Every company should study Apple

[willowstreetguzziguy]

I switched to an Apple iPhone in early 2013, to an iMac in 2016, and to an iPad in 2019. All have operated flawlessly. And just as important, their customer service and interaction Is something nobody can top. A few days ago, my wife and I visited the local Apple store. Before we entered, we were greeted by 2 separate friendly employees that set us up to enter. In 2 minutes, we were in the store. (and this was the same day as their latest product intros). Greeted by another friendly and knowledgeable Apple employee. It felt like he was told “This couple Owns this company, treat them accordingly.”

In 20 minutes we were leaving with our new phones.  They said someone would call us that night at the time I chose, and they did!! THEY HAVE THEIR ACT TOGETHER when it comes to customer service. And their products perform well for me.

Companies should study Apple’s customer service and copy it!

[LowRyter]

totally the opposite from my sons' experiences when I got them Apple laptops for college many years ago.  One went to Linux and the other built his own PC.  Our experience Apple was expensive, fragile and needlessly complex when trying to talk to MS or Android.   The local repair services were little more than shipping points.   We've never gone back.

[elvisboy77]

Apple is great at what apple does.  But, it is lacking in some areas, for example not all of the things needed by engineers like me (CAD and the like) are available on Apple products, or if they are they are several versions behind the Windoze /Android version..  That's why I have an android phone.

But yes they do make great stuff.

[BMCMOTO]

In the process of loading some music on my wife's I pod, Apple removed all the music from my hard drive and then insisted that I should pay them for the privilege of putting back! I will never own an Appe product.

Brian

[zebraranger]

Cant stand Apple products, their products and accessories are proprietary and expensive, but thats not what turns me off to them. When the I Pad came out in three different versions, I purchased four of the top of the line ones for all four of my employees. After two years, they could no longer be updated, new apps would no longer work on the two year old system, a waste of almost $4000 dollars and Apple didn't give a shit.

[Old Jock]

Never owned any Apple product, for pretty much all the reasons stated above.

They do seem to work pretty much flawlessly and the design is beautiful, but do you pay through the nose or what? There was a monitor stand they sold a while back and the cost was astronomical.

My main reason for not going near them is their approach to the product, although it's yours, it never really belongs 100% to you, when Apple decide they don't want you to do this or that, boom you can't do it.

Were they not also forced to admit that their software upgrades to phones was in part designed to deliberately slow down older models so as you'd need to upgrade. At the prices they charge I'd never go near them.

All companies would love to do what Apple does, fortunately for various reasons they can't, God help us all if they do

For me it's a principle but I can understand why people think they are King of the Hill and swear by their products.

[Kremmen]

or if they are they are several versions behind the Windoze /Android version.

I run a fleet of leased laptops, about 3000 are Macs, the rest Windows. The Macs are usually a couple of years behind on CPU as well, sometimes as much as 4 years. Right now they're about up to date fortunately but boy you'd want them to be at the price. And there's only 2 USB C ports, literally nothing else bar wi-fi and a headphone socket. Our users go for them in droves anyway, which is fine when they have sound reasons (e.g. better portability) but it's partly because many of them associate the high price with higher specification. Those are the ones who come back to me complaining later on.

In the process of loading some music on my wife's I pod, Apple removed all the music from my hard drive and then insisted that I should pay them for the privilege of putting back! I will never own an Appe product.

Snap. Same exact thing. I already knew iTunes sucked to use but that broke me right there. I've also had friends lose an entire European vacation's worth of digital photos because their phone updated itself. And this is the much-vaunted OS/iOS user experience? No thanks.

They do seem to work pretty much flawlessly and the design is beautiful, but do you pay through the nose or what? There was a monitor stand they sold a while back and the cost was astronomical.

That whole monitor thing was kind of a special case to be fair. Very high-end pro video editing type stuff. But the price on that stand was like a grand. Terrible optics.

All companies would love to do what Apple does, fortunately for various reasons they can't, God help us all if they do

The high price is because they allow no competition. The ergonomics and detail design are gorgeous but you're paying for that and the brand logo and not blistering performance. At least not on a Mac Air.

If there's a single factoid I wish I could really get across it'd be that. 

[twowheeladdict]

Apple is for non tech people.  Android for tech savvy people. 

Work forced us all into Apple phones this last go around.  I've had to download many apps to compensate for the less than stellar apps that come on the phone. 

