Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!mit-amt!mjkobb
From: mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Worthless Warranty
Summary: I beg your pardon!
Message-ID: <1945@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 21 Mar 90 02:43:52 GMT
References: <50816@cc.utah.edu> <7306@goofy.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 51

In article <7306@goofy.Apple.COM> dwb@archer.apple.com (David W. Berry) writes:
>	I probably shouldn't respond to this, but this complaint is
>already getting really old.  Warranties get extended to longer periods
>fairly frequently.  Chrysler went from a 4 year to a 5 year to a
>7 year warranty, and offered no retrocative coverage or extended
>warranty.  Ford recently went from 4 year coverage to 6 year coverage,
>with no retrocative coverage or extended warranty.  There weren't any
>complaints about either, new buyers just thanked their lucky stars
>they got a longer warranty.  Now Apple goes from a 3 month warranty
>to a 1 year warranty, offers some retroactive warranty and gives lot's
>of other folks a real break on an extended warranty and the crackpots
>come out of the woodwork complaining that the extended warranty
>wasn't applied to every machine Apple ever made.  I guess I should
>just file this whole discussion under "Some people can't be satisfied"
>and forget it...

Okay, first of all, I'm not a crackpot, and I resent your implying that I am.

Second:  I feel that everybody who has complained about this issue is 100%
justified.  The fact that car buyers don't complain that the car companies are
screwing them over as loudly as we do when the computer companies screw us
over is not a valid excuse.

Third: I am easily satisfied.  I am 100% satisfied with every non-Apple
peripheral I bought with my IIx.  The shortest warranty there was 1 yr.  The
longest was 5.  I am not, however, satisfied when Apple tells me that machines
bought 8 days after my machine (which is still under warranty for about
another day now) have a 1-year warranty, and mine doesn't!  As I said before,
it seems at least reasonable that machines that were still under warranty at
the time the extension was announced would be included.  More reasonable is
that machines that were <1 yr old at the time would be covered.  But, no.  I
guess Apple feels that their machines are such junk that they'd lose too much
money fixing all of the additional ones that would be covered if they did
that.  Too bad, since I really like the machines.  I wouldn't own a different
personal computer.

Three-and-a-half: You'll note that not too many people are complaining that
they bought a IIx three months before the IIfx was announced, and they should
be offered a free upgrade (although it would apply to me...).  That's a
product upgrade, with additional functionality, and most of us understand
(with hardware) that that's how it goes.  However, Apple has repaired what was
a serious deficiency in their policies, and have done so by coming out with an
all-new deficient policy.  That is cause for complaint.

Okay, my hands are tired.  Enough.

--Mike

Disclaimer: I think that disclaimers are an incredibly sad statement about our
society.  Nonetheless, nothing that I say can or should be construed as having
been said by anyone.  Ever.