As this article pertains to screen issues how about we discuss this a little bit rather than engaging in senseless rants?
The "ghosting" issue the article highlights is a known problem with certain types of LCD screens. With a caveat I'll say that LG LCD panels are known for these kinds of issues much more so than Samsung's. The caveat is that ALL OEM LCD manufacturers have issues, all of them.
The other very important idea to understand is that Apple is just another OEM customer. Yes, they are huge. And, yes, they get stuff made to their specs. But, no, they can't alter the laws of physics or magically change the current state of the art. The same is true of the warts and issues in the various technologies they use.
For example, someone mentioned Apple notebooks flaming. Well, I fly radio controlled planes and helicopters. They use LiPo battery packs. And you can bet they are stored in a metal container within fireproof bags and away from combustibles. Yes, LiPo battery cells can self-combust. This is not a secret. This is one reason I don't own any laptops with non-removable LiPo packs.
How common are LiPo fires? How easy are they to start?
They are very rare. If you go on YouTube you'd think that every other home is going up in flames due to LiPo fires. Not so. I actually blew-up a LiPo pack on purpose just to see what it would take and how big the fire might be. It actually took a lot for this three cell pack to go.
Is Apple at fault for adopting a technology that has a minuscule probability of causing a fire? I'll leave that for someone else to answer. I am not really bothered by it. That said, I made my informed choice and simply don't buy laptops with non-removable LiPo packs.
Back to displays.
LG can have ghosting or image retention problems. Fire-up photoshop and make a pattern of black and white lines one pixel wide. Try horizontal and vertical arrangements. Try flashing that pattern on an off at different rates. This can trigger the issue depending on the underlying LCD technology. Are these tests fair? Not sure.
Also, keep in mind that the test Apple is administering might come from the OEM panel manufacturer. In other words, this is what the manufacturer agreed to deliver to Apple as a performance guarantee.
LG also has had some serious display discoloration issues. The early 23 inch aluminum Cinema display had a batch of horribly pink/magenta panels. Again, LG quality control problems.
Samsung has had discoloration problems but they tend to be pretty good about image retention issues.
An interesting fact is that an LCD pixel is able to retain a "charge" --if you will-- for a very long time. I've seen an LCD panel hold a full-color image for over a day after power was removed. This panel had been modified for this particular experiment in that all drive electronics were removed very quickly after power was removed. In other words, it was just a piece of "glass" sitting in front of a separately-powered light source. Very interesting stuff.
I am not making excuses for Apple. If you pay that much for a laptop you want it to be perfect. I get it. I also get that it just won't happen. Too many moving parts.
Here's a reality of consumer product engineering today:
Companies (not just Apple, everyone) have to move very quickly. Nobody is going to have the time to test all corner cases for every component they use. Even if they did, they can't account for all corner cases. And, if you run a supply and manufacturing pipeline like Apple's, by the time the components arrive at the factory there's almost nothing you can do about it. So, yes, 100K "defective" displays might go out the door in the blink of an eye. And, another 100K might go out before you can even start to do anything about it. Component suppliers can shaft you and, frankly, the Korean LCD manufacturers are famous for this. Just talk to anyone in the OEM display business, it's brutal.
Given that, I can only imagine that at some level it becomes a carefully considered financial decision. I hate to say it, but it isn't any different from a car manufacturer discovering that 0.01% of break pedals might be defective. They probably have a meeting with the lawyers and the accountants, review their insurance and determine what course of action to take. Sometimes that's the reality of business.
I am not saying that this is what Apple is doing. I am just speaking in terms of general scenarios. I would suggest that when dealing with a large organization like Apple patience and persistence is the key. Keep at it. I think Apple, of all companies, still cares a lot. It might be harder today due to the sheer scale of the company, but if you don't loose faith you might just get to the right person and have your problem handled.
So what is the point of paying the Apple premium if they are just the same as everybody else ?
I think the fact that it is possible, it should not be the norm. As you can see in the article, the problem is not that he got a defective Monitor, is the fact that Apple is trying to avoid replacing it.
If I buy the best, I expect the best. When I buy an Apple product, just like the author, I expect to get the best. If it is defective, I expect Apple to exchange it.
