Coffee heat rising

Apple: I think i’m in love…

No question about it: Apple’s service rocks!

When I bought the cute li’l MacBook last December, the staff said I could bring the iMac and the MacBook in and they would synch the two, and while they were at it would upgrade the iMac to Snow Leopard.

So yesterday I trotted all my computer hardware over there. They sent a guy out to my car to haul the stuff into the store. They were nice to me. They spoke kindly to me. They did not talk over my head. I could even understand what the techies were saying, more or less.

On inspection, the tech dude decided he couldn’t install Snow Leopard in the iMac because it doesn’t have the required memory. The computer’s “too old” to upgrade quoth he.

Too old? Three years is “too old?”

“If that thing were were a little kid, it would just be toddling around the living room!” said I, “If it were a dog, it would still be a puppy!”

“Well,” he said. “I didn’t mean it’s old. It’s just…oldER.”

😀

What do you suppose Apple and all the PC manufacturers think we should do with all the hardware they engineer into superannuation after three years? Possibly we should have special landfills designed to hold only defunct computers. Might be risky, though: all that weight concentrated in a few places could knock the earth off its orbit.

He did clue me on how to install some new RAM, which he says is very easy to do. I’ll probably do that in the next few weeks and then upgrade to the sleek and powerful Snow Leopard.

After promising a 24-hour turnaround, they called me at about 3:30 to let me know they were done! Imagine that: they did the service in about three hours.

Trot back over to the Apple store. They send another cute guy to haul all the junk back out to my car.

Except for the MobileMe fiasco, when the store’s staff was overwhelmed, Apple’s service has consistently been excellent. It’s best to stay away from the place when the company is introducing some new, exuberantly hyped product (the iPad is supposed to come out on April 3—I ain’t goin’ near the place for at least two weeks after that). But during normal times, the people at Apple are pleasant to deal with and effective in their advice and service. That alone is probably worth the machine’s extra cost.