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It looks like the Montgomery Mall Apple Store did not fix our iMac properly the last time we took it in. That’s on top of the 10-day wait it took them to order parts, replace them, and run “extensive” tests…

It’s been working fine for the last month and a half since I got it back. I even managed to upgrade to Leopard. But today, when I woke it from sleep, it froze completely and I had to do a hard reboot. Afterwards, it went from bad to worse. It stopped booting up altogether, and now it looks like it’s a hardware issue.

I spent the whole evening, over 3 hours, on the phone with Apple Support. I was even transferred to Advanced Support, ran more tests, only to be told I need to take it into the store once more. Please don’t bother to offer me troubleshooting tips — I’ve tried everything with Apple Support already and I’m pretty fed up.

Collectively speaking, I’ve had nothing but problems with this iMac, all the way from the start. When I finally took it in for repairs, they replaced the logic board and the Bluetooth module. If I hadn’t had Apple Care, the repairs would have cost me well over $1,000. The logic board alone was over $900. And now it’s broken again, with more hardware problems. I wonder how much it’ll cost to fix it this time. Thank goodness I bought Apple Care, because I’d be forced to throw it away otherwise.

There was a time when Apple made quality products, well-built and properly tested… I had a PowerBook 150 in college, and that little laptop lasted without problems for 6 years, till the hard drive finally got bad sectors and there were no replacement parts for it. Now, it looks like Apple ships their computers with built-in problems, right from the factory. God help the man or woman that doesn’t buy Apple Care, because they’ll probably be up the creek without a paddle with their shiny, brand new Apple. Something will likely happen to it within its expected 3-year lifetime, just like it did to me.

The sad part is that I want to get another Apple for my 2nd home computer. I’ve formatted my external hard drives with HFS+ and am using MacDrive to read them on my Windows laptop at the moment, because I want to make sure all of them can readily work with my next laptop, which I hope will be a MacBook Pro. But these sorts of experiences disappoint me so much. How in the world can I plan on getting an Apple when my existing Apple has had problems virtually from day one? It’s really frustrating.

You might say, sure, but your repairs are covered. What are you worrying about? Well, I worry because my crappy little Averatec laptop, which I can’t stand, and which is built with cheap parts that don’t perform as advertised, has functioned without a hardware failure from day one. What’s more, it runs Windows XP, and that hasn’t crashed, either. Sure, it doesn’t look and feel as nice as OS X, but at least I can use it and the laptop to do my work without reoccurring problems. On the other hand, my iMac G5 has had problems pretty much from day one, and has also crashed, many, many times. That’s sad, to think that Averatec and Microsoft, companies most people love to hate, have outperformed Apple when it comes to hardware and software stability. Now, I grant you that it’s very likely the iMac’s OS crashed because of hardware issues, but still, both the hardware and the software are made by the same company, so they should, in theory, be more stable…

I’ve got an appointment at the Apple Store on Bethesda Avenue (different location), this Saturday at 2:40 pm — that was the earliest I could get. Note that it’s two days away already, and who knows how long they’ll keep it there… We’ll see if this repair stretches into a marathon 10-day outage like the last time, or whether it’s less, or (I really hope not) more. All I know is that I’m pretty fed up with the whole situation. I just want an iMac that works — that’s what I thought I bought, and that’s just what I haven’t had, from day one. Will someone finally get this problem corrected? Hello, Apple, are you listening?

Updated 1/3/08: Our iMac is back! We got a call tonight from the Bethesda Avenue Apple Store that it was ready for pickup. This time, they replaced the logic board (2nd replacement) and the ambient light sensor. They also replaced our Bluetooth mouse, because the cover plate kept falling off (2nd replacement), but this was more of an upgrade. This time, they gave us a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse instead of the original mouse. I only noticed this when I got home, although they’d mentioned it at the store. Thank you, Apple!

I have to say I’m very pleased with how fast the repair was performed this time, and with the communication that occurred. You see, they actually called us this time, and they created a repair ticket as well, so we could track the repair online. The Montgomery Mall Apple Store didn’t do any of these things during our last repair, and kept the computer there for a long time as well.

I hope this 2nd repair will be permanent, and we’ll be able to use our iMac for the remainder of its useful life without further problems.

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