Apple computers! I love them! I’ve had many of them, going all the way back to my Apple Macintosh plus that I got around 1987/1988 when I was attending Texas Tech University. I had been a Commodore 64 computer nerd throughout high school, but was ready for an upgrade. At the time I was attending Texas Tech, Apple had launched a student loan program which allowed me to purchase one of these beautiful Macintosh machines as a poor college student.
I was an Advertising major, and we had so many projects that were so much easier with all the advanced software programs that the Macintosh Plus had to offer. I was so happy! My Mac Plus fit perfectly on the corner of my drafting table, and there was even room for a printer on the floor. I was set.
That little computer and I spent many late nights together working on projects for my advertising classes. I could do all my work at home, transfer my project to a small disk (yes, a disk), and take it to Kinko’s to print out, and I always completed the projects just minutes before the deadline. Happy memories…
I pretty quickly outgrew that little Macintosh Plus and moved on up to the next computer, which I believe was the Macintosh Color Classic. I was a huge fan of their products. Expensive, but always worth it. That is, until my latest adventure with them…
For Christmas in 2019, Santa brought me a beautiful new 27-inch iMac with Retina display and 32GB of memory! I was set. Or so I thought. If you’ve never unboxed an Apple product, you need to quit reading this blog post, head to the Apple store and buy something. Anything. A phone, a laptop, a phone case, anything! Just so you can have the pleasure of unboxing something from the Apple store. When it comes to packaging, they’ve got it down for sure…
I opened the box, pulled out my shiny new toy and was ready to begin my journey of starting over – you know…setting up my favorites page, my toolbars, my fonts and font sizes, and all the other fun things you have to do when starting off with a new computer (or phone). Good times…
I had my tech savvy husband clear out my old computer to make room for my new one. He tidied up all the wires, got me a sweet swing arm so I could swivel the monitor, and transferred all my files to my shiny, new toy! Big mistake. But after all my past experience with Apple products being positive, I never dreamed this story would end the way it did…
For a few weeks, things were perfect. I wasn’t spending much time on my computer at first because it was the holidays, we were busy with family and friends, and I hadn’t had many photo shoots scheduled over the break. But once things cranked up again, I put my computer to the test. And sadly, it failed…
It all began with that spinning rainbow wheel that we all know and love…not. It would appear off and on throughout the day, but mostly when I was working with very large photo files. I was a little concerned because we had bought one of the biggest and baddest machine out there. One that should handle all my photo session files easily.
Must just be a little software glitch, I stupidly thought to myself. After all, if you’ve ever used Lightroom, my editing program, you wouldn’t be surprised by a glitch now and then. It’s awesome software, but it definitely can be glitchy. I continued to tell myself that it was probably a software glitch for several weeks. But then we progressed to the computer freezing up and restarting itself. If that hasn’t happened to you before, just know that it is very frustrating.
And it didn’t freeze up and restart itself just once. By the time Spring Break arrived (of 2020), my computer was restarting itself several times every day. We had spoken with Apple, and they said the first step was to strip it down to the basics and slowly add back software to determine what was causing the trouble.
Once we realized this was not solving the problem, they said take it in to an authorized Apple dealer repair shop. Because at this time, we were in lockdown due to COVID-19 restrictions, and all the Apple stores were closed.
Long story short – – my computer was in the shop two times, both times for several weeks. Came home both times, and the problem persisted. Many hours were spent on the phone with Apple, and apparently their hands were tied. Not sure why – – in the past, we would take something that wasn’t working in to the store, and they would replace it with very few questions asked.
This was the service I was hoping for with this crazy expensive computer. That was not the service I received, sadly. I considered jumping ship from Apple to something else, but really, what else is there if you’re working with photos? So here I am now, in September of 2020, typing on a brand new machine, that we had to buy, hoping that the same problem won’t occur…
So far, so good. But now I’m several thousand dollars in the hole, and I’m not happy with Apple. I tell you what, this COVID-19 thing is really messing things up. I’d like to think that it is the reason we were not handled in the normal “Apple way” this time. I’d like to think that if we had been able to drag this massive thing to the Apple store, that they would’ve said something like “We are so sorry for your trouble, Mrs. Mason. We will replace your giant, expensive desktop with a new machine. We can see here that you are quite a loyal customer and have been forever. So sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.”
Not at all what we heard from Apple this time. Oh well…maybe an Apple rep will read this blog post and send me an apology letter?? Or issue me a nice big check? Or maybe offer me free iPhones for life? Probably not, but it’s fun to think something like that could happen. In the meantime, I’ve cooled down quite a bit, and am once again an Apple fanatic with my iPhone, my iPad, my two laptops, and my brand new desktop! And so far, it has worked flawlessly. Just the way I expected my last desktop to work. Fingers crossed that things stay this way…
As I’m sure you can see from all the photos in this post, we are a total Apple family! We are those fools who stand in the long lines to be one of the first to get the new iPhone or Apple Watch. Yep…we’re those people. After all this craziness, I hope things settle back down (and work) so I can continue being a part of the giant, Apple universe.
My dream is that the spinning rainbow wheel does not make another appearance on this new machine… Happy computing! Until next time…