Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!ncar!boulder!fozzard
From: fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple's Horrible Product Quality
Keywords: warranty, quality
Message-ID: <9169@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 2 Jun 89 20:32:22 GMT
References: <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 51

In article <13743@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo) writes:
>There have been some articles criticizing Apple's product quality. I
>think I will add some stories on it.
>
>my SE has
>been in the shop about ten times in less than two years of usage. Now,
>shouldn't the product quality be improved from the old days?
>
>Apple. You'd better to get the act together and improve the quality of
>the product. Otherwise, you will lose very many customers to other
>competitors including *gasp* IBM (which incidentally offers longer
>warranty period). Not only Apple has turned itself to "Big Six Colors",
>I am afraid that Apple has turned to a dinosaur.
>


Now wait a minute - anecdotes are a poor way to determine overall product
quality. My 2 year old SE has never once broken down, even though I transport
it between work, school, and home several times a week. I might be led to
conclude that Apple makes a reliable product. I'd probably be wrong.

However, the machine hangs or otherwise screws up in major ways roughly
several times a day.  This is not a hardware quality control problem, but
a software one. This is where Apple REALLY needs to get its act together.
I admit I use a wide variety of software, but even users with the simplest
of needs have seen these problems often.  The Mac must be at the top of
the #boots/CPU-hour statistics among all computers, ever.

This is not User-Friendly.

IMHO this is far more likely to make people switch to competitors including
*gasp* IBM than hardware problems.  People still buy Porsches, Saabs, Ferraris,
etc that spend a disproportionate amount of time in the shop. But if these
cars coughed, hacked, and stalled out several times a day even when the 
machanic had done everything he could...makes me wonder what percentage of
Mac users own old British sports cars!

Yes I know the Mac's software is far more complex, but this is a poor excuse.
A Symbolics workstation is an order of magnitude more complex, yet rarely
hangs up, even with hordes of lousy programmers hacking away.

Excuse all the griping; I, like many others, could never voluntarily switch
back to those _other_ computers - I just wish Apple would get more interested
in the unglamorous area of system robustness instead of gee-whiz features.

*end of flame*

========================================================================
Richard Fozzard					"Serendipity empowers"
University of Colorado			
fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu                   (303)492-8136 or 444-3168