Tech Buying Guide...Just Say No To iPod?

Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler » Blog Archive » Once Again, I’m Reminded Why I Never Wasted Money on an Apple™

"You know, I really liked my iPod too. Nice little piece of hardware and it was extremely generous of the kind LC who sent it to me.
It’s a pity that the company making it are a bunch of con men.

Word to the wise: If you’ve got one and it’s working, steer clear of Apple’s “updates”. I made the mistake of thinking that they knew what they were doing, downloaded it and installed it. Big mistake. It promptly farked up the iPod. Wouldn’t even power up after that, just gave me one of those extremely informative and utterly useless Apple™ icons telling me that the drive was kaput.
Now, at first I wasn’t bothered too much. After all, I had all the songs safely stored on my hard drive and, after all, what do you expect from a company with an impressive market share of, what was it again, 0.0000003%?
I’d just re-format the damn thing and port my songs back onto it, no biggie.
Wrong again.
Oh, it went through the motions."

Sounds pretty much like the same scam being run in one way or another on just about anything to do with high-tech. The days of purchasing something and having the warranty regarded as sacrosanct are pretty much over unless, heaven forbid, Congress steps in and legislates customer service back into sales considerations.

Purchased my new Dell PC not all that long ago and customer service consists of speaking to someone to whom English is an imaginary language that can be spoken in so very many ways but never the same way twice. This kind of anti-service must save them a bundle on picayune items, with most people simply giving up if their PC is just slightly farked and learning to live with glitch after glitch because the alternative is speaking with Swahibby DumDum until you can actually feel your brain liquefying and dribbling from your ears. My very first home computer was purchased in late 1990 and the simple warranty meant someone actually came to my house, and that was fortunate for me because I bought a system with a crapped out motherboard. Was an IBM and the whole magilla was replaced without my having to spend a penny and why was it that I didn't get another IBM when I wanted to retiure my old Hewlitt-Packard? Oh yeah, I fell for the customer service angle hook, line, and snicker.

Anyway, let's all stand behind Misha and boycott iPod. There. Now ten percent of my readership will actually respond and that means Apple sells 10 fewer of their crappy product. Yeah baby, we rule.