Take Control of Your Stuff
Julian Sanchez laments Apple’s abominable customer service.
First, you’ve got what’s obviously a simple physical problem that can very probably be repaired in all of a minute flat with the right set of tools. But instead of letting their vaunted support guys give this a shot, they’re encouraging customers—many of whom presumably don’t know any better—to shell out a ludicrous amount of money to replace it and send the old one in. I appreciate that it’s not always obvious that a problem can be this easily remedied on site, but in the instance, it really seems like a case of exploiting consumer ignorance.
I both believe that Apple would be better off were it to embrace greater transparency and openness, this despite the broad commercial success of its appliancization model, and that the only lasting anecdote [ahem, yes I meant antidote] to this problem is a cultural shift on the part of technology consumers — a cultural shift driven by the likes of O’Reilly Media’s MAKE and Matthew B. Crawford. My guess is that Crawford sees his project as far larger than simply empowering consumers. But understanding and truly owning our technological tools is a good first step towards leading a more mindful economic life.
I’m guessing you meant “antidote” instead of “anecdote.” In any case, while “truly owning our technological tools” would be desirable, such a cultural shift would do more than go against Apple’s marketing model — it would negate the company’s raison d’etre in the minds of consumers. Apple is what you buy when you want well-designed, good-looking stuff and don’t want to futz with how it works. If you’re going to own your technology, i.e., understand how it works and aspire to service it yourself, you might as well save some money and buy a P.C. or somebody else’s cell phone and work with them until they do what you want.
— Roberto Rivera · Jun 3, 12:20 PM · #
Reihan,
“the only lasting anecdote to this problem”? This, I believe, is cinching proof that Reihan Salam and Matt Yglesias are, in fact, the same person. For instance I, personally, have never seen them in the same place at the same time. And, of major mainstream bloggers, only Yglesias is capable of leaving up such an absurd typo…
— David Samuels · Jun 3, 01:11 PM · #
The only reason they’ve had so much success with this is that their key demographic (i.e. designers, graphic artists, and “creatives” generally) are exactly the people who are least likely to want to tinker with their toys, and are tolerant of the “just replace it” model.
As Apple expands the set of demographics they sell to, I don’t expect them to continue to be able to do this sort of crap.
— TW Andrews · Jun 3, 03:51 PM · #
Thanks for the mention, Reihan. As it happens, there is a chapter in my fortchcoming book that will have the heading “To Be Master of One’s Own Stuff.” Julian Sanchez’s iPhone adventure (congrats to him for actually fixing it, by the way!) is a nice example of the frustration of dealing with something that presents itslef as a semi-mystical device rather than an intelligible thing, and the suspicions of bad faith that arise when you try to grapple with it. Following up on these suspicions, it becomes clear that the official idea of “technology”, as something at bottom progressive or in flux, and always oriented toward better function, sometimes serves to cover over a basic economic antagonism — here, between the manufacturer and the consumer. There is also, of course, an antagonism between the manufacturer and labor (I believe Marx may be the most important author for conservatives to read today), and this becomes most visible with the strange role currently played by computerized self-diagnosis in machines. In the book I relate some stories of working with On Board Diagnostics (OBD) as a mechanic. I say “strange” because it is, in fact, impossible to parse OBD in terms of simple efficiency, or any such official rationale. Stay tuned; all will be laid bare in Shop Class as Soulcraft (Penguin, 2009).
— Matt Crawford · Jun 3, 06:30 PM · #
I generally think that arguing about Apple is a rhetorical rathole and a waste of everyone’s brainpower, but I’ll take the bait here, because TW Andrews’s comments above make no sense on any conceivable level. Why would “creatives” not be inclined to tinker with their toys? And anyway, they were Apple’s key demographic ten years ago, which is why Apple didn’t sell very many computers back then. The return of the Mac has been marked by its emergence from the graphic design ghetto and by the steady acceptance of Apple’s machines by serious tech people, the sort who appreciate that they can have both a tinker-friendly Unix-based OS and classy hardware that’s not covered in stickers when you buy it.
— Matt Frost · Jun 4, 02:59 AM · #
but I’ll take the bait here, because TW Andrews’s comments above make no sense on any conceivable level. Why would “creatives” not be inclined to tinker with their toys?
Because they’re creatives and not engineers? Maybe my sample space isn’t representative, but contrasting the architects and photographers my wife works with and the programmers I work with, there’s a markedly higher tendency to tinker among the second group.
The resurgence of Mac as viable platform has much less to do with opening the Unix-based operating system to geeks than it does with the fact that switching chip sets enables Windows programs to be run on Macs. The utter crapulence of Vista hasn’t hurt either.
In any case, my point is that as the Mac penetration increases, the service practices that creatives have put up with for years aren’t going to be tolerated by most consumers.
— TW Andrews · Jun 4, 05:00 PM · #