So as I blogged about on November 22, I received my new iMac at the end of November. Things were moving along nicely about 6 or 7 days in when I began to notice a small flicker about 1/3 of the way down the screen. Once started it would get consistently worse until you either had to shut it down or restart. I put up with this for a few days while I did some research, and at the time there were just a few isolated reports of this problem with the new 27″ iMacs. So when I called Apple, they offered to replace it or I could take the system in to the nearest Apple Store (which is 60km away) and see if they could help. So not really wanting to send back the new machine I had waited so long for and was just starting to break in, I had tech support make me an appointment and I took in the machine two days later. (On a side note, if you search for “27″ iMac Screen Flickering” now, you will find a ton of reports and sites about it, as well as some videos on YouTube of the problem occurring)

Upon arriving at the Apple Store I was helped immediately and when it came time for my appointment I brought my gigantic box over to the counter and we started. I explained the problem and he turned on the iMac to see if he could duplicate the problem. For me, it had normally taken awhile before I would see flickering and it wasn’t happening every time I used it. As he put a full load on all 4 cores of the processor and tried to see if the stress of a full load would make the problem pop we talked about my options. As had been confirmed previously, because I had reported the problem so quickly I was within my 14 day return period, so I could return the machine for a full refund, get the machine replaced with a new one, or they could order in the parts and replace the logic board at the store. I was also told that if I got a replacement machine I would receive priority since I had a faulty machine. Since I’m not a huge fan of replacing major components in the first two weeks of a computers life, especially one that I paid a pretty penny for, and since, as these things seem to go, we couldn’t get the flickering to occur for the tech’s viewing pleasure, I decided to get a new machine. The disappointing part was that no, he couldn’t set that up, and no I couldn’t keep my existing machine, have the new one sent to the store and just come and swap it out. I had to come home, call Apple and book a return through them.

So the next morning, bright and early I got up and called Apple and initiated a return. How that works is that Apple marks the computer as being returned, they email you some shipping labels to be placed on your return box, and then you contact UPS to arrange to have the item sent back. You have 16 days to complete this. I was assured once again that I would receive priority as a replacement machine and that my order would be placed at the top of the queue to ensure a new machine was back out to me asap. They will not however start the process until UPS has scanned the shipment onto their truck for the return. This scan apparently gets uploaded to Apple and they can begin the magic on their end. So I boxed up my iMac, took it down to the UPS Store here in town. Made sure I had it there by 2:30 well before the afternoon UPS pickup and waited.

So the next day I checked my status, and the return still showed awaiting return, and the new machine was now showing on my web order as “Waiting To Be Produced” with and estimated ship date of Dec 19 and delivery of Dec 22. Now, I waited (with no problem) almost two weeks the first time to get my machine, then had if for a little over 10 days, and now was looking at a 22 day wait to get my replacement machine back, needless to say I was frustrated. But not wanting to be an impatient asshole who won’t wait let things take their course, I thought I would wait to see once the system got updated with the UPS scan if dates would change and things would be adjusted for this “priority shipment”. By the end of the next day nothing had changes so I called Apple again. I spoke with a really nice gentlemen, who listened to my whole story, apologized profusely for the troubles and went about seeing what he could do. He called 5 different departments while I patiently held, reporting back to me his progress as he went between calls trying to get my build date moved up. In the end, with much apology he assured me there was nothing he could do, that there was just not enough parts to fulfill the demand for machines and he had no other avenues to exhaust on my behalf. Frustrated but satisfied and thanked him and went on with my day.

Low and behold the next day I got an email from Apple asking me if I had been satisfied with my recent call to their support line, and that if I still had outstanding issues, to email back with my name, phone number and a time of day that I would like to receive a call back, and someone would call me. I did this, and much to my surprise, someone called. A very nice lady from Texas named Kristen. Now she did call me before I got home from work so she had left a number and extension to reach her at. I called her back on a Friday night, thanked her for her call and asked her to call me. So about 10:30 on Saturday morning Kristen called. We talked about the scenario, she assured me she would do everything she could to speed it along, but that in the end, there might be nothing she can do. She said she would keep me in the loop via email and apologized again and thanked me for my patience etc etc etc. I was going to leave it there when surprisingly she offered to make sure my replacement computer was sent express and refund me any shipping costs from the first shipment, and give me an Apple Online Store $150 dollar credit. I was very impressed that I hadn’t had to yell and scream or act like a bully to get offered any sort of compensation, and even more impressed that I didn’t have to even really ask for it, it was just sort of offered. I took her credit and goodwill and waited.

