As a long-time customer of Apple, I am beginning to LOSE CONFIDENCE in Apple products

7 months ago I purchased 2 new Apple computers, a MacBook Pro and an iMac 21.5'. The iMac is now experiencing HUGE issues.
One day I was using it for an important music session and it turned off without warning, and would not turn back on regardless of what I tried (replaced memory, tried system reset, left it unplugged overnight, etc). I took it to the Apple store in SOHO and the issue was fixed temporarily, but then 3 weeks later (in the middle of another important recording/mastering session) it failed again and would not turn on. I took it to Apple again and finally got it back over a week after I dropped it off. So far, in the past month, the following has been replaced in this one computer: 1) Power Supply 205W (replaced TWICE), 2) Fan, Optical Drive, 3)AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512MB Video Card, 4) Board, LED Backlight, and 5) Format Hard Drive & Reinstall OS and ALL software.
Now the iMac will neither start nor connect to the keyboard/mouse AND I was told by your "geniuses" that I will need to format my hard drive (which contains $10,000+ worth of software and irreplaceable music projects) and reinstall EVERYTHING.
As a long-time customer of Apple, who prides himself on providing quality service to his music clients, this seems UNACCEPTABLE. Unlike Apple, I am not a multi-billion dollar business and cannot afford to lose the important clients. Luckily they have been patient with me up to this point. I use Apple products in almost every facet of my life (iPhone, iTouch, laptop, iMac, etc) and was planning to purchase 2 Mac towers when I open my studio in Brooklyn at the end of this year. Now, I am hesitant to use Apple for my business.
So my ultimate question for Apple is, how much do you really value your customers? Are you willing to help an aspiring entrepreneur regain his confidence in your products (HIS products)? Are you willing to admit that you have given me a faulty product and replace it with something that is guaranteed to work and make both me and my clients happy? The ball is in your court, Apple. Let's see if you are able to TRULY provide the type of customer service your company prides itself on.
Sincerely,
Long-time Customer & First-time Skeptic, Matthew Brittain

Matt_MLB wrote:
Yea I have everything backed up BUT that does not change the fact that the computer hardware is FAULTY and that even with the backup I will need to reinstall ALL of the software. One of my programs alone is a 6-hour install. Had my computer not failed I would still be working on my projects, rather than waiting for installs to be completed.
Make sense now?
Had you taken the time to clone your drive there would be no reinstall required, you chose the method you use to backup, now you get to actually use it. But If your Mac is currently functional, make a clone, it will save hours if not days of work.

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    Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

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  • Response from a long time customer... who will be a long time customer no mo

