Will Apple lose out over this, yes. Sadly. However, your comparisons to "many PC companies" are not very accurate lacking any specifics. Had Apple admitted the problem without a solution you and others would have cried out about how they don't have a fix for you.
Its amazing, Dell has servers in the field right now that start on fire. Let me say that again, they start on fire. I have seen one news article about it in CNet I believe. Dell says they don't feel its a big problem. I don't see anyone raising an issue about the possibility of fires starting in server rooms in office buildings.
Here Apple has said if you paid to get it repaired, now that we have figured out the problem and a solution we will even reimburse you. And that isn't good enough for some people. Find me another computer manufacturer who is doing that.
The fact is, Apple customers, Apple critics, and the industry at large is harder on Apple than anyone is on the competition, people have learned to expect hardware incompatibilities in the PC world, they have learned to expect faulty parts from some PC manufacturers [anyone know of people who just LOVE eMachines?], they have learned to accept viruses, security problems, data loss, etc ... from MS products. When Apple has a problem is all over the place and its a reason everyone should stop buying from them. When someone else has a problem, eh it happens. That attitude is simply wrong.
You are going to stop buying from Apple because of this matter you say as the pinnacle of problems which have happened to people you know. How many people you know who use PCs, and how many have had a problem at least as bad as a bad CD-ROM drive? I am not sure what vendor or platform you have for an alternative, if you are looking for someone who puts out a better product or a more reliable product or supports their product better ... you will have a hard time.
Apple obviously makes mistakes and I am very happy they have put something out [at their expense] to fix this problem for people because their customers should not have to pay to fix their design flaw. However, I don't know of anyone as good let alone better to buy from.
Thats about the extent of my feelings on the matter.
David
On Jan 30, 2004, at 12:44 AM, Robin Ashe wrote:
I agree with you somewhat. What they should have done is admit that they
knew there was a problem right off the bat and said they were investigating
it. Instead they blatantly lied to at least 1889 customers (that was the
latest number of signatures on the pending class action suit against Apple
regarding the logic board problem). Honesty goes a long way to making
customers feel like dealing with a company. Apple has already been dishonest
with their customers and despite this repair program, they're still going to
lose some customers, and discourage some potential customers. They certainly
snipped in no particular place just to keep the total post a little shorter
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