Reporting display problems to Apple

Question

If you are having display problems, you should not be waiting for others to complain or just sit there stewing in your juices. Call AppleCare and tell them what's going on. People in IT have told me that one of the most frustrating things that they encounter are customers who do not complain about real problems. If they don't complain, no one knows that there's a problem, and the customer just gets depressed or hostile for mysterious reasons. You may discover that someone has been doing some kind of awkward work-around for a software problem or bug, and when you ask then how long that has been going on, they may say 5 years!
I just called AppleCare earlier today and carefully explained the symptoms of my screen and why it bothered me. I tried to explain that the gradient problem is triggering alarm bells in my brain that there must be some kind of vision problem. The guy on the other end was very patient, asked questions, and really seemed to listen. He admitted to me that they need to know this stuff. I finally had to get off the phone because of a lightning storm, but I got a case number to continue the conversation later this weekend.

Answer 1

Let us know what happens! I've also been on the phone with Apple -- three times in the past week -- and I've gotten two different people to actually admit, in a sort of weak way, that they're actually aware of the problem. They want my machine to go to "repair", since I'm past the 14 days, first suggesting that I bring it to the Apple Store far from my neighborhood, and then telling me that I can get a site visit after complaining that I hardly have time to get there (totally true) and I'm small and the thing is difficult for me to carry (totally true), although I have to wait for my extended AppleCare, which I purchased yesterday, to arrive in the mail. One of them told me that she thought she's heard of some of these problems actually being fixed. We'll see.
Two of them have suggested that I try an archive/reinstall, just to confirm that it's not a software problem, although both admitted that it was probably a hardware problem anyway. Has anyone tried that? Has anyone wondered what that original iMac update 1.0 actually did?
I've been trying to emphasize my theory about a DC offset on the LCD inverter output, and supposedly they are taking notes, but I wonder if any of that actually makes it up to the engineers. I'm hardly a crank. I have science, very advanced math, and IT backgrounds, and did a lot of tinkering with electronics as a kid. I really wish I could talk directly to the engineers.
And speaking from a long IT background, I can say that one of the most dangerous customer relations things you can do is deny that a real problem exists. That tactic always backfires with a vengeance.