Dear Apple,
This is not a letter of complaint but a note about the situation I have found myself in, that I’m sure others have also found themselves in.
I live in Yellowknife, NT. It is the capital of the Northwest Territories, nestled on the North Arm of the Great Slave Lake. It’s one of the deepest lakes in Canada, you know. If you still don’t know where we are, we are above Alberta. They have the oil, we have the diamonds. There are 20,000 people in this community I call home, 40,000 in the territory. We are a small, diverse group of forward thinking people. Yes, we live in a place that is buried in snow 8 months of the year. A place that can sit below -30ºC for weeks on end. We deal.
And we are a good bunch of people. Yellowknife itself is quite urban. We have high-rises, coffee shops and pubs. We have sports facilities and several big box stores. We are far from uncivilized, we are just far away.
Now that you know where we are you can better understand the predicament you have placed me in.
You see, I have a 2013 Apple 13″ MacBook Pro Retina. I bought it in December of 2013 and it is awesome. It is fast, it is small and it is powerful but it has a problem.
When this beast of a machine is sleeping it tries to wake itself up. This results in it crashing. This poor MacBook crashes when it sleeps too long. It is unfortunate.
I’ve tried to help it. Update it. Repair it. Reset SMC, PRAM, RESPECT. Oh, no wait, that last one is mine. The issue still precedes. So I took further measures. I wiped this bad boy clean and installed a fresh copy of your new sexy Mac OSX. Mr. Yosemite 10.10.
For sure you’d think a clean install is what I needed. A fresh start. A new begging. It’s what I thought my baby needed. Did it work though? No, unfortunately not. Last night at 3:07 a.m., according to the diagnostic logs, while sleeping, the glow of the Apple logo lit up skies of my bedroom and blast the start-up charm as it rebooted once again after crashing. The problem is still there.
So why am I writing to you today? I’m within the 1 year hardware repair warranty. I can just get my poor rMBP repaired. WRONG.
In talking to your lovely support for 59 minutes. Lizzy and Keith came to the conclusion that there was nothing they could do for me. I have to take my computer into an Apple Retail Store or Authorized Dealer. Apparently, you do not offer mail-in repair orders. Something to do with no repair centre in Canada or the postal service. There was no clear reason.
That doesn’t work for me, Apple.
Remember, I’m in Yellowknife. There is no Apple Retail Store or Authorized Dealer here. My closest option is Edmonton, Alberta. On a