Appledrama: I want my Mac (don't care what I have to do)*

Michael Studman — Fri, 06 May 2005 23:00:00 -0400

So I decided to make the big leap into the Apple world. Actually, it turned out to be more like a sideways wobble.

Suffering from the Apple halo effect, I was quite happy to throw down £1100 for a nice new 12” Powerbook at the online Apple store. On their site, they state it’s ready to ship in 24hrs. With the 3-7 days of delivery time that should have meant I received my new baby at most a week after purchasing.

So I key in my credit card details and click submit faster than I’d accept a blow job from my gym instructor (Sammy, are you reading?) The first confirmation email I recieved gave a shipping date 48 business hours later (but I could have forgiven them that for just that).

And then came the 4 days of Applean silence.

After a rather shirty call to the Apple control centre and some fluffy appeasment by a call center operator with exactly the same information to hand as I had on my account screen at apple.com I was assured it would be ready to ship the next day.

Well, if “it” meant “disappointing news” and “ship” mean “send via SMTP” then exactly that happened – I received an email announcing that there had been “unprecedented demand” for my product, that the were “shipping as fast as possible” and were now likely to ship on or before the 11th April (9 days after I ordered it not including delivery time).

All of this I can forgive (I’m quite a forgiving kind of guy) except for one slight detail – Apple are still advising their potential customers by way of http://www.apple.com/uk/thestore that the 12” PowerBook Superdrive ships in 24hrs. This is patently not true so Apple are, by way of incompetence or intent, misrepresenting their shipping times. Since Apple haven’t yet taken my money I imagine none of this is illegal but as a Mac newbie this is clearly a very bad opening to what I expected would be a thrilling and empowering (if costly) relationship.

Anyway, once I get my Mac-fix I’m sure my mouthy opinions will quickly retreat back into Cupertino crack haze.

* Regarding the title, any self-respecting UK or Antipodean child of the eighties should remember Bananarama and their brilliantly plastic pop hit “I wan’t you back (don’t care what I have to do)”

full fathom five: Category Apple/Mac OSX

Appledrama: I want my Mac (don't care what I have to do)*