boys is just as cliche as the fans boys themselves, and it just fuels the fire.
OSX + the great community of developers creating apps like 1password and Textmate, is what sold me. Looking back at my experience using windows for over a decade I have a lot of negative memories.
At the same time I don't like 90% of Hollywood (CGI-fest) movies but it does a good enough job to satisfy most people. So I don't bother convincing people otherwise in the same way I don't push Apple on other people. I just support it when the topic comes up.
I've found this to be quite common of bloggers. They tend to generalize their own personal experiences to the entire population without really doing much research into it.
I love my MBP, but in my experience AppleCare support is horrible compared to the competition. If something goes wrong with your Dell laptop, they will send a technician out to you the next day and repair it on-site. If something goes wrong with your Mac, you have to make an appointment to take it to an Apple store, and you may have to leave it there for up to a week while it gets repaired.
> If something goes wrong with your Dell laptop, they will send a technician out to you the next day and repair it on-site.
Only if you paid extra for that service option. The default phone-support and ship-it-back-for-service warranties that you get with most Dell machines by default is likely no better than Apple.
However, I must say that if you get the upgraded support from Dell, especially the type that comes with their XPS line, they certainly have the best support service in the consumer PC industry. And turnaround time is fantastic; they paid to ship my XPS laptop to the service center and back, and I literally had it fixed and back in my hands in less than a week.
I had an iBook 13" I got in 2002. Stayed with me for three years before the logic board start to go out on me; freeze ups, bad video, etc. It seems like it was either asleep or on, and always with me so I kind of expected it.
Another person I was acquainted with seemed to have this same problem but every few months or so. He got a few free Ti and iBooks out of them. Better to ask forgiveness, I guess.
In this case doing better than the competition doesn't mean doing well. It doesn't even mean acceptable.
I don't use any apple products and I don't really care either way, but saying that they're better than the competition doesn't mean anything.
Let's say company A sells laptops such that 1 out of 1,000 of them blow up due to a defective battery. Company B sells laptops such that 1 out of 100 blow up.
You can say that company A's product is 10x better. But, it doesn't mean that company A's product is good. It just isn't the worst.
I'm not greyman, but anyway... maybe the survey is detecting a different culture: people that owns a Mac gives higher scores to customer service not because it's better, but because they feel more satisfied with their computers. That feeling might come from many reasons. I wouldn't use it as an argument without a detailed survey that evaluates things like response time, charges for reparations, or kindness of personal.
That's not really a fair argument. There are always what-ifs that are possible. I could say, for example, 'Sure, General Relativity is OK, but how do we know that it works for that little patch of reality that is within the Oval Office. Has anybody tested it?'.
I mean, technically you are right, but the a priori interpretation of the survey results is that Apple does a better job of satisfying it's customers than do the competitors. That interpretation should stand unless someone comes up with a survey providing more detailed results that indeed shows a selection bias amongst Apple customers...
Yes, but it's a Russell's Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot) kind of argument. You're rejecting the survey results because they go against your prejudices, not based on evidence (or at least that seems to be what you are claiming, if you have evidence that Apple's performance vis-à-vis it's clients is sub-par, you certainly haven't presented it). And no matter what survey results that anyone could present to you, you'll always be able to respond by "ah yes, but you haven't disproved possible explanation X for these results".
What strawman? I was addressing your own words, specifically 'Why would I need a second survey? I already distrust the conclusion.'
You do indeed seem to be reacting based on a prejudice against the conclusion of the first survey, without having any other data to back you up. As I said, if you have any other evidence to support your point of view, you have never presented it. Of course, if you do have other evidence to bring to the table, I for one would be fascinated to see it. As far as I'm aware, every recent measure of customer satisfaction with Apple that has been reported in the press shows them well in advance of the competition. The latest survey quoted by Gruber just confirms previous surveys done by many different organisations.
Do you have any evidence to contradict these findings?
You say that I reject survey results. I don't. I say that the survey isn't enough evidence to prove that Apple's customer support is better. So I don't need to give data to disprove something that hasn't been sufficiently proved. In fact, I'm not trying to prove anything at all. Someone else is and I'm simply not convinced. You asked how could the data be interpreted otherwise and I answered. But that doesn't put me in the obligation of demonstrating anything.
Moreover, you're using a fallacious argument: since the survey establishes that Apple offers better customer support, I have to bring data to disprove it. The problem is that the survey falls short to demonstrate what you want. The fact of the better support is not established so there's no need to disprove it.
That doesn't mean that the survey is incorrect or its results false. Just that the conclusion DF extracts from it is not what the survey says.
One survey of "satisfaction" measures a subjetive factor. To say "it's better" is an absolute affirmation. What's really "better"? Who is it better for? Have those customer experience with other customer support services? Or is the support comparing... Apple with oranges? Excuse the bad joke.
I wouldn't have any problem with a wording like "of course there will be cases of bad support, but current data suggests that it's actually pretty good in average", But the post in DF said bluntly that "the survey demonstrate that Apple's support is better". Period. I try to imagine what a customer that had had a bad experience with Apple would think about such a reasoning.
And Daring Fireball is always full of animosity against anyone against Apple. Are they sponsored by Apple? Alas, fan boys need no corporate sponsorship to throw dirt from the trenches.
Not really, Arrington presented anecdotal evidence, and Gruber smacked him down with a survey contradicting the anecdotal evidence. Unless some new evidence comes to light, Gruber's point of view holds more weight.
My bad :-) Being a Daring Fireball regular, I just think of it as being Gruber - hence a use of 'they' indicates someone else for me. That'll teach me to pay a bit more attention when reading!
I remember their article about how free software will never be usable because usability requires a visionary like Steve Jobs(although it was really Jef Raskin that did most of the work)
The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need to improve" is toxic, and usually fatal for a company in the long run (... the others aren't going to be content with sitting in second place forever).
My earlier-gen MBP, iPhone, iPods etc are all rock solid (I'm delighted with them all), but I could easily see a situation where quality could go south on new products in the rush to cut costs and get to market faster.
I hope that's not the case. It would be little comfort to me as a new buyer if my machine bricked for no reason, and some smug fanboy pointed out that other people who bought Macs in the past had no problems (making me the problem?)