For the next week not much really happened and I had emailed her to let her know that the defective computer was still not showing returned on my web order, even though according to the UPS tracking information it had been delivered to the Apple Warehouse here in Canada. Again she called me, got all the pertinent details and updated the system manually. She said that she was monitoring my order and would let me know if anything happened.

As it turned out, not much happened until the 11th or 12th of December when my machine went from “Waiting To Be Produced” to “Waiting To Ship”. And finally on December 12th (half the time they originally said it was going to take) my replacement machine shipped. I followed it eagerly from China to Alaska to New Brunswick to Ontario to Alberta. And finally late on the 17th my replacement iMac arrived. Unfortunately due to Christmas I hadn’t had much of a chance to play with it the first couple of days and on the 19th I was putting it through it’s paces when I noticed a slight flicker. It only happened briefly, but it happened. So I sent this email on the 19th to Kristen;

“Hi Kristen,

I received my replacement iMac on Thursday night as per my previous email. This morning I started to see a flicker. It hasn’t come back yet, but I imagine that it is only a matter of time. Please advise whether I need to talk to you, or to tech support. One thing I won’t be doing is sending it back and waiting for a replacement. I would like Apple to send ANOTHER replacement and I will send this back when it arrives. Let me know if you can help with that. I feel really bad because you’ve been so awesome to me. But I don’t know what else to do…. Please help.”

Much to Kristen’s credit, she did call back on Monday morning to discuss and left a message for me to call her so we could make arrangements, and that she would definitely be able to accommodate my request etc etc. When I didn’t call her back right away she called again later that day to see if she could catch me. Unfortunately none of us were home yet and we missed her second call as well. That night Apple released a software patch that was supposed to fix the problem, as it turned out, the flickering was not a hardware or cooling problem but rather a software problem. Some upgraded firmware was supposed to do the trick. So when I came home from work on December 21st to find a message from Kristen letting me know about the patch and to try it and see if it works, I was delighted. Maybe I could have a working iMac without more headaches. As it turned out the patch seems to have worked, and (fingers crossed) I haven’t had any more problems since. I’ve been using Photoshop, Illustrator, iPhoto, iDVD, watching movies and playing WoW on my beautiful new iMac with nary a problem.

To wrap up, I think what Apple has had on their side for a very long time has been the reputation of putting out well designed, well manufactured work horses that just perform. That coupled with a packaging and unboxing experience second to none, I have come to expect a lot from Apple, in fact, when my iMac arrived the first time I was worse than a 5 year old on Christmas morning. But when the shit hit the fan with my iMac it really put my faith in Apple and their products to the test because when it comes to things I hate, being made to feel the fool is almost certainly right near the top. I’m also am not nearly as gooshy and fanboyish about my new iMac as I would have been had it worked from the beginning, and I’m going to be watching Apple a lot closer to see if maybe popularity has brought them back to earth a little bit and made them more like the Dell and HP’s of the world with their best days behind them. But one thing that keeps coming back to my mind is that in the end, Apple made it work, they were respectful, courteous and willing to help whenever I called and almost as importantly, they didn’t make me feel like I had to turn into the Incredible Hulk in order to get anywhere with them. So I leave with these questions and my answers, or at least my answers for right now.

Did having to get a very expensive machine replaced right off the hop take the shine and excitement off a purchase I was very much looking forward to? Why yes, yes it did.

Am I worried Apples popularity might be coming at the expense of their quality? I sure am, when you’re struggling to push millions of something out the door, there’s a sacrifice somewhere right?

Was the care and support I received better than any other help desk, or warranty support I’ve ever had before? It sure was.

Will I buy Apple again? Unless they go to shit, I most certainly will.

Will I recommend Apple to others? Yup, but I will also blog about my experiences as a cautionary tail.

If I could go back, knowing what was going to happen and save all the money I spent, and instead buy a spanky Windows 7 machine for half the price, would I? Nope, still wouldn’t do that.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iMac, Screen Flicker