[berniebee]

While I appreciate Apple products sleek visual design and their ease of use, the thing that grinds my gears are the crippling updates cleverly designed to make your iphone or ipad perform slower and slower. Batteries can't be replaced. (Though they aren't alone in this "feature")  Following the three-strikes-your-out philosophy, our family no longer buys Apple products. There's a reason Apple stock is worth so much- they have one of the best money sucking schemes in the tech business.

My older HP Elitebook runs on the Linux Mint operating system. Mint is easy to use, tons of free software, viruses are a non issue and it costs whatever you want to donate.

[chuck peterson]

I agree w the split between tech savvy users/ and more causal non geeky users

Like these comments above

Anyone savvy  w computers can build their own W parts and pieces and generally hate Macs

Myself, i stay away from “opening the box”

I love Apple. Started w early macs and their start up sounds.

Each has gotten more powerful.

11” MacBook Air
iPad
And a 6se phone

All three of these have been flawless

They are updated all the time overnight w nothing necessary on my part

And, most importantly

I bought them CHEAP (guzzi content) by buying older models. Apple was on iPhone 9- or 10 introduction when I bought a 6se

Completely opposite experience from the well learned

For $1 a month i get online storage and access these photos across all three devices

The letter “k” popped of the keyboard of the Air. They replaced it, apologizing for the slightest difference in color...free.

Haven’t felt the need to get anything else and i feel I’ve gotten a great deal on a great product

Ymmv

[DesertPilot]

You could take '2020', 'Apple', and 'Silicon Valley' here and substitute 'General Motors', '1950', and 'Motor City'.  The trick isn't to enjoy that brief glorious moment of success.  The trick is to survive for several generations with some enduring level of success, like IBM, HP, Xerox, and... the mind does rather boggle... Harley Davidson?

Apple is copying GM's excellent post-War marketing scheme of making for what its era were good products for a good price.  Those old Chevys are still famous in song and legend -- it remains to be determined some mid-21st Century successor to Bob Seger will be singing, "Out in the cornfields where the woods got heavy.  Out on the touchscreen of my iPhone SE.  Workin' on mysteries without any crap.  Workin' on our night ap!"    But it's also copying some of GM's more unfortunate marketing schemes, such as planned obsolescence.  Where this will lead, no one can say.

[old head]

After 5 years in Arch school, I learned that Apple is more expensive, slower and has as many issues as a PC.  There were about 35 of us in my graduating class, and a little over half used Apple.  When they had a problem it took them a week or longer to get it fixed, whereas most of the PC were fixed in a day or two.  Both were about the same failure rate as far as I could tell.

I often rendered some of the students final projects on my PC as it was so much faster.  At that time, Autocad wasn't supported on an Apple so they had to run boot camp?  Which worked but it was slowwwwww.  I never understood why they would use Apple.  when my video card died, DELL sent someone to my house to fix and replace the part,2 days.

I have been using Iphones, Ipads with DELL laptops at work for over 10 years, no issues with either Iphone or Ipad.  Again the one time my laptop died, Dell was at my house in 2 days to fix it, hard to beat.

Wife has an Iphone, she really likes it, but she has had issues, mostly when it gets too old it won' t update and she has to upgrade the Iphone.  Work updates our phone pretty regular so I haven't had that issue.  I have had the same Ipad for about 9 years and it is fine, never had a problem with it.

When I sold computers back the late 90's, Apple's were hard to find someone to work on them, and they were so limited in software, and very expensive compared to a PC.  I run PC exclusively at my house, Apple is just to costly to buy and replace parts to make it competitive and up until recently it won't run the software I use.  That is changing, but I don' t the see the attraction for Apple vs pc on performance/cost/repair basis.

Old Head

[Kremmen]

One other misconception I'd really love to be able to clarify for my users is this; there is more malware (viruses, adware, trackers etc) around for Apples than for PCs.

That wasn't true until recently. The switch came some time in late 2019. But there'd been 'almost as much' for years beforehand.

There's still a lot of Apple users not taking adequate precautions because they think they are 100% safe.

[twowheeladdict]

Let's not forget that Apple almost dropped off the stock exchange in the mid 90s. 

Like many of us decided a bike is not worth enough to sell, so we just keep it, a coworker of mine owned Apple in the mid 90s when they hit rock bottom.  I don't know for sure if he let it ride or not, but he told me it wasn't worth selling at the time.