How Not To Persuade A PC User To Switch To Mac

[major_clanger]

I ordered my iBook on 24th November, and was quoted "7 to 10 days" as it was a configure-to-order item.

In the first week of December, I was told it would actually be in by the 15th.

Last week I was told it would be ready by the 22nd.

I have now just been told that it should be ready by the 29th, although Cancom wouldn't rely on this as their service from Apple has, as they put it, "slowed right down - it's just one of those things." Apparently this also meants that if I cancel my order and try to go through another dealer, I'll just go to the back of the queue and have an even longer wait.

I am not very happy about this. The whole reason I ordered the iBook a month before Xmas was so that I could be sure of getting it in plenty of time to take it home over the holiday and transfer all my work over from my PC and generally get it up and running. I don't want to have to keep hauling my desktop PC between Hampshire and Cambridge every week. The poor thing is on its last legs and really needs replacing, soon. Yes, there are probably suppliers out there with an off-the-shelf 12" iBook, but everyone seems to agree that the baseline spec is too low and there are some options (such as Bluetooth) that you can only get factory-fitted anyway.

So, if I do cancel the order entirely and go for a windows laptop after all, are there any particular recommendations?

MC

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

It might be useful to phone up the Apple Shop and ask them when they could deliver a build to order iBook of your configuration. The impression I have had is that the Apple Shop Online does things faster than a dealer, since there's (at least) one fewer layers of admin.

Of course all sorts of delivery options get much slower this time of year, even Dell's...

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

deliveries from the Apple shop are worryingly often late, incomplete or both. If you want a good portable I recommend the Toshiba Portege R100 (I had the same model of two years ago until a cat and a glass of wine killed it so I'm getting the new one on insurance). £1349 plus VAT, 1.2 kilos (1.4 when you add the clip-on battery that takes it up to 7 hours battery life), 18mm thick, 12" screen, wifi, external CD-ROM. Charlie Stross watched me typing on it for half an hour and went out and bought one ;-)

Ahem

[autopope.livejournal.com]

No I didn't ;-)

I bought a Portege 2000 -- its' predecessor -- from Morgan's for 750 quid. They're all gone now, I think. Runs Linux okay.

I bought my current iBook G4 from the Apple store a month ago. Was somewhat annoyed that it took them a week to build it ... but then another two weeks to ship it to me from Taiwan. Seems that standard configurations are available virtually instantly via the retail channel, but they're having real headaches delivering custom orders in Europe. Still, four weeks is way too long and giving them a phone call is definitely in order.

(NB: on the Portege R100/iBook front, I prefer the iBook. The R100 is lighter, but it feels a little flimsier, the display is dimmer than the current iBook (and the same resolution) and if you add in the external CDROM and power supply it weighs damn near as much but with more cables. And the keyboard on the new iBook is vastly improved over the older ones.)

Re: Ahem

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well, I ordered via Cancom, on the grounds that I could go and pick it up from their nearby dealership and ordering in person made it easier to get the (small but still useful) educational discount I get from being an OU student. I've been on the phone to them several times over the last week, and their response can be summed up as "Apple's delivery forecasts change daily, they're never that reliable this time of year anyway, and you'll just have to wait your turn - life's like that."

It's very frustrating; I'm sorry to say that talking to the dealer I do get a whiff of the old-fashioned monopoly-supply attitude of "well, who else are you going to get it from?", with the implication being that If You Use Macs, You Should Be Used To This Sort Of Thing. I'm sorely tempted to point out that I'm not a long-term Mac user willing to suffer indefinitely thanks to user loyalty, but rather a ten-years Windows veteran trying to make The Switch that Apple claim to be encouraging.

Re: Ahem

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

The Apple Store is clearly completely out of whack at the moment (and your order will use the same underlying stock delivery mechanism that's stuffed). They did apologise to me and other customers for the Panther order they stuffed up the other month -- but it doesn't seem to have got much better.

I'd recommend waiting and bearing it; much better than giving up and moving to a PC (for all that I appear to be addicted to a PC-only puzzle game at present; but *otherwise* I'm still much happier whenever I use a Mac.) We did just buy an iBook, but did so secondhand via eBay. My Powerbook was also bought on eBay, and my iMac was a standard configuration, plus extras, bought from John Lewis. So I've never experienced buying a new Mac directly from Apple, or getting factory-fitted extras (as opposed to fit-it-yourself extras, which I've done every time).

Re: Ahem

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I've just come off the phone again, having called on the off-chance that my order came in early. It hasn't, and the chap I spoke to was at least frank enough to admit when prodded that even the 29th was optimistic, and his bet was that it would turn up some time in January. So not only do I not get it for Xmas, I may well not have it in time for my fortnight trip to the USA early next month. And I was again advised that cancelling and re-ordering elsewhere would just mean and even longer delay since, as noted above, all CTO machines come via Apple anyway.

I think what frustrates me more than anything is the air of "this is a bit unfortunate but perfectly normal for Apple" from the dealer. Taking this alongside my friend FM (WINOLJ)'s horror story about trying to get an iBook keyboard replaced under warranty and I am beginning to wonder what I have let myself in for.

MC (Macless Clanger!)