Photo by Flickr user e.r.w.i.n.
In 2005, after months of budgeting and saving, I bought an iPod. I was making $30K in New York City. This was a big purchase. I brought it home from Circuit City, and then I opened it.
Opening this box was a process of complete and utter joy.
I’m not surprise to read [via] that Apple’s designers pay obsessive attention to their product packaging, because this iPod box was so well-designed that it made me feel something. Just opening the box! I had never bought something like that before—I was so excited about this new toy I had, and even from peeling apart the layers outside I felt there was no way it could disappoint me.
But it did.
My iPod broke just a few months after I got it. First Apple refused to recognize its existence because Circuit City had violated their product rotation rules and sold me an “old” unit. Then Apple just flat-out refused to fix it. They sent it back to me with a purple arrow-shaped post-it note pointing to a miniscule dent they called “evidence of external trauma.” They didn’t even open it up to see if the trauma caused the product failure. When I called Apple to ask why and to get help, the customer service guy somewhere in South Asia was obnoxious and frustrating, and refused even to transfer me to another person that might be more useful to me. When I called again, wait times were routinely too long to stomach, and I was already too angry and sad to deal with another unhelpful rep. When I later sent the iPod to a bootleg repair guy in California, he replaced, in turn, every single internal part and couldn’t get it to work. He called it a lemon, and it was.
I have never forgiven Apple for this experience. When time came to buy a computer, I bought a Dell. When time came to buy a netbook, I bought a Lenovo. When time came to buy a phone, I bought an HTC-model Android. I’ve all but resigned myself to buying a MacBook Air because its reviews are just so good, but I can’t bring myself to go into the store and plunk down the cash. Apple fucked up with me, and I’m still mad.
No other product company in the world would generate this kind of reaction from me. That Dell I bought, for law school? It crapped out during my 2L spring; I had to replace the hard drive and lost some photos that were personally very valuable. The battery for that laptop stopped functioning and the computer won’t work unless it’s plugged in. But I don’t hate Dell. That netbook? I tried to install Microsoft Office on it, but I couldn’t find my product code, and Microsoft customer service was beyond unhelpful. But I don’t hate Microsoft. That Android phone? It has frustrating bugs I can’t figure out how to fix. But I don’t hate Verizon or Google or HTC.
The thing about Apple is, they don’t just sell you a product. They sell you an entire user experience. It comes from their complete and utter dedication to the user’s perspective, down to what it feels like to open the box. It’s a big reason why people display slavish, cult-like devotion to Apple products. It’s why they can charge a steep premium for their products and all but ignore competition by other OEMs. Apple sold me the Apple experience. That’s what I paid for, and I feel cheated.
You know, when you go out with a douchebag and he treats you poorly and cheats on you, you might ask yourself why you expected anything different; he was a cheap get, the fault is yours for buying, and you get over it. But when you find someone great and fall in love and he treats you nice and buys you flowers and tells you how beautiful you are and then goes and fucks your sister—that kind of betrayal hurts for a long time.
Apple has made a fortune by playing the good boyfriend. But there’s a downside. Experiences like mine generate the kind of ill will you only get with someone you used to really love, and it’s going to take more than another pretty box to make me try again.
