The New 2010 iMac's and Poor Quality Control

[Alexandrebr]

I received last week my fourth Imac, so I guess I have some experience with this consumer product.
My first one was the original Imac G3 “Blue Bondy”. Perfect machine (compared to what was sold at this time).
The second one was the Imac G4 “special edition DV”. A dream machine, rock solid: no fans, quiet, still works today and used as a DVD player for the kids.
The third one : the first G5: noisy, hot, the backplane (logicboard) has been changed FOUR times yes 4' . The powersupply has been changed TWICE. Apple lost a lot $$$ with this machine!
Hopefully, I had Applecare.

Fourth Imac bought (Applestore) last week, a 21,5’, (paid € 1500,00 eg $ 1900,00). Stylish, quiet but… the screen is terrible!. On the bottom the screen is yellow. I am an Apple fan, ok. But I won’t pay so much money for a faulty product. It IS an hardware issue. I checked at the apple corner yesterday: every single Imac on display had this issue. The cinema display and the Ibooks were all OK. If you can cope with a brand new faulty product, it has been said before this is a free world. This web page for example, mostly white is like, if it had been souped in tea (or worst).

I just can't keep that machine.

 

[IndustrialSpace]

Your logic makes no sense.

Because the more people return Macs 4+ times for stupid noises which are on every model, the more Apple has to "eat" by selling as a refurb...which over time, will effect the cost of their products...which will effect my wallet....

So you're saying that Apple replaces perfectly functioning computers, regardless?

I would think that Apple ONLY issues a replacement when THEY deem it necessary, as it must exceed some internal quality threshold for replacement. IOWs, Apple will gladly replce a defective machine that they themselves have decided needs to be replaced. Now whose fault is that? The consumer?

 

[WilliamG]

Bet you couldn't.'



try One Thousand. Most iMac I have seen at the applestore have the problem, and the imac I am on right now has it.

That's idiotic. I found issues with my Samsung $2700 LCD TV. Clouding, clouding, clouding. Google LCD TV Clouds for more info. Nothing is perfect. We all need to deal with that.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

So you're saying that Apple replaces perfectly functioning computers, regardless?

I would think that Apple ONLY issues a replacement when THEY deem it necessary, as it must exceed some internal quality threshold for replacement. IOWs, Apple will gladly replce a defective machine that they themselves have decided needs to be replaced. Now whose fault is that? The consumer?

It's Apple bending over backwards to make sure customers are happy and keep buying Apple products. If you think the hard drive is loud, they just choose not to say "too bad, that's the way it is" even if that is the way it is

 

[webpoet73]

So, the real question is:

Are Mac users more picky than other computer users? Or is it just the small percentage of Mac users that post on forum boards?

I am pretty sure Apple will never release damaged/return rates unless they are in their favor... just what a good company would do.

 

[MaLiLoMAC]

Well I wouldn't say it was new and I wouldn't say it was limited to iMacs.

In fact IMO having owned or own

eMac
mac mini (x4)
iMac (x2)
iPhone (x3)
iPad

I would say the only flawless product was the eMac. All the rest (bar iPad) have had major issues within 18 months.

The iPad has a yellow screen, light bleed and a mis-aligned bezel, but it works great!

Apple quality despite the fanfares has nearly always been poor in my opinion.

I haven't purchased a worse brand.

Then why did you buy so many??

 

[Tigerman82]

Then why did you buy so many??

I guess the reason for this is that some Apple-consumers tend to lose sense when buying Apple products. It's just amazing how in every forum there is always people who own 3-6 Mac-computers and several Apple-gadgets. It's good to be Steve Jobs with this kind of loyal customer base.

 

[benzslrpee]

i'm kind of wondering if anyone here has any background/education in industrial-e, ops or supply chain management. people here throw QC/QA around like it's some trending twitter topic. kind of like how techblogs like to speculate anything and everything is likely to result in a M&A. no. first, it's either a merger or an acquisition, not both. second, a simple accounting class in business valuation would show half the companies mentioned aren't even good M&A candidates. i can't speak to how Apple's operations department works but they most likely function like other companies who use pieces and parts manufactured over seas.

each of their vendors provide materials specs, tolerances, failure rates, production error rate/time and a whole bunch of other criteria for anyone seeking to contract them. they probably follow some Six Sigma type of methodology which looks great on paper for H/W/S MBAs when it comes to doling out contract bids. LG/Samsung will sing about how they manufacture 10 bajillion LCDs a years with an error rate more than 4 std deviations out. yellow tint? naw mr. Jobs, never heard of that in MY company. most companies won't actually go follow up on those claims. it wouldn't make sense to post a group counting how many yellow LCDs are found in a batch of a 10 bajillion/year.

point is, aside from the design aspect and customer feedback after the product is out, most corporations don't have much control over the manufacturing and assembly process. yeah sure Apple can send a director-of-something-or-the-other to Seagate and do some type of vendor audit but what do you think they'll find? the CEO breaking down and confess that their manufacturing isn't up to snuff? they'll most likely give them a b.s. answers, make needed information hard to find and send them packing back to Cupertino. nevermind trying to audit a company based out of Asia cause you'll get stonewalled till you're blue in the face. any internal audit people here?

when the new iMacs ship out, they'll hear various feedback about screens being yellow, this isn't right and that HD sucks. they'll get customer returns, they'll document why it was returned and probably do some testing and sampling. under most circumstances they will likely find that the issues are within the projected error rate supplied by the manufacturers. sometimes it's higher and sometimes it's lower. regardless, there isn't much to do. Jobs isn't going to tell LG to stick their yellow LCDs up where the sun don't shine because Samsung probably faces the same manufacturing issue. their other option is to go with a smaller vendor and incur higher costs because they can't match the discount offered by LG/Sammy... and still face the same issue. however, if the smaller shop was issue free then is the price difference justifiable for most business managers? if it was, LG and Samsung would not have >50% of that market in the bag.

some guy a couple of pages head made some comment on how Apple should provide extensive QA/QC documentation. first off, which of the many companies do you want it from, for what parts and what will it mean to you? second, a piece of paper stating that WD has a .001% hard drive failure rate isn't going to automatically exclude you.

the following is just my speculation:

i doubt if Apple has a specific department dedicated towards QA/QC; they are not a manufacturing company by any stretch. they most likely have some operations/engineering/accounting/audit people pulling double duty by checking or monitoring feedback from sales units and running various regression analysis. you will probably won't find a dedicated group pulling every 10th iMac out to check for yellow screens and hard drive buzzes. it would make more sense for them to have more supply chain/logistics people concentrating on more efficient methods of taking their product from manufacturing to retail stores where customers can get their grubby little hands on them.

 

[PurrBall]

It's disheartening to see how so many people are reporting problems with these newer models even after Apple has had plenty of time to fix them since October. I have the Early 2009 model (iMac9,1) and it's a flawless machine (knock on wood.) I don't remember nearly this many reports of issues with that model.