[boyaka]

"Tesla, like its Silicon Valley cohort Apple, often goes above and beyond the call of duty when carrying out repairs, swapping out entire components to keep customers happy."

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

My experience with Apple failures/replacements has been worse than any other customer service / quality assurance experience I've had. Products owned: Nano first gen (replaced with nano eighth gen), Video first gen, MBP 2007. Also a 5s but that can be an exception because my Mom brought it in the pool while I was lending it to her and we were trying to figure out random shutdowns on her 5, which were due to the battery.

[aeontech]

Anecdote is not data, but if you insist... http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/search?q=service&restrict_sr=o...

There's good reasons why Apple tops customer satisfaction surveys pretty consistently - obviously there'll be failures sometimes, but overall they do aim for customer satisfaction more than most companies.

[boyaka]

I guess that works for the majority of people, but in order to satisfy me they need to admit to and take responsibility for their widespread product failures. With each of the products I listed in my post above I have long stories about their widespread failures and plenty of evidence from websites, blog posts, forum posts, and even HN discussions, that it wasn't just me having these issues (with exception of the 5s, unless iPhones are expected to be waterproof; I was having issues with the earbuds though).

I'm over them though. Honestly, I loved each one of those products deeply (the video was actually under warranty, but it was stolen from my car before I sent it in). They are obviously very pleasant to use, and their high price tag provides quality material and sleek designs. I just have no more patience for the failures that render them unusable. With a higher price tag it should be even more crucial that the product does not fail, as we see with cars.

For my future computing device purchases I will opt for the lower cost products that have less failures. I hope that there will be more high material cost devices that can compete with Apple and maintain quality assurance. It is also a plus to get out of the walled garden.

[mkaziz]

Have you met Comcast?

[boyaka]

I have been using cable internet here in the suburbs of SF since 1997 or so, which is currently owned by Comcast (it was originally @Home, then ATT Broadband Internet, then Comcast or something). The product they own is top notch. I got near 1 MB/s download speeds on Napster when it came out.

Of course Comcast is just a puppet of media companies that are trying to monopolize consumer communication and monitor/identify users. I do indeed believe I have experienced poor quality service due to the controls they have been implementing, but overall the product has been quite a satisfying experience most of the time.

The problem with Apple's service is that it really doesn't even exist. There is no way to talk to anybody at Apple about the technical issues with their products. They just tell you to take it to completely clueless people at their retail stores or mail it in for replacement. This is all fine and dandy, as long as you bought the product a year ago or pay for Apple Care.

It's difficult to compare to Comcast.