Should using MacBook Pro really be this difficult???

Question

Here's my question - should I return this Mac and just buy something else or should I attempt to continue to go ahead with using this brand new Mac I just purchased?
I'm really not happy with Apple's new MacBookPro and as much as I hate PCs, I'm just thinking that they might be the lesser of the evil here. I have had such an incredibly difficult time with this brand new Mac and it has been such a nightmarish experience trying to use it, I really have to ask that question here. I have just sent the thing off to a technician for an hourly fee to try and get it up and running. He got some things going at my studio but others were appearing to take so long, we decided it best for him to take it to his shop to work on it.
I've had out of the box 1 nightmare after another trying to get going with it. Compared to my past experience with my Powerbook and other Macs, this has really just blown me and my hopes about working on my new Mac out of the water and I've had so many problems with it, I have just not been able to figure out where to post for help here.
It took 3 hours with my ISP on the phone to get my email and internet connection up and running (was automatic with my old Powerbook), the new MBP couldn't talk to the printer (old PB connected to printer using wireless via the printer being on appletalk talking to modem via ethernet, wireless router allowed the wireless connection and the PB never had a problem with this), scanner worked once and never again, mouse lost its settings (mouse purchased at Apple store), iWork application suite I purchased from Apple and ordered to be installed on the new Mac - this stuff required entering s/n number (which I was told was supposed to have been done when the software was installed - had to go get box and find disks, etc.), web sites were incredibly slow to load and pages would hang... and apparently there were a lot of updates to all of the required software from Apple that had not been put on the machine yet.
The technician I hired will be charging around $200 to get the computer up and running and working with everything. Would ProCare have been able to do this? Probably not unless I brought in printer, router, modem, and scanner to the store - or am I mistaken on this? How would Apple's care have been able to have supported me here?
Should I return the Mac altogether given the depth and amount of problems I'm having doing anything? Would an iMac have been better? Should I just give up on Macs now with this new OS and Intel chip?
Even having now to spend this additional money, I'm VERY worried that I will end up then having to spend even more money for some other problem that may arise after this given this auspicious start. I'm really really worried that MacBook Pro is just not very dependable at least in comparison to the PowerBook I had and loved for the past several years. What do you think? What's your experience?
Message was edited by: Actually Human

Answer 1

Yes. I think you're right about this.
But I'm not at all new to Macs and used to myself work for Apple as part of the design folks. The experience I'm having right now is NOT the norm with Macs... AT ALL. Apple has been a leader if not THEE leader in usability where computers are concerned and they have been since their birth. Many many many $ and time at least used to be spent in targeting specific usability metrics. I firmly believe that what has happened here is a combo of your observation along WITH what has happened here and there in the past at Apple - the usability group/s demonstrate a clear need and solution for problems such as I'm having (I know - I've witnessed this). Decision makers or 1 decision maker at a higher level "rules" out the proposed solution. The consequences are errors and problems that you can read throughout the entire discussion board here - various problems people have are not necessarily because a solution has not been proposed, found, known, and pushed forward at Apple but is because someone/s rule out that solution being executed... the time/money business.
The group, when I was in it, would have been livid and fired up had they seen what I have just been through trying to get going with this new Mac ...and I am no stranger to Macs and am not a new user and know my way around a Mac a lot more than most users.
It has now been 2 weeks that I've had my new Mac and I've not been able to do anything with it due to the enormous problems. I hired a former genius bar guy who has gone out on his own to see what he can do. Unfortunately, the genius bar at the Apple store can't come to me (and I can't bring printer, scanner, router, modem down to the store with the computer - even harder for me since I'm disabled) so I hired this guy to come to me and see what he could do. There were so many problems with the thing, he has taken the computer back to his shop where he's going to find out whether the box is simply a bum Mac from the get go or whether it just needs a lot more tweaking and configuring than was led to have been the case from the outset.
Some helpful info from him to keep in mind - I got my new Mac online from the Apple store here. He told me that actual human beings are preparing these Macs before they go out to customers. The preparation of the boxes can vary depending upon the experience of whoever is preparing one's new Mac. If the guy/gal was fairly new and didn't now all that much... he was saying you don't know if everything that was supposed to be updated at that time or included or checked GOT checked or included. He told me, for example, s/n number for software I purchased that I ordered them to install at the factory SHOULD have been entered already allowing me to get up and running immediately upon launching the software.
Also he told me - there are a lot of folks here, as we can all imagine, who purport to be very expert and sound good but he told me there is a plethora of just plain false information and incorrect info all over these boards. For example, when I first posted with problems here, I was told the Migration Assistant doesn't work to migrate stuff from non-Intel-based Macs to Intel based Macs. He told me that is absolutely BS and he has used MA to do that very thing. He told me if there were a problem, it's due to other stuff... example, not ALL software on the computer (either one) have been updated or updates weren't completed or there was a glitch in an update or there is a low level problem that wasn't sussed out (in my case, for example, the FIRST thing he did was run DUtility on the SOURCE computer and repair ANYthing or any naming or any problem whatsoever on the HFS there... this is before doing ANYthing). Ok, not a single person here mentioned starting with that before even touching the new computer. This is why I really tend to believe those genius bar guys/gals that there is an unfortunate amount of mis-information here on these boards that is even more unfortunately passed off by the poster (not by Apple) as being all knowing and authoritative. And myself having worked for Apple, I also know (going back to your original post here) that usability and the design history at Apple is quite different than your current understanding and expectation of Macs. You need to raise the bar you've been using now that you're using a Mac. That's what the Mac is all about - usability. It is the primary way Apple has become a leader in everything it touches and its why long time users like myself are really shocked and affected when the user experience is as poor as its become for me.
I WILL be taking this up with members of CHI because it really needs to be discussed and addressed. Have we lowered the bar. For Mac users, Mandy, it was NOT always as you have accepted it to be.