My apologies to people who don’t want to read a fanboy account of Apple. This isn’t that. This is a narration of the facts, and just the facts.
I keep track of issues that crop up with my out-of-warranty Apple products.
- My MacBook Pro is 6.5 years old.
- My iPod Touch is 3.5 years old.
- My iPad is 2.5 years old (and was a refurb of a model that debuted 2 years prior to the date I bought it).
I waver between do-it-yourself and get-Apple-to-do-it-for-me. For instance, I’ve maxed out the RAM on my Mac and replaced the 320 GB hard disk drive (HDD) with a 480 GB solid state drive (SSD). I’ve also visited the Apple Store to ask store reps about things I can’t figure out myself.
One of them once suggested I post my question to Apple support forums. I tried that a few times and, around the same time, I started keeping a list of the issues my Apple products have been exhibiting. (None of these issues are show-stoppers, by the way. Any time I start to get frustrated, I remind myself I can still get my work done. If that isn’t enough, I remind myself of the years when I used Windows. That set of memories makes me grateful for the Mac.)
Anyway, back to the Apple Support forums. They’re pretty comprehensive. I was told that Apple reps regularly review stuff posted there. So I signed in, searched for my issues and, if I didn’t find them, posted them.
All this forum participation takes time, I quickly realized. I set time aside one rainy weekend to do some forum-assisted troubleshooting, but I haven’t been back to the forums or followed up on my threads for some time.
Recently, I learned about the Twitter ID @AppleSupport, so I sent an issue there. It got solved quickly, so I sent more issues. Some got solved. Some resulted in support calls – yes, calls. All issues got Apple tracking numbers. None were ignored.
This is a much faster way of dealing with any problems with my Apple products. Trips to the Apple Store take time. So does researching stuff on the web. All in all, I feel like I have the support I need.
Why am I writing about this here? Think about it: I’m getting support on a 6-½-year-old Mac that’s 3 ½ years out of warranty. 6 ½ years old, 3 ½ years out of warranty. That bears repeating. I still find it incredible.
Are there any other technology companies covering their products and supporting their customers this well? If there are, please tell me about them in the comments below. They deserve a shout-out too.