Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Dear Tim Cook’s office,

It is with regrets that I have to make contact with your office directly with the hope that you can resolve an outstanding issue I have been having for many months with my MBP retina 13inch late 2013 model (serial number: ---).

I originally purchased this mac in Feb 2014. However, issues with its performance shortly appeared around May the same year - Kernel panic, blank screen when wakes up from sleep and rainbow wheel appeared regularly even when doing simple video editing etc. I was finishing my Masters at the time, therefore, I needed a reliable machine to enable me to complete my projects, this has had a negative impact on what I consider a very important period of my life.

I finally managed to bring this Mac to the Apple store in Covent Garden in London; your technician had come to a conclusion that the issues were software related, therefore, we did a complete clean install of the machine in the store and I was sent home with a promise that it should put an end to the issues.

However, the only issue that this visit seems to have resolved is Kernel panic, other issues remains. In additions to this, a new issue appears - my Mac isn’t able to generate thumbnails of images placed on the desktop, it sometimes only only able shows the generic icon of jepgs or whatever file format used.

Due to my busy schedule, I was only able to bring my Mac back to the same store in Feb this year, the technician then said it was definitely hardware related. As a result. the logic board was replaced, together with the screen, which was without my knowledge. I am afraid to say that not only did this repair fail to resolve issues of my Mac, I also now have a broken screen (there is a physical dent on the screen, which means the technician was not careful enough when replacing a screen that I did no authorise).

I then brought my Mac back to the store as soon as the outstanding issues resurfaced within days, your staff at the same store once again took my Mac in for for further testing. When they returned my Mac to me, they told me that they finally got to the bottom of the problem - there is a bug between OS X 10.9.2 - 10.9.5, as there was a memo circulated internally informing staff how to fix it. They were confident that this will put an end to the issues.

However, issues persist, so I decided perhaps it’s time to upgrade to OS X 10.10, as this should get rid of any bug in OS X 10.9. However, with great disappointment, this did not help at all, so I contacted Apple care as per suggested by the senior staff at the Apple store, I got to speak to a senior staff in Ireland. who told me that he would like to dig to the bottom the issue for me.

I told him I have ran out of my patience long ago and that Apple has wasted enough of my time trying to fix an issue that, I believe, you don’t know the cause of. I said I would like to have a replacement machine so I actually get to use a machine that works. He politely refused my request and ask me to forward him evidence of the issues, which I will include for your reference at the end of this email.

It took this senior staff a whole week to reply to my email, which was 6 days longer than what he originally promised over the phone. He told he wanted to me capture data logs and send him such data alongside with my list of times and dates when the issues of blank screen happened, which I did. He finally got back to me last night telling that the log doesn’t go as far back as he would like, which contradicts with what he told me over the phone prior to me capture the data log: I already warned him that I had preformed another clean install and that I am now running 10.10, so data might not go back more than a couple of weeks. He now asks me to capture data logs again when the issues happen again, which is something I am not willing to do, for 2 simple reasons: I have wasted enough of my time trying to help your staff to fix my Mac and so I am not willing to waste anymore. As much as said senior staff doesn’t think asking a customer to monitor their Mac and capture data log is a waste of time, I beg to differ. The other reason being I have paid for a premium product from a company that takes pride in delivering excellent quality of both hardware and software, as well as efficient customer service, Apple has failed me on all counts.

I hereby ask your office to resolve this issues for me as soon as possible in the way of replacing my Mac with a new one. I do not consider this request to be unreasonable considering I have already made 4 attempts in trying to get this current unit fixed. My patience has ran out a long time ago. I will be reminding myself the UK consumers rights legislations and actions would be taken accordingly if I am still not being taken seriously.

There are other customer service issues I would like to bring to your attention, as having been an Apple customer for well over 10 years, I have noticed a drop in the quality in customer service, efficiency of your staff as well as the technician knowledge of your technician staff, both over the phone and in store. All of these imperfections are enough reasons for me to seriously consider not being an Apple customer in the future, my recommendations to our students has been and will always be an honest reflection of my personal experience.

I would be happy to spend time giving you detailed feedback on the above outlined areas once your have resolved issues on my Mac.