Why Apple is successful

[boss.king]

Are you in the US? UK seem to avoid any interaction if possible.

New Zealand. For the record, we don't actually have Apple stores here, but I've lived in/visited several countries that do and never noticed their level of service to be above any other big store in the area. Never been to a UK Apple store though, so you could be right about things over there.

 

[MonkeySee....]

New Zealand. For the record, we don't actually have Apple stores here, but I've lived in/visited several countries that do and never noticed their level of service to be above any other big store in the area. Never been to a UK Apple store though, so you could be right about things over there.

Ahh ok. I can't speak for everyone in the UK but customer service isn't our strong point. So when you do see it, you really appreciate it.

 

[boss.king]

Ahh ok. I can't speak for everyone in the UK but customer service isn't our strong point. So when you do see it, you really appreciate it.

Haha, fair enough. Hopefully the Olympics will get companies to step up their customer service there

 

[ChazUK]

I don't think I'd ever need my hand held buying a Mac from any store considering the price of the thing.

I did get pissed off at one guy in the Thurrock Lakeside Apple store who mentioned Apple care to me about 5 times during the sale of my iMac (this was a few years ago).

It wasn't until I questioned the reliability of the computer that he backed down (I think I said something along the lines of "Is it going to break, if so, I don't want it!").

The happy ending is the iMac lasted way beyond what I'd expect and is in the hands of another happy owner, still chugging along.

 

[MonkeySee....]

I don't think I'd ever need my hand held buying a Mac from any store considering the price of the thing.

I did get pissed off at one guy in the Thurrock Lakeside Apple store who mentioned Apple care to me about 5 times during the sale of my iMac (this was a few years ago).

It wasn't until I questioned the reliability of the computer that he backed down (I think I said something along the lines of "Is it going to break, if so, I don't want it!").

The happy ending is the iMac lasted way beyond what I'd expect and is in the hands of another happy owner, still chugging along.

I got my iMac from Bluewater and a guy took it to my car. Me and my wife were walking along with him as he carted across the shopping center on a trolley and everyone was staring. It was really embarrassing.

 

[ChazUK]

I got my iMac from Bluewater and a guy took it to my car. Me and my wife were walking along with him as he carted across the shopping center on a trolley and everyone was staring. It was really embarrassing.

That is awesome!

You won't know how vulnerable I felt walking out to the Lakeside carpark with a small fortunes worth of iMac in my hands.

 

[MonkeySee....]

That is awesome!

You won't know how vulnerable I felt walking out to the Lakeside carpark with a small fortunes worth of iMac in my hands.

I bet! I got mine in the morning and they guy said I can leave it out back and do some shopping and get it when I leave. I was planning on just sticking it in the boot of my car and going back to shopping but I fear it wouldn't have been their when i returned.

 

[MorphingDragon]

New Zealand. For the record, we don't actually have Apple stores here, but I've lived in/visited several countries that do and never noticed their level of service to be above any other big store in the area. Never been to a UK Apple store though, so you could be right about things over there.

Yoobee are pretty expert at providing non-service.

 

[smoledman]

Are you in the US? UK seem to avoid any interaction if possible.

So what you're saying is that outside of US is where Apple Stores really make a difference?

 

[MonkeySee....]

So what you're saying is that outside of US is where Apple Stores really make a difference?

From my experience in the states most staff are very welcoming. So maybe the Apple Stores for "Customer Service" are just the same but its still a nice place to shop.

In the UK you will be lucky to even be acknowledged by staff let alone any personal help.

The Apple Stores in the UK seem to have the american attitude towards helping customers.

 

[G51989]

That sounds like a pretty cool job. I can only imagine what kind of rigs you must use... or rather what they cost

Thanks! It is a super cool job, can be a major PITA though. And yeah, the rigs we use are pretty crazy, I've been upgraded 4 times in the past year because of some of the projects we've been working on. I would say the machine I'm on now, would be ehhhhh? between 18,000 to 25,000 dollars. Which might sound like a lot, but its far cheaper than the distributive network we used to use, farms and farms of blade servers. But in the past couple years, really high end workstations are starting to be able to do the same thing for less money. The requirements are no different than they were years ago ( though I'm only 27, and have only been in the business for 5 years now, so my experience with the older stuff is limited )

Here is our vendor for the workstations, http://www.gamepc.com/ They do really good work, most of ours are one offs ( Currently running 256gb ram on this bad boy, I also gots dual Overclocked 8 Core Xeons, and 4 GPUs ). In fact I liked their work so much, I bought a portable gaming tower off them.

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I started on a pure DOS machine. Move up to a Linux only setup in the late 90s. Maybe that's why I also appreciate function over form. Dunno, a big black screen with a flashing cursor gives me nostalgia attacks.

Started out myself as a young lad on a Packard Bell 486 ( with DX2 Turbo Overdrive of course, bumps ya up to 75mzh ). God knows how much he spent on that ( father ) when it was new. So yeah I started out in DOS, and Windows 3.1.

Windows 9X still makes me look back lol, Oh how I miss Windows 95 and its constant crashing.

Yeah, I don't care how something looks. eyecandy is great and all. but it doesn't really matter to me.

 

[boss.king]

Thanks! It is a super cool job, can be a major PITA though. And yeah, the rigs we use are pretty crazy, I've been upgraded 4 times in the past year because of some of the projects we've been working on. I would say the machine I'm on now, would be ehhhhh? between 18,000 to 25,000 dollars. Which might sound like a lot, but its far cheaper than the distributive network we used to use, farms and farms of blade servers. But in the past couple years, really high end workstations are starting to be able to do the same thing for less money. The requirements are no different than they were years ago ( though I'm only 27, and have only been in the business for 5 years now, so my experience with the older stuff is limited )

Here is our vendor for the workstations, http://www.gamepc.com/ They do really good work, most of ours are one offs ( Currently running 256gb ram on this bad boy, I also gots dual Overclocked 8 Core Xeons, and 4 GPUs ). In fact I liked their work so much, I bought a portable gaming tower off them

It really is incredible how powerful high end computers have become, especilly as you say they are cheaper and more effiecient than server farms. It'll be interestig to see what a farm of those sort of machines could do

 

[G51989]

It really is incredible how powerful high end computers have become, especilly as you say they are cheaper and more effiecient than server farms. It'll be interestig to see what a farm of those sort of machines could do

Yeah, it was pretty recent how good workstations have gotten that we can start replacing the racks with them, its not more efficient actually, its just way better for how we operate. And its still a little more expensive.

Well, with the liquid cooling, 4 video cards ( All Quadros, dur :0 ), and 12 hard drives, and 2 SSDs. The form factor of these machines is....large lol, and of course we have a huge amount of network storage.

Yeah, its insane how fast computers are getting, and even more insane, that the workstation I'm on now was 23,411.11 ( I had someone find the purchase order ) dollars, and in 10 years, you'll probably be able to pick up something with similar performance and storage from a best buy for a grand or so.