This year has impart a photoflood of new Mac models , as Apple quickly converts all the computing machine it sells into ones running processors created by Intel . And just as for certain as summertime follow spring , the release of raw Mac models are followed by reports of various quirks , flaws , botheration , and other issues with those fashion model .
We ’ve all been told that it ’s a good estimation to have as much information as you’re able to before give a purchase . But thanks to the Internet , the amount of data you may get on any render production is more than you could ever lug inside your head . So what ’s a Mac exploiter to do ?
Questions of musical scale
plainly , I desire that one of your first choices for information about new Macs is Macworld.com . When Apple harbinger new products , our staff kicks into high gear , generate news history , collecting frequently - asked questions ( and answering them ) , and getting the skinny from Apple about what get to the newfangled models check off .
And yet , no matter what we do , our reviews will always be based on the individual Macs that are in the hands of our stave . ( unremarkably , they ’ve all been buy through retail transmission channel , which mean that , more often than not , we do n’t test data processor that could have been helping hand - picked for us by someone at Apple . ) At upright , we might have admission to a fistful of role model . Sometimes our critique and lab tests are based on a exclusive whole .
Is that single social unit enough for us to spell about the experience most multitude will have in using their new Mac ? Will our research lab trial results generally equate to the speeds people will see when they grease one’s palms and use that model ? The answer to both questions is yes . But , of line , it ’s the exception that prove that ruler .
nonstarter rates
Everything made by human helping hand falls apart , and nobody ’s perfect . And that means that when a companionship good deal - produces a complex , technological product , some percentage of them are run to come out from the factorynot quite right . That ’s one of the reasons products hail with a warranty : so a company can assure you that if the intersection you bought is a lemon , it will fix or put back it .
Of naturally , if half a companionship ’s product are losers when they come out of the factory , that ware is n’t going to last very long . But with a company like Apple , it ’s inevitable that some amount of the products that roll out of its factories wo n’t be right . The great question is , how can you tell if it ’s going to be one lemon out of every two , or out of every 20,000 ?
It ’s sure enough impossible for us to tell when we do our review — particularly if the products we bought piece of work just fine . But what if you rein in the superpower of the cyberspace to find out about the experience of everyone who bought a newfangled Apple product ? Could you witness out then if the product was solid or prone to horrible problem ?
Theoretically , yes . But it ’s implausibly difficult to sort out out the sign from the noise .
Bad news travel tight
Let ’s go back to the MacBook . Its release received a huge amount of aid on the net — and justly so . It ’s certainly the most talked - about new Mac product in a long time .
But if you were scanning the Internet for info on the MacBook in the weeks following its annunciation , it would be hard to tell if the MacBook was a great laptop or an unmitigated disaster . One Mac lover visited his local Apple Store and noticed that “ piece of a credit card coating on the palpebra ” of a black MacBook were flaking off . He posted exposure on Flickr . Every blog under the Dominicus repeated the newsworthiness , declaring that there was a potential problem with flaky finishes on grim MacBooks .
As far as I can tell , this was all generated by asingle reportabout a individual MacBook found at an Apple Store . It was repeated until it began to sound like a major trouble — I received several personal request for information about the “ MacBook flaking job , ” in fact . But so far as I know , it ’s been report on just a duet of MacBooks . ( A interchangeable hubbub come when some drug user — a small but renowned percentage — hear that someone at Apple ’s factory had failed to unclothe a small plastic strip off of the MacBook ’s air vent-hole . )
The list goes on : the high - sky whine that some MacBook Pros seem to let loose . The thermal paste that , when over - applied , can cause MacBooks to play hotter than they might otherwise . None of these stories were made up , but what their real preponderance and relevancy is stay the topic of much debate .
Does the cyberspace work to alert possible buyer about serious fault in product , defect that necessitate to be remedied immediately ? perfectly . The problem is , sometimes it ’s almost impossible to secernate the legitimate , widespread problems from the one - off manufacturing defect . And if you conceive that every job reported on the net is far-flung , it ’ll scare you silly .
urinate lemonade
So what can be done ? Well , for a prospicient clock time now I ’ve want to bulge out an yearly survey that will ask Mac users about the reliability of their computer ironware . But such a sight still ca n’t help hoi polloi who are pondering the leverage of a never - before - see organisation .
No , all we can do is keep our eyes and ears opened and seek to screen through all the job , peachy and minuscule .
What can you do ? First off , seek to keep everything you read on the Internet in perspective . Nobody , fromMacworldto the guy who found that outre MacBook at an Apple Store , has been capable to front at a large enough sample size of any young mathematical product in orderliness to truly determine whether a problem is endemic or not . If you try about problems with a product you ’re call back of purchasing , ask around . But in the ending , if you truly desire to buy a merchandise , do n’t let all the small write up scare away you aside . Buy that product — but protect yourself before you do . check that that you ’re comfortable with the reappearance policy of the place where you buy the Cartesian product . If you ’re bribe in soul , see if you’re able to take the product out of the box and control it out before you take it home . And be clear about what the product ’s guarantee terms are .
No company ’s products — not even Apple’s — have a failure rate of zero . Buying a lemon may be an unbelievable annoyance , but it happens . As long as the telephone number of lemons Apple grow stay down in the mouth , we ’ll all be fine . But if that number rises , it say big matter about Apple — and makes life harder for all Mac substance abuser . We ’ll be watching — and so should you .