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    To say this is unbelievable is an understatement. I became a Creative customer way back with the release of their first products... after being a C-64/C-28/Amiga user for years (still am actually!). Dam how I wish the Amiga were still a main stream system.....
    To learn that Creative has, in effect, mislead all of us in such a way that my sound card does not operate properly?because I am running Vista and WITHOUT TELLING ME is completely unacceptable.
    And this now explains why I have spent countless hours and days trying to get things working. Problems including crappy sound output (i.e distortion at volume), inability to get a microphone to function, lack of functionality of all the high end features on the card... the reason I bought it in the first place. It makes me extremely angry to know I have spent all this time trying to get things working?only to now find?it has been an entire waste because of your actions with the drivers. I have not?wasted days trying to fix this... I?have wasted MONTHS!Whomever the hell made this decision is an idiot. PERIOD - and I hope he or she reads this and chokes on it.
    Your reaction toward someone simply trying to help resolve the driver issues, even if he was asking for donations, was unacceptable as well, in my opinion. You have failed to do anything so someone else did. Of course it made it much worse to find out you PURPOSELY mislead all of us and PURPOSELY disabled features and functions.
    Hardware is what you make money off of, not drivers. In the past when I have upgraded, I have simply taken the old hardware and donated it to a good cause that needed it or put it in another older system that did not need the high end specs I was wanting or needing for a new system AND I could count on it function with the drivers because the hardware was still working solid. You should be giving us reason to WANT to upgrade.
    I.E. Quality, features, reliability, customer support.
    Now, instead you have really screwed the pooch and tried forcing us. You took years of me looking at your products as good, top of line, quality and functional to trash.
    What really pisses me off is the nice set of speakers I blew out because of the sound quality output and the massi've noise burst that happened when updating the drivers a couple months ago. That now explains why that happened and I now know it was YOUR fault that this occurred during a driver update and reboot. (at reboot, when windows loaded, the sound blared out at full distorted volume and short of cutting power I was unable to abort it in time).
    There is not much more for me to say here that others have not already stated. But I needed to make my thoughts public.
    to Creative:? I am not some child or young kid who is just upset because things do not work. I am a 45 year old who has worked with computers since the C-64 as a hobby. Like, I am sure most others here on this forum, I know the insides and outs of my system, how it works, how to configure it and etc etc. Because of your actions and my struggles you have now lost what was a customer you had for the last 23 years or so. This action and your lack of support of your products, your customers and those simply trying to help has now cost you me and my business. I hope that makes you very happy.
    Additionally, I will be watching and waiting and should a class action be taken against you for fraud, commercial deception, and false advertising, you can rest assured I WILL be participating.
    Just off the top I would say we all have a pretty good argument and case. So if things do take a turn that direction, I am in.
    In my RL work, I am in law enforcement. I deal with people who commit crimes everyday out there, people who boldly look me in the face and lie to me outright... Now I get to come home and instead of being able to not worry about being ripped off, taken advantage of and being able to trust companies I purchase from, I now have to think?of them just like those I deal with on the street. Now I have to look at companies like Creative who have also taken the path of boldly and outright lying to me as well. ?Instead of assuming you are honest, now I guess the time has come for me to assume you are lying to me like everyone else does.
    What a freaking year... first a certain high end video card maker and their driver issues (won't say who, but will say it is?not ATI) and now Creative. I thought I had seen it all with the video card maker... but this from Creative?!
    This out does everything else.
    In the meantime, I am right now making a purchase.... of a competitors high end audio card to replace the X-Fi card currently in my system. Unbelieveable.
    Sincerely,
    Todd
    Wisconsin,USA
    (Malakie)

    Amen, I plugged in my first Soundblaster 8 bit card 20 years ago, and the being left without a decent driver for Vista for an Audigy I had less than 6 months hacked me off.... Then I find out they intentionally were not upgrading the drivers to force new hardware purchase? (And I was considering getting an X-Fi)... and now the shear arrogance of the management of creative?
    "? O'Shaughnessy admits that Creative Labs intentionally crippled its Vista drivers as a business strategy.
    "If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make."
    I run a business myself, and the correct business decision is one that helps both the customer and the company, not the one that is an blatent attempt to screw the customer.
    I only see 2 options for creative to survi've at this point.
    One, Apologize, either fix their drivers quickly (in the next week or two) or hire Daniel_K drivers, and distribute his drivers. Key workd is quickly here.
    Two, Quickly offer a rebate/tradein program...and a significant one, not a 0% off sale...at least a 40-50% off sale. ?
    I don't expect # 2 because that will be a hard financial hit on a company that is suffering anyway. ? But # will not create as much goodwill.....and goodwill is what creative needs because of the mismanagement of this situation, and the admission that it was done strictly to force purchase of their hardware. ?
    Unfortunately, I think in either event, creative is now doomed.

  • Long time customer, 1st time help seeker, slow spe...

