So, in your experience, what went wrong in the Macs?

Sunnz

Sunnz

Who wants a stylus?
I have only been using Macs for 6 months, haven't had any problems yet... but quite contrary to my experience, I heard a lot about the Mac isn't as good as it used to be... it had all kinds of problem... I guess the new one being the one with Intel chip and the old one being PPC. And people saying they liked the iBook more than the MacBook... which I really can't understand!!!

So I was wondering, maybe it is because I never owned a PPC Mac to realise what a Mac should be capable of? I always use PPC Macs at school, can't really tell the difference... except that my newer, Intel Macs is faster!!! :p

So may I just ask, if you had any problems with newer Macs, what were the problems? Would they have happen back in the PPC days where the QA is supposedly better?

Cheers.
 
The only Mac i have ever owned is my 2 year old PPC pBook. Apart from the fact it was dropped 3 times (needing 2 new hard drives, expensive for a student but atleast she still runs like the first day I got her) I cant say I have had any problems.

I did have a flat mate that brought a new intel macBook, the first mac she has ever owned and I cant say she has had any problems. There were issues with heating, quality control and things like that in macBook pros that i know of. One of my friends had one (a macBook pro) and im pretty sure he didnt have problems. It did look damn fine too.

To be honest, while they would be problems with the new macs (since people complain), I would doubt its nothing compaired to most, if not all other companys. The fact that we (mac users) complain is what pushes apple to deliver better and better products.

Or atleast thats what I think when we have all these negative threads on the forums. Its all good for apple :)
 
I can't imagine any problems except for people at 1st being ticked for moving to intel. I have not heard anything. I used an iBook and it sucked and was major freakin' slow.

Hey I'm not far from you currently.. Auckland NZ
 
Apple has had a lot of history with their PPC line. I think they've learned a lot from their mistakes in the past, and apart from new problems specific to the Intel chip - I think we can expect a lot fewer mistakes in the future.

Remember: A company that innovates, makes more mistakes but learns more from them and has a superior product in the end.
 
When I got my MacBook it got too hot without the fan kicking in for keeping it cool. Its keyboard-surrounding plastic has turned orangey-brown, which kinda defies the purpose of the beautifully designed white plastic. Battery life was better at the beginning, it's much shorter now (and yes I *do* keep it 'fit'). *NEVER* had such problems with my PowerBook 150 back in the 90s! ;)

Well, that PB 150 was very good, albeit slow, and it _really_ didn't get hot. But its battery life was less than the MB's from the beginning and of course the plastic was dark, which wouldn't show wear so quickly anyway. So I'm just kidding, really. Love my MacBook.
 
Timotheos said:
There were issues with heating, quality control and things like that in macBook pros that i know of.
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Umm may I ask exactly what quality control and 'things like that' problem it had? Any links??

I got a MacBook now, thinking of going MacBook Pro sometime in the future. (When I finish school.)
 
MacBook Pro:
- DVD drive failed.
- repalcement DVD drive fails to burn discs more often than it succeeds
- gets very very very hot
- I hear the whine a lot

Apple is definitely having some teething issues as they expand too fast to keep up, but I still love my MacBook Pro. The DVD drive thing is annoying, but that's really the only serious thing, and I dont tend to use it much anyway.
 
How hot does it actually get??

Sometimes I can feel the heat from the left side of the keyboard of my MacBook, it is hot but still 'typable'. It cools after a while if I put it into asleep. I got the black one so I don't see any yellow thing that happens on the white ones yet...
 
I don't think the "not like it used to be" is necessarily connected to the Intel switch. It reaches back further to the time when Macs used scsi HDs and other higher quality parts.

My older Macs - 2 LC IIIs and a 6500 (one of the first IDE equipped Macs) - still run flawlessly as typing stations and e-mail stations. The toilet seat iBook was a work horse and handled everything I threw at it and never missed a beat until the repairman folded the keyboard cable wrong when upgrading the HD. :-\ In short - things lasted forever and upgrades were choices, not necessities.

