DO NOT BUY AN IPHOTO BOOK!!!!!!!

Question

I have been going at it with Apple now for over a month! I ordered a book and it came back with blank pages and with photos not scaled properly. (This was my second iPhoto book. The first one also had several minor printing flaws which we overlooked) I sent three emails via the iPhoto support page and received no replies. Apple promises a response within 48 hrs. Then some two weeks later they had the nerve to send me a survey thanking me for using the web support function and please rate "how we did!" You can only imagine how I responded. I next tried contacted a live person at Apple Care to help me out. I provided them my order number. They indicated that was not a valid order number. Turns out that Apple Care cannot track orders made through iPhoto! No one at Apple Care was even familiar with what an iPhoto book was. I then called Apple corporate hq's and spoke to a "customer care" rep. She assured me I would be contacted within 48 hrs (sound familiar) and my problem would be resolved. I heard nothing for over a week. Calls back to Ms. Graser of customer care were met by voice mail. Finally this week I received a canned response back from Apple. They noted that they would credit the charge back to my card. They also asked if I were interested in reordering my book and if so they would "assist" me. I replied that I was interested in trying to reorder the book. So what does Apple do? Without any further contact to find out why the book came back incomplete (such as a corrupt file or incomlete file transfer), they reprinted the same screwed up book and recharged my credit card for the full amount (including $15 for express shipping)!
BUYER BEWARE! Apple provides no support or quality control for this product. DO NOT BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Heidi,
Welcome to the forums, and I'm sorry about your book. I too have ordered a book very recently and also found several photos to be on the dark side, and several too red as well.
But I believe that there's a "but" here.
I don't know your professional background -- I work in the print industry (I design pages) and I know how hard it is to get the color correction on images just right, EVEN if your monitor is calibrated and your particular version of image processing software is optimized for use with your specific output device. And that's when a professional is behind the wheel, which I am not.
My iMac's monitor is not calibrated, I am not trained to make images look their best for reproduction, and I am using a consumer-level application. With a little bit of research on these forums (which you have done), anyone can find out that the reviews on the iPhoto books' quality are mixed... At the very least you'll know you're taking a calculated risk -- as you said yourself.
I would consider myself a picky customer, but I am not disappointed with the quality of these books, especially considering the price, and knowing how difficult and unpredictable color correction can be. If you have some photos that are good (even if it is only 25 out of 142), then I would suspect the problem is with the "pre-pressing" of these images, not the printing. If the printing was to blame, they would ALL be bad.
That said, I am still sorry about your negative experience. We anticipate these books to be great, and it's a bummer when they aren't.
Full disclosure: I am in fact asking for a refund as well on my recent book, and I too don't like the fact that there is no phone support for iPhoto orders. I sent my e-mail 24 hours ago, so it hasn't been 48 hours yet. The reason I am asking for a refund is not due to print quality (I think I am responsible for the color/darkness thing), but because my $57 softcover 8.5x11 book arrived in a flimsy envelope and got bent during shipping. The (cheaper) calendars I ordered the same day arrived in sturdy boxes, so the logic behind that escapes me.
Anyway. For the future, if you've got a project you really care about, I'd recommend spending a little extra and ordering a "test book" with the minimum amount of pages, using only your most challenging photos, so you'll know how to tweak them for the final book. If it matters that much, the extra money will be well-spent, and in the end, the price/quality factor of these one-of-a-kind books will still be more than acceptable.
Just my thoughts.
An