After spending more than $1,700 for a MacBook Air, $249 for AppleCare support, Farmington resident Judi Gordon expected better telephone assistance than she received.
Switching from PC to an Apple product, Gordon needed help in figuring out some of the differences in their operating programs. With a baby at home, driving to an Apple store for her $99 One To One personal assistance or using the free Genius Bar was too difficult.
So she tried calling AppleCare:
“When paying this kind of money I would expect Premium Service. However every time I have ever called I have had to wait at least 20 minutes to speak to a representative. It was one thing during the holidays when I know it’s difficult to meet demand, but I just called yesterday and had to wait nearly 25 minutes,” she wrote me.
“I have had no specific issues – just questions about how to do things as I have used PCs all of my life. Yesterday I was trying to import a movie into iTunes to transfer to my iPad and iPhone and it was not working.”
I think she has a good point, even though I have had great service with the One-on-One program and lots of help from the Genius Bar, where I am going today because my MacBook Pro won’t start up.
If someone is going to pay a large fee for extended warranty and telephone service, they should not have to wait 20 minutes to talk to a representative.
Here is what Apple says about its warranty program, without of course mentioning wait times:
Every Mac and Apple display comes with a one-year limited warranty and up to 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support. Extend your coverage to three years from your hardware product’s original purchase date with the AppleCare Protection Plan. You get direct, one-stop access to Apple’s award-winning telephone technical support for questions about Apple hardware, OS X, and Apple applications such as iLife and iWork. And you get global repair coverage for your Mac and Apple display through convenient service options.
Tell us what has been YOUR experience.
“
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I don’t get it, her main gripe is that she had to sit on hold? Was there anything actually wrong with the service? What makes her more important than the millions of other Apple users out there?
I suspect you’d find that wait time is similar to other computer makers. You should try calling at less busy times of the day and week (mornings, evenings, weekends).
And do keep in mind that, for a good number of computer issues, a phone call is not the most efficient means of reaching a solution.
In the future, I would also encourage you to avail yourself of the other troubleshooting solutions at your disposal. Such as web searches and your local Apple User Group. For example, the group that has been meeting in the Hartford area since 1984, Connecticut Macintosh Connection. Just do a web search for — mac connecticut — and you’ll find us in the top search results.
A Google search on how to add videos to iTunes turns up an excellent tutorial on Apple’s website for the first result. They have a lot of helpful videos for their software on the site as well.
AppleCare is a total rip! I have an older (2006) Macbook, and in 2009, which was still under AppleCare. The computer wouldn’t go to sleep when I closed the lid, so it would overheat and/or run down the battery. I brought it to the Genius bar to get fixed, and was immediately told that because the (soft plastic) case was scratched, that they wouldn’t honor the warranty because I had “abused the computer.” This was a laptop that I had carried, as intended, with me in a padded sleeve for 3 years of grad school, of course it was scuffed, but in no way abused. I was irate and swore to never buy Apple again. this did not last long.