    Broadband availability overview-
    ADSL: Yes
    SDSL: Yes
    LLU services: Yes
    Cable: No
    Wireless: No
    BT Wholesale information-
    ADSL status: Enabled as of 31/05/2002
    ADSL Max status: Enabled as of 31/03/2006
    SDSL status: Enabled as of 28/08/2005
    21CN WBC status: Enabled
    FTTC status: 2013
    Router Status-
    ADSL Port
    content removed - mod
    Domain Name Server: 213.120.234.70
    213.120.234.42
    Modem
    Modem Status: Connected
    DownStream Connection Speed: 13189 kbps
    UpStream Connection Speed: 630 kbps
    VPI: 0
    VCI: 38
    Connection Time: 33:26:38
    System Up Time: 33:27:40
    Port | Status | TxPkts | RxPkts | Collisions | Tx B/s | Rx B/s | Up Time
    WAN | PPPoA | 5941381 | 10526070 | 0 | 5069 | 6967 | 33:27:02
    LAN | 10M/100M | 8178917 | 5370685 | 0 | 10045 | 17437 | 33:27:37
    WLAN | 11M/54M/130M | 4237342 | 2392084 | 0 | 15462 | 2376 | 26:28:57
    ADSL Link | Downstream | Upstream
    Connection Speed | 13189 kbps | 630 kbps
    Line Attenuation | 21.0 db | 17.1 db
    Noise Margin | 3.4 db | 7.7 db
    I started using BT as an ISP about 6 years ago, and have been very happy with the service. I always belive that keeping you phone line provider and your internet provider isteh best choice, then they can't blame each other for faults. I moved to a new house in mid February 2011, and signed a new contract with BT so the line charge wasn't so bad. It was installed on mid March, on the same day the internet was working at an incredible speed 17.8Mbps. This speed was constant (really, no issues or slow downs at all). Until mid September 2012 (17 months after the line was installed), when the speed dropped to a shocking 10.4Mbps. I contacted BT help via the online chat advisor. The advisor told me that the trouble was due to "an outage in the Birmingham exchange, full service should resume in a few days, and make sure to restart the router after a few days". *NOTE- I'm about 125miles from this exchange, but didn't think it was weird*.
    I did this, but the speeds were the same. A few weeks later (hoping they would have been better, sadly not the case) *NOTE- there was a 24/7 constant connection for these 2 weeks*, I contacted BT help again via online chat advisor. This time they did admit there was a line fault and asked me to "restart the router, and run a speedtest". They said there would be tests done on my line and a response would be emailed to me in a few days. Several days later I received the response, claiming there was a fault, and it had been fixed.
    I ran a speedtest again to find the same results, 10.4Mbps.
    A few days ago I once again contacted BT help via online chat. The advisor did say there was a fault, and that I needed to upgrade my router (to the Home Hub 3), but couldn't be sent one for free as my contract had expired. They said I needed the new router (the Home Hub 3) to continue with my original speeds. After asking if there were any other routers that would work, they said yes, there were plenty of 3rd party hardware that would work perfectly. I asked if the Netgear DGN2000 would be fine, and got a yes reply. This was odd, as that was the router I was using ever since moving house, now 18months ago.
    The advisor then claimed there were incorrect settings and I would need to contact the Tech team.
    Sorry for explaining so much up to this point, but as my GamGam always said "do it properly so everyone knows the details". My questions are:
    is it a coincidence that my speeds slow down towards the end of my contract?
    is there a chance my speeds are being 'throttled'?
    can my settings be wrong, if they're never changed?
    if I leave my connection on 24/7 for an entire week, will the speeds return to normal?
    I thank anyone in advanced for any assistance they can provide.

    bishop27828 wrote:
    Broadband availability overview-~snip~
    Your questions.
    is it a coincidence that my speeds slow down towards the end of my contract? 
    There will be a technical reason for it ...
    is there a chance my speeds are being 'throttled'?
    Not in a manual sense, although from an automatic sense, possibly, owing to technical issues.
    can my settings be wrong, if they're never changed?
    No, they appear to be correct, running ADSL /ppp over ATM  ADSL2
    if I leave my connection on 24/7 for an entire week, will the speeds return to normal?
    You need to leave your connection on 24/7 anyway, it's designed that way ... and yes it may well improve.
    Leave it connected and post back in with linestats after that time.
    And whilst your waiting .... answer IMJ's questions in post 2, which will help diagnose the issues I talked about.   

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