Hey all - here's a copy of the "letter" i sent to Apple using their "feedback" page - it will sound depressingly familiar to most of you - so if you don't want to bother reading it i won't be insulted! but i'd like some feedback myself from anyone who can be bothered...
*CAUTION: LONG BORING STUFF STARTS HERE!*
Dear Apple Folks,
I struggled with choosing an appropriate "type" for this feedback - just as i struggled with the question of writing it in the first place. I have had the experience so far of going to a Genius with this problem on two occasions only to be met with disinterested skepticism on one occasion and disinterested dismissal on another another.
Here in a nutshell is my experience. I have a MBP 17" 2.16 Core Duo, GPU is the ATI 1600 - purchased new in july of 2006. for the first 15 months i had absolutely no problems at all. i was ecstatically happy with my powerful and well designed machine and i felt that the experience had totally made up for the
terrible experience i had had with my Titanium PB (a subject for another letter). sadly, i didn't purchase Applecare probably because i couldn't see any fundamental design flaws with this machine.
However, around 16 months i began to notice two things: my machine while never exactly running 'cool' began to run noticeably hotter - it became impossible to use on my lap while wearing shorts. up till now that experience had been somewhat toasty but not painful... but the other problem was far more serious.
i began to have pixelated colored lines appear running horizontally across my screen... these were about 1-2 pixels in width and usually ran across 75-100% of my screen. it took me a week or two to figure out that they were associated with the temperature of my machine, apparently when my machine hit around 70 deg C. as this was a fairly regular state of affairs it was - to say the least - somewhat dissappointing and distracting. it also seemed that the temp would increase the most and the fastest when i was streaming video content from the internet... i began to be unable to get thru even a short 10 min clip without the lines appearing.
then about 3-4 months later things took a turn for the worse. i began to experience frequent screen freezes - audio would continue to play but the picture on my screen would be totally frozen and my mouse would be unresponsive. occasionally the screen wouldn't just freeze it would go totally dark (with any audio continuing to play as before).
faced with this now debilitating problem. the fact is that i need to have access to streamed video for my work - one of the reasons i
picked this machine in the first place - the large screen and discreet high quality video card made it seem ideal. the genius who 'helped' me was less than helpful. after telling me - *without bothering to replicate the problem* - that my temps were "within spec" and since i was using VLC as my primary viewing program that it was "most likely a software issue". this despite my repeated statements that the problem was if anything even
worse viewing streams using Quicktime Player. all in all he basically refused to
believe - or at least
acknowledge that there was any kind of problem at all.
needless to say i was dissatisfied but since i wasn't going to get any kind of solution i packed up and went home. after doing a cursory search on the internet i found a pair of utilities - Fan Control and SMC Fan Control - whose sole job was to help regulate overheating issues with the MBP line of machines. well obviously this meant that i wasn't the only person experiencing this problem - people had actually went to the effort to develop not one but
two applications do deal specifically with this problem.
these apps helped - to a point. it was now possible for me to get thru a 30 min stream of video without too much in the way of pixelated lines appearing (still there from time to time but smaller and less often) as long as i had the fans going at 5-6000rpms (annoying and noisy). however - trying to watch a 90min or more stream would result in freezes or blackouts *100% of the time*.
that's right - every time.
this prompted my 2nd visit to a Genius - where i was told that it was obviously the third party software that was causing my problems and that the overheating was because i wasn't using the MBP on a hard smooth surface... this despite the fact that it is called a "laptop"! and despite the fact that i could easily watch movies with the MBP on my chest while lying down *the entire first 15 or so months i owned the machine* something i was no longer able to do even on a smooth flat surface.
he, at least, suggested i send it in - but cautioned me that, because i had not puchased Applecare any repairs were most likely going to be expensive - i pointed out that this seemed obviously to be a hardware issue and thus a design or manufacturer's defect. none the less i was told - its out of warranty, best to just *buy a new machine*. well - that seemed unacceptable, so now my $2700 top-of-the-line machine was practically useless for my work. i began to use my girlfriends 3+ year old $600 Dell to watch streaming video - a task it performed without a hitch (it also had
far better airport reception but that's another topic)...
in the last few months i have been struggling with alternative methods for dealing with this problem. using everything from Fan Control and Coolbook (yet
another application developed to address this issue that supposedly doesn't exist) to actually placing my MPB on blocks of plastic i had put in the freezer... these help but do not eradicate the problem, and i am left asking *why a computer that was purchased 2.5 years ago for $2700 - a top-of-the-line computer - is now practically unusable in a professional fashion while a crappy Dell, purchased 3.5 years ago for $600 is able to outperform it without even getting more than slightly warm*.
then - a few weeks ago, i found this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9534516#9534516
and was immediately struck by the number of MBP users who report *the exact same symptoms!* this is obviously not a case of a single problematic machine,
*there is a problem here* and i would love Apple to admit it - just as it did with its Nvidia line of MBP's.
these are your *core customers* Apple. they
want to stay loyal, we are begging you to fix this issue with our otherwise
excellent machines.
please
don't just send me back a canned response and continue to deny there's a problem. the negative experience i had with my Ti PB almost soured me on Apple machines forever, but it seemed that it was just one "bad apple" - now it seems that perhaps Apple's default response to any design or manufacturing flaws is to simply deny they exist.
Please, we are people - mostly professionals - who have made up the core group of committed customers (and evangelists) for the last how many years? we are not idiots - if this many of us say that we all have the *exact same problem,* why can't you listen to us?
the bottom line is i expect more than 16 months of usability from a top-of-the-line professional machine that has been used in an entirely "normal" fashion.
please help us with this issue by either offering to replace the GPU or otherwise fix this issue *at little or no cost* - or at the very least give us a generous credit for trading in our machines for a
new machine - that way we
both benefit! we're willing to listen to *any reasonable* offer, we want to continue to be loyal customers and Apple evagelists, help us make it happen.
sincerely,
bennett steinmuller
Apple customer since 1987!
