Apple IPOD quality issues
Apple has the hot product with the IPOD but quality of the product seems to be severely lacking at times. Several cases have been noted in which the company apparently made a design mistake and chose to not recall the product. The highest profile example was with the battery of early generations IPODs which would die after limited use (e.g. 18 months). This resulted in a settlement after a class action lawsuit was brought and the company began to bombarded with complaints. Nonetheless, there have been other issues with the Mini and Nano that also have surfaced; static with the Mini and scratching of the screen with the new Nano.
While quality issues won’t impact Apple in the short run it seems that these issues are bound to eventually weaken customer loyalty and their brand. When will Apple get it right and do the right thing by either providing quality products or take proactive steps to compensate customers that receive faulty products? If they fail to address these issues, customers will leave in droves once a quality stylish alternative finally emerges…which is only a matter of time…
October 8th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
The Neistat bros got something like 40,000 hits the first day of their movie. Subsequently they were interviewed at Fox and CBS. And Apple changed its policy… You should make a movie! (How many hits do you have so far on philoi? btw, cool idea, bookmark sharing).
m
October 10th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Some things are working for Apple on this front:
1) short product lifecycles - “the new one must be better”
2) consistently best products available (for now) - debatable, but the market numbers speak for themselves
3) (never underestimate) Apple zealotry - cracked G4 cubes, Newton, tie-dyed iMacs, slow pre-OSX OSes…
I have a 3G that was a pain to deal with early on. I suffered through visits to the “Genius Bar” and the unhelpful support website before a new firmware update came. Still, it’s the best thing out there…
October 11th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Reg. 1, maybe they are putting producst out too quickly. I mean who will buy a mini now? I understand the iPod mini inventory is piling up…
October 11th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
They took the mini off the market to make room for the nano.
October 24th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
Class action lawsuit was announced against IPOD for the scratching of the screens today. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/79115/scratched-ipods-lead-to-lawsuit.html