Why Buy a Mac - Part II

In the last article we looked at Macs, and other Apple devices, from a hardware perspective. In this post I'm going to take a look at tech support.

This is another area where Apple shines. They consistently get the highest ratings from PC Magazine's reader poll on tech support.

I've not needed Apple tech support often, but when I have, it's been great. Apple has a great support community on its web site. But if you need more and have an in-force warranty or AppleCare agreement, you can talk to them directly. Each product has it's own type of support. Some are email only or chat, or some have a choice of chat or call. You can set up a time for Apple to call you and within a 15 minute window of that time they will call you. I've used most forms of tech support and found them all to be top notch. Here's an example of a call I had dealing with my son's laptop problem. I did some troubleshooting ahead of time, since I a tech guy I love to solve my own problems if I can. After running into a brick wall I got on-line and set up a time for Apple to call me. When they did I was speaking to someone most likely in the U.S with a great command of English. This is NOT meant to disparage tech support in other countries, most notably India. But, when I need tech support on my expensive Apple product, I want someone I can speak to directly and who can solve my problem. I do not want someone who is working from some script and who keeps telling me thank you and with whom my every other statement is I'm sorry I didn't get that.

In the case with the laptop, I quickly went over what the problem was and what troubleshooting I had already done. He had me do a couple of other things and then quickly decided that this was more than we could do over the phone. I am fortunate enough to live in a place with an Apple store so he set up an appointment for me with the Apple store while I was on the phone. I took it to the Apple store the same day and they quickly diagnosed it as the video card problem. I left it with them and within a week had it back, fixed and running well.

One thing that I like about Apple is that they control both the hardware and the software. Yes, I know there is a group of you out there who hates that fact. But I never ever have to have MS and the PC vendor playing the finger pointing game while I, the paying customer, sit in the middle getting nowhere.