White iBooks were another matter altogether. The G3 motherboard problem just plain stank. I lost one 14 incher before Apple extended the warrantee and then had to replace the board 3 times on the 12 inch I bought as a replacement. The 12 inch finally died a final time in December. Four major failures of one machine, more than all other failures on many machines going back to 1992.

We were not accustomed to problems with dead pixels on laptops, or bad battery life, or out of the box HD failures that have happened in recent years as Apple has used more "mainstream" components. I can't remember a battery recall before this one (ok - I blame it on Sony, but still....)

Upgrades were less contentious back when also. Software Update is usually good, but a few fixes needed to be fixed - notably the update to Jaguar that fried many peoples batteries (my battery life dropped from just under 2 hours to about 10 minutes) and a firewire foul-up with one of the Panther upgrades.

Still, even worse than before is better than the other options. I read somewhere that about 25% of Dell laptops fail in the first month or so.

Fortunately first impressions are lasting ones and so my first impressions hold me through the recent less stellar times. I am happy with my white Macbook, not worried about the heat (my G4 iBook was hotter) and looking forward to newer and better stuff.
 
I'd say these days Apple is after 6months deadline, so proper QC suffers. Back in the 90's things were different, new hardware rarely came out every 6months they had plenty of time. And there weren't cheapo, poor quality components those days. Nowadays the fake industry makes anything even HDTV's :eek:
 
I have one of the earlier MacBook Pros. And it has been ok, but had some issues with the superdrive and does get pretty hot.

I don't think anything went seriously wrong with the Macs. It's more of a shakeout when they moved from PPC to Intel.

Basically, if I had had the chance I would have used the same sound advice used with cars. Never buy a car in it's first model year. There are always small kinks that need to be worked out.
 
I have heard there have been quality control problems (a fair few mentioning it in the Mac section of ADSLGuide) - although most people tend to complain about the quality (or lack thereof) of repairs.
 
HeliAnimal said:
Holy Crap.. I'm in Tauranga right now! Crazy small world! i'm going to Rotorua today. I haven't seen one Apple store in NZ.
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AFAIK there are no Apple Stores in Australia... only resellers... I guess it is similar in NZ?
 
Sunnz said:
How hot does it actually get??

Sometimes I can feel the heat from the left side of the keyboard of my MacBook, it is hot but still 'typable'. It cools after a while if I put it into asleep. I got the black one so I don't see any yellow thing that happens on the white ones yet...
Click to expand...

my MBP is typable, but the bottom of it, and the bar that runs across the top of the keyboard gets damn hot, sometimes literally too hot to touch. When doing anything intensive like 3D rendering I have to point my fan directly at it, or place it in the fridge because it gets so darn hot it would surely be shortening the lifespan.

I got a 7200rpm hard disk, which probably doesn't help matters.

this yellowing macbooks is a real issue. i'm trying to convince my sister to get one, but I'm worried about the discoloration. I'm surprised apple haven't found a fix yet.She actually wants to get it coloured pink, but I can't find any australiancolorware-type places.
 
Ahh cool they ship internationally too... (link) though it is very expensive...

Maybe you can try ask at MacTalk, an Australian Mac forum.

Anyway, the bottom of my MacBook gets pretty hot too. I can put my hand under the desk and feel the heat from there!!! I guess this was not the case with G4? Is it the processor that's hot or a combination of mobo, hdd, cpu?

What about performance-wise? The Intel should blow away the G4 on paper... but I have heard that people can go without a shutdown/reboot for months, where I can't really do it with my MacBook. The max uptime I had is 10 days? Is this normal with MacBook or???
 
It should be noted the MB Pros that get really hot are the first generation models (pre Core2Duo).

The Core2Duo version I have hasn't got any hotter than my PowerBook (last G4 model made) did. In fact, I almost have to say its cooler.

As far as speed...it blows the G4 away from my experience. Even Photoshop CS2 seems to run faster (that's under Rosetta, mind you) on the MB Pro. In something like Seti, there's a huge advantage. MB Pro does 2 work units in one hour and forty minutes, while the G4 1.67 did one work unit in four hours thirty minutes.
 
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