Great profit margins, amazing profit - what about time for some QC?

[PDE]

I'm immensely happy that apple is doing so well financially. For a while there, I was counting my days as a mac user because I seriously wasn't sure if the company would make it. That was 1996-97 and I dreaded what computer life would be like without a mac. And look at Apple now! Yippppeeee! Wish I had bought lots of Apple stock a year ago...I guess it's still not too late, but it would hurt too much at the current price.


Seriously, now that Apple is doing so incredibly well, isn't it time to put more focus/money on quality control? Or perhaps Apple is doing well because it's skimping on quality control? Is it really cheaper for Apple to engage in post-sales quality control? To only fix AFTER a customer complains of a defective machine, rather than pre-emptively at the factory?

Just some rambling after I read the news...

 

[kolax]

Quality control is really hard to achieve when a product is mass produced and demand is high. I think Apple is doing really well with balancing quality control and assembling times.

There is a few sloppy Apple products out there, but you can never eliminate them. A sloppy product can be caused by something simple - engineer not paying full attention etc.

Not a sourced fact, but I feel most quality control slips come from human error, and that is something that we can't fix unless machines built the hardware from start to finish with no interruption from a human.

 

[strider42]

Most statistical surveys I've seen (mostly from consumer reports, admittedly) rate apple at or near the top in terms of quality and in customer service. Do you have any statistics showing otherwise, or are you saying this absed on anecdotal evidence. Keep in mind that its pretty rare for satisified customers to post on the internet just to say they are happy. That's not to say some products haven't obviously had problems for a while, but overall, their quality seems to be above industry standard.

 

[PDE]

Most statistical surveys I've seen (mostly from consumer reports, admittedly) rate apple at or near the top in terms of quality and in customer service. Do you have any statistics showing otherwise, or are you saying this absed on anecdotal evidence. Keep in mind that its pretty rare for satisified customers to post on the internet just to say they are happy. That's not to say some products haven't obviously had problems for a while, but overall, their quality seems to be above industry standard.

And there are many people, if not most, who have problems who would never come here to discuss or complain about their defective computers! Only geeks end up here...

What statistical evidence do you have that Apple quality is above industry standard? If I remember the published customer satisfaction surveys correctly, Apple's laptops (I guess I was mainly referring to them since this the macbook/macbook pro section) were pretty much as likely to need repair as other laptops. The difference is in support and service where apple seems to shine.

I've said this many times here: I've had 15 macbook pros since spring last year, and every single one of them -except the one I'm typing on - had some kind of flaw. I purchased them at different periods, from different stores and I even checked some out in London and Sweden. What is the statistical likelihood that I would get so many defective units from a rather wide pool of sampling if there were not some kind of QC problem? And I'm not alone!

 

[Aea]

I've said this many times here: I've had 15 macbook pros since spring last year, and every single one of them -except the one I'm typing on - had some kind of flaw. I purchased them at different periods, from different stores and I even checked some out in London and Sweden. What is the statistical likelihood that I would get so many defective units from a rather wide pool of sampling if there were not some kind of QC problem? And I'm not alone!

A bought my first a week ago, and the only hardware problem I've noticed was that my "escape" key is not aligned perfectly, maybe by about 15 degrees, it's too minor for me to complain over.

 

[CANEHDN]

Since Apple is doing so well, they should offer at least a 1 year phone support Applecare on it. I hate that they only offer 90 days of phone support.

 

[PDE]

A bought my first a week ago, and the only hardware problem I've noticed was that my "escape" key is not aligned perfectly, maybe by about 15 degrees, it's too minor for me to complain over.

Yes, that is indeed a small thing. Good for you and welcome to the mac world!

 

[jrocks]

Since Apple is doing so well, they should offer at least a 1 year phone support Applecare on it. I hate that they only offer 90 days of phone support.

I completely agree. I just ordered my first Mac and if i'm paying $2k for a computer thats supposed to "just work" then the least they could do is offer an entire year of phone support along with hardware.

Can't wait till it arrives!

 

[MaddieBrad]

Uhhhg... I can't even begin to get into this thread tonight. I am so tired of dealing with Apples Executive Customer Relations. The first QC issue I would address would be the amount of thermal paste they are smothering onto out heatsinks... not to mention sorting out the gradient and backlight issues.

C'mon Apple... Give us fanboys a reason to breathe!

 

[looking4anotebo]

And there are many people, if not most, who have problems who would never come here to discuss or complain about their defective computers! Only geeks end up here...

What statistical evidence do you have that Apple quality is above industry standard? If I remember the published customer satisfaction surveys correctly, Apple's laptops (I guess I was mainly referring to them since this the macbook/macbook pro section) were pretty much as likely to need repair as other laptops. The difference is in support and service where apple seems to shine.

I've said this many times here: I've had 15 macbook pros since spring last year, and every single one of them -except the one I'm typing on - had some kind of flaw. I purchased them at different periods, from different stores and I even checked some out in London and Sweden. What is the statistical likelihood that I would get so many defective units from a rather wide pool of sampling if there were not some kind of QC problem? And I'm not alone!

That is almost unbelievable. 15 mbps? 15!!

I have heavily researched several notebook makers and all notebooks, of course, have quality control problems, but I think Apple might be one of the worst. Just my opinion. It helps that they probably have the best customer service.

Look at it from Apple's view. They just had record profits, why would they invest more money and time to clean up their QC?