Complaints for iPad 2/Customer Support

Please bear with me, I am new and extremely dissatisfied/frustratedwith Apple’s hardware, software and customer support.

I received my apple iPad 2 the day before yesterday (orderedthrough AAFES). I am abroad working inKuwait with the military. I charged thedevice (of course with the supplied charger and cable), plugged it into mylaptop, which has the most recent iTunes, registered my product and powered iton. After less than a minute of checkingthe device I noticed a dead (not misfired, but dead) pixel. My first reactive step was to reset the ipad,hoping that would help. Reset was successful, but did not correct the dead pixel. I then connected to the net through my wifi router and d/l a couple basecolor photos to see if this would show some reaction from the pixel, the pixeldid not change… it’s dead.

I took the iPad 2 to the nearest distributor in Kuwait. The representative verified that it was adead pixel and notified me that Kuwait doesn’t “officially” support iPad 2 yetand that they have just gained the support for iPad 1 and that I must contactApple in the States.

I went through the motions and attempted to do an RMA through the net… BUT, Apple will not mail a device to an APO (their reasoninghad something to do with signature confirmation not being available at APO…which I know as a fact is bogus because I work for the APO and yes, we sign forALL accountable items… delivery confirmation, insured, certified and registeredmail on the PS Form 3883 and when a customer picks up their parcel, they sign aPS Form 3849, so please Apple, get your information straight!). So because of this dilemma, I had to call thecustomer service center.

Luckily I have VOIP because it’s roughly $1 to $2 a minuteto call the US from Kuwait (no, 800 numbers aren’t toll free for internationalcalls, just in case anyone did not know that). The representative was kind and curious, so no complaint with himpersonally. He asked me to go to a localstore, I filled him in on all the steps I took and asked if I can just ship itto a service center and if they could send me a shipping label (yes, Apple,good customer service departments actually DO pay for a shipping label), he putme on hold to see if he could get approval from senior officer, I mean seniorsupport specialist (I’m guessing it was a “lead” and not a “supervisor”). He told me that was a no go. He asked when I would be in America on leave…this is not an option for me in my position. The ONLY option he could give me was for me to ship my device to a friend/familymember, have them go to a retail store, have them “test” the device, then havemy family member/friend ship it back to me. This is very very very problematic for me for soooo many reasons. First off, it seemed as though, through hisvoice/tone that they would not replace my item with a new item… meaning, theywould repair the BRAND NEW LEMON for me. Second thing is, my only point of contact, my mother, is inFayetteville/Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. The rep told me that the nearest service center is in Raleigh, NorthCarolina. That is about a two hourdrive, or course depending on traffic; meaning my mom, would have to dedicate aminimum of 4 hours driving. Next issueis economics, gas is not cheap, and my mom drives a (constant) 4x4 FordExplorer… $$$. Not Apple’s fault, Iknow. Next thing is, if they arerepairing the device, how long would that take? She would probably have to drop it off and pick it up later on in theweek. That now puts us to 8 hours of traveltime, and pretty much two days out of my mom’s schedule. And the last issue would be, I should now berequired to keep a LEMON. I want a brandnew, fully functional device, THAT is what I paid for.

How can a company which, according to its June earningsreport, has $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities treat theirconsumers in such a fashion??? (According to the latest statement from the US Treasury, the governmenthas a cash balance of $73.8 billion, as of Wednesday, FYI.) This is total and utter bullsh*t.

I will next rant about my hates about their software; I mustremind you that I’m a newb to iTunes and supporting software (I own a coupleiPod classics and had an iPhone 1, but the software continues to mutate).

The iPad 2 Safari browser will not natively allow one todownload… anything. But for $5 you cango ahead and pay Apple $5 to buy their Safari downloader.

In order to download “FREE” apps from iTunes, you MUST enter your creditinformation… Apple has two work-arounds for this, you can BUY an iTunes prepaidcard… um, guys, please define to me the word, FREE; next (as the rep told me onthe phone) I can register with my credit card, and delete it out later on…hmmmmm I bet it is still saved on the server. Anyone know what just happened to Sony’s network recently? Yeah, I’m wondering about the legality ofthis, but I’m not a lawyer and US e-laws are about 20 years out dated anyways.

As I said earlier, I reset my device, from the device. I tried to do this again, and it would justhang on the black screen with the apple logo and a non-responsive statusbar. So I tried to reset through iTunes. You can’t just reset the device,you are REQUIRED to have an internet connection and download the newestsoftware. This is fine if you’re always plugged in, I might not even complain if I was in the US right now… but torequire that is ridiculous… not to mention, if one were to have their device jailbroken (yup, Apple, you lost in court, so deal with it… not just in America,America took a long time to finally tell you that, MULTIPLE countries sewed you and found your tactics unlawful); this makes it difficult to use you free,non-big-brother approved software.

You cannot natively test your video, audio or microphone quality. Wow, you guys could at leastload an Apple commercial on your device so someone could watch and listen toit. So I have to d/l skype just to testmy microphone (I’m sure there are many other programs, but the fact that I haveto go out of my way just to make sure the device works, is just, wow, non-expletivesjust can’t explain it).

And last, and probably least, they could have put a couple songs, videos, pictures or games on there. Not a big deal, but if this is supposed to be such an awesome device,Apple, show it off, don’t just advertise and trick the end users into believingthat they will have a nifty device right out of the box. Do you other users actually pay the extracouple hundred dollars for your programs like Apple wants?.. or are you alljail breaking and unlocking?

I’m sorry to all you die hard Apple lovers if you areoffended, and I’m sorry if I’m naïve or maybe a little ignorant to the “Appleway of life,” but if Microsoft did this, everyone would flip out. Heck, they got sued for adding extra stuff totheir OS; but, it’s ok for Apple to make their devices so minimalistic that it’shardly better than a word processor with web browsing capability and a couplecameras? I like my Kindle a lot more, it’san ebook, advertised as an ebook, works as an ebook, and they added some cool extras like text to voice and web browsing.

Ok, I’m done for now. Can anyone please give me some information on how I can get this POS replaced with a brand new, in the box, sealed and fully functional (lol, well,as functional as the iPad 2’s come, out of the box)? If not, how can I spread my complaint as farand wide as possible? And with that,does anyone know the buyer’s remorse policy on electronics? (oh, AAFES won’t give one ounce of supportfor Apple products, normally they would give a 15 day, but for Apple, becausethere have been SO MANY issues, they no longer assist, as a matter of fact,when you buy an Apple device from them, you have to sign a paper saying thatyou understand that if the device is defective or inoperable in any way, thatyou will not ask AAFES for help… at least in the local PX’s here.)

PS I appologize for the typoeees, I cut and pasted all this and for some reason it smushed some of the words together.