We, humans, are not perfect. I think we all get that. But we do expect to get problems fixed and right away. Apple is the top dog right now in hardware, if not even them respond to problems in a timely fashion and in the right way, then yes, Apple is the same as the rest.
I don't think that Apple is just like the rest. In fact I expect a lo more from them.
In the Retina macbook's case, the premium seems worth paying because no one else has a laptop with comparable hardware. It seems like the Nexus line has similar dpi as the retina iPads, though, so hopefully this is simply a case of Apple having it first, and everyone else will have it in the next year or so.
I understand, but if the monitor fails, it ends up being worse than the rest don't you think? I get the author's feelings. He spent the money on a new laptop, that is sold with the idea that just works and that if it doesn't it will made to.
Also, there is a premium above the premium with a retina display. You get the same laptop than an basic MBP for 400 dlls more.
No matter how good your customer service is there will always be people that feel just as aggrieved as the author because they fell just short of the standard for replacement.
Maybe Apple is completely falling apart and This Would Never Happen With Steve(TM)... or maybe we've seen this movie many times before. For years it was the Guy with One Bad Pixel when the standard for replacement was two but he always swore on the forums that it was Right In the Middle.
I agree. No matter how good you are you can never please everybody. And for the record I personally don't think Apple is falling apart.
The problem I see is simple to identify, and in the position Apple is in right now, it is difficult to remediate.
It is a problem of scale. I think Apple is growing too much too fast, and it is struggling to scale their operations. I obviously could be wrong since I am not an insider, but it seems that is the case.
OS X is not that amazing to pay for a premium. I also use Linux, and they are pretty good as well.
Hardware-wise, they are great as long as they can honor the warranty. If I get a defective machine (like in this case) and I had to pay a higher price for a defective hardware, that doesn't make it ok.
Apple is not about better products. It is about better execution of those products. I pay the premium because of Apple's execution.
Agreed, customer support is better on average, but not that much; not enough to justify the premium.
The premium is worth it because of the overall execution of the company. I pay more, but I get an implicit insurance that everything will just work.
I think you are defending the quality of a companies products by passing blame to it's suppliers. Apple chose it's suppliers, decided the product met their standards and shipped it.
I've got 3 computers in front of me now. An 11" air, 26" iMac and 12.5 Lenovo. None of the screens have ghosting issues, I'm sure some of the screens are produced by LG or Samsung. None are retinal displays, but that was Apple's decision to sell retina MBPs. If the quality wasn't there, they should have made the decision to tell the suppliers that they needed to meet xyz standards, and not manufacture the devices until that time.
Selling a sub-par product and then trying to pass the blame on to suppliers doesn't make your product any less-sub-par, and does just as much to ruin your companies reputation.
One of my co-workers had the same problem OP posted about. He was really excited about the Retina screen, but as compared to every other LCD he's been using for the last 5+ years, it had a significantly worse ghosting issues. In the end, after at least one display swap, Apple let him swap it out for a comparable non-retina Macbook Pro. Problem went away. I think they did good in not telling him his only option was to pay for a screen replacement, but I know he would have been far happier if he could have ended up with one of the Retina models minus the ghosting issue.
So, I don't think those first retina monitors were within the reasonable limitations of LCD technology unless this was somehow specific to the ultra high resolution displays which are relatively new. If they figured out how to fix it in a later iteration, they should pick up the slack and offer to replace the monitors with ones that don't have that issue. The ONE selling point of that computer over any other Macbook Pro is the display. For that reason, they should put every effort into ensuring that it is good as it can possibly be for anyone that pays for it, no matter the cost.
> For that reason, they should put every effort into ensuring that it is good as it can possibly be for anyone that pays for it, no matter the cost.
Every effort? No matter the cost?
They still have to run a business, I'm afraid... though the other possibility you didn't mention (but could be implied) is that they could have waited a little longer before releasing the retina displays.
I don't see tech news sites swamped with articles about the disastrous retina ghosting issues, though... so perhaps most users agree with Apple's decision. I certainly see the business reasons for it (though I was buying a MBA for my wife soon after the new retina display was released, and intentionally got the older model to avoid the first release of new tech...).
