And Now…Boo Apple! (and a small yay for them)
I don't want to be one of those blogs where the writer is always griping about something but an episode today just pissed me off and so I thought I'd take advantage of the old adage that a happy customer tells one person and a disgruntled one tells ten. I thought I'd tell whoever wanted to hear.
In addition to working on websites and blogs, we are now in the business of developing apps for the iPhone and Droid. I'm not going to go into that in any detail, because that isn't what this blog is about. However, as a necessary evil to this endeavor I purchased a Droid 2 Global by Motorola in February and convinced my (much) better half (akaTBH) to get an iPhone 4 the other day. After all, you can't test them if you don't have them, right?
When my Droid came in I was a little intimidated because it does a lot of stuff and there seem to be a gazillion apps available for it. I know that Apple has about ten times as many as Droid does but realistically I haven't needed an app yet where there wasn't something available and so I don't see the big deal about having 10X as many apps that all do the same thing.
Anyway, when I started using my Droid it consisted of turning it on and following the directions. It even came with enough battery life to get me through the setup. After that, it is a matter of learning to use it to its full potential. Sure, there are some bugs with it. The slider lock occasionally activates during the middle of an Angry Birds game for no reason that I can tell, and my fingers just do not seem to work on the screen keyboard very well, one of the reasons I got the Droid 2 with the slider keyboard. Still, overall it works good.
Then the Apple iPhone 4 came in. Kudos to Verizon, we ordered it late Tuesday and they had it FedEx'd to our house by 11:00 AM today, Thursday. No complaints there, other than the fact that they ported the number from our previous carrier on Wednesday, meaning no cell phone service from then until…
Which is the issue. My wife just spent 5 hours on the telephone with Verizon and Apple trying to get the damn thing to work. Of course, you have to hook it up to iTunes to do anything INCLUDING ACTIVATING IT! Stupid, stupid, stupid idea!
And after 5 hours? It still doesn't work and no one knows why.
So now we have to make a trip to the Apple store (45 miles away) because you can't exchange it or get them to fix it at a Verizon store (4 minutes away), you must go to Apple.
This method of doing business is the reason that almost everyone in the free world has Windows based PCs on their desk instead of Apple products. They should have learned from their mistakes back then.
Just give us something easy to use, that works with other people's stuff and doesn't shackle us into the Apple world.
The beauty of the iPod was that it was simple and, while you had to use iTunes to load and manage music, you could use your own CDs. By the way, did you know that the cord they use to load info onto the iPod isn't the same as the cord that is used to load onto the iPhone and the iPod touch? Why the hell not? Whose stupid idea was it to change cords? Can't you use one cord for both?
Now a kudo. The guy TBH spent hours on the telephone with at Apple was very nice and doing his best. At least he was pleasant. Dell lost a couple of dozen computer sales because their tech guys were asses to me years ago and refused to send me another CD with a media player on it to replace the one that didn't work on the computer I bought from them. THEN they refused to accept the fact that their computer did not have that CD in the box.
Remember folks, there are lots and lots of choices out there. Do it right and do it nice.
