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A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 26. Apple is not playing nice, lawyers seek to block subpoenas to reveal sources of info leaks, Apple makes UK users pay shipping for repair program and Apple forces two independent resellers out of business. GRAMMY music supports Tsunami relief and is discounted, new Motorola iTunes phone details, Disney’s Eisner and Jobs exchange words, HP VP joins Apple, celebs at Apple stores and RedHat for PowerPC. Listeners help out with moving mail from Outlook, we give fair time to Mac to PC switchers and new music from Kinetic. Listen in. Shownotes in HTML or OPML for all the details and links.
Featured Music: Stonehenge, Kinetic
a word about the closing of macadam in san francisco… they were a store of last resort to many of us, the main reason is that they charged retail prices as a “cash discount” but the sticker price was always 3% over retail. a second reason, from personal experience, is that you practically had to beg for attention when you walked in the door. the customer service was lacking and their prices were too high. both are sufficient reason to switch to online retailers for better prices, and apple retail stores for proper service…
Agreed! MacAdam was terrible! It was like walking into a yard sale half the time. As for stocking issues it’s such a red herring! We’re never told if the these Indie stores ordered early or late. How many they ordered and how quickly the dealer’s initial allocation was sold. In other words you need to order in qty early cause allocation issues may mean you don’t get more for weeks or more. I also goes both ways! I went to the Apple Store in Oak Brook IL to get an iPod Shuffle and was told they were out and had a waiting list. I would be #128 on the list. I left and while shopping in Best Buy in Naperville, IL saw they had 29 iPod shuffles on the shelf! Anyway, there some really great Mac resellers but there were also a lot of crap ones that invested nothing in their stores or their people. The shopping experience was terrible and they didn’t care to fix it but just sell boxes. This isn’t much different than all the small computer resellers that went under in the 90s when macConnection and macWarehouse etc., came into their own. The retail space is changing and these retailers need to change with it. Services and solutions that Apple doesn’t and can’t offer. The days of getting an Apple dealer authorization and selling to a small captive market with little or no effort are OVER! No more free lunch guys! I’m floored that people feel Apple owes them or that they are somehow entitled. Hey, maybe not, these are the same people that felt they were entitled to my money with poor service and a poor buying experience because they were the only Apple Authorized Dealer in town. Guess what…
Actually the UK logic board repair programme is a little different to that mentioned. Basically, Apple won’t cover shipping because they don’t collect ibooks to fix the problem – only AASPs/Apple Centres do the fix. So shipping back to Apple is not an option.
Some AASPs have a short lead time and can fix it, others do not and will turn away customers – as a customer you basically need to do the running around and then get your ibook to the AASP and back again.
All apple will do is the initial diagnosis of the problem and read you some AASP phone numbers for you to call.
I have to agree. Macadam was a MacJoke. There were always arrogant in their early days saying things like, “Apple is nothing without us.” They were always overpriced and the only way you could get help was to physically grab one of the people who worked there. I hadn’t bothered going there for years and I think the last time was over 5 years ago only because they had somethiing that my company needed right then and there.