"I am not making excuses for Apple. If you pay that much for a laptop you want it to be perfect. I get it. I also get that it just won't happen. Too many moving parts."
I'd agree if this were, say, the SD card reader or maybe the keyboard backlight. But it's the fucking display. The very thing customers are paying a premium for is the thing that's unusable on their overpriced laptops.
The "ghosting" issue the article highlights is a known problem with certain types of LCD screens. With a caveat I'll say that LG LCD panels are known for these kinds of issues much more so than Samsung's. The caveat is that ALL OEM LCD manufacturers have issues, all of them.
The other very important idea to understand is that Apple is just another OEM customer. Yes, they are huge. And, yes, they get stuff made to their specs. But, no, they can't alter the laws of physics or magically change the current state of the art. The same is true of the warts and issues in the various technologies they use.
For example, someone mentioned Apple notebooks flaming. Well, I fly radio controlled planes and helicopters. They use LiPo battery packs. And you can bet they are stored in a metal container within fireproof bags and away from combustibles. Yes, LiPo battery cells can self-combust. This is not a secret. This is one reason I don't own any laptops with non-removable LiPo packs.
How common are LiPo fires? How easy are they to start?
They are very rare. If you go on YouTube you'd think that every other home is going up in flames due to LiPo fires. Not so. I actually blew-up a LiPo pack on purpose just to see what it would take and how big the fire might be. It actually took a lot for this three cell pack to go.
Is Apple at fault for adopting a technology that has a minuscule probability of causing a fire? I'll leave that for someone else to answer. I am not really bothered by it. That said, I made my informed choice and simply don't buy laptops with non-removable LiPo packs.
Back to displays.
LG can have ghosting or image retention problems. Fire-up photoshop and make a pattern of black and white lines one pixel wide. Try horizontal and vertical arrangements. Try flashing that pattern on an off at different rates. This can trigger the issue depending on the underlying LCD technology. Are these tests fair? Not sure.
Also, keep in mind that the test Apple is administering might come from the OEM panel manufacturer. In other words, this is what the manufacturer agreed to deliver to Apple as a performance guarantee.
LG also has had some serious display discoloration issues. The early 23 inch aluminum Cinema display had a batch of horribly pink/magenta panels. Again, LG quality control problems.
Samsung has had discoloration problems but they tend to be pretty good about image retention issues.
An interesting fact is that an LCD pixel is able to retain a "charge" --if you will-- for a very long time. I've seen an LCD panel hold a full-color image for over a day after power was removed. This panel had been modified for this particular experiment in that all drive electronics were removed very quickly after power was removed. In other words, it was just a piece of "glass" sitting in front of a separately-powered light source. Very interesting stuff.
I am not making excuses for Apple. If you pay that much for a laptop you want it to be perfect. I get it. I also get that it just won't happen. Too many moving parts.
Here's a reality of consumer product engineering today:
Companies (not just Apple, everyone) have to move very quickly. Nobody is going to have the time to test all corner cases for every component they use. Even if they did, they can't account for all corner cases. And, if you run a supply and manufacturing pipeline like Apple's, by the time the components arrive at the factory there's almost nothing you can do about it. So, yes, 100K "defective" displays might go out the door in the blink of an eye. And, another 100K might go out before you can even start to do anything about it. Component suppliers can shaft you and, frankly, the Korean LCD manufacturers are famous for this. Just talk to anyone in the OEM display business, it's brutal.
Given that, I can only imagine that at some level it becomes a carefully considered financial decision. I hate to say it, but it isn't any different from a car manufacturer discovering that 0.01% of break pedals might be defective. They probably have a meeting with the lawyers and the accountants, review their insurance and determine what course of action to take. Sometimes that's the reality of business.
I am not saying that this is what Apple is doing. I am just speaking in terms of general scenarios. I would suggest that when dealing with a large organization like Apple patience and persistence is the key. Keep at it. I think Apple, of all companies, still cares a lot. It might be harder today due to the sheer scale of the company, but if you don't loose faith you might just get to the right person and have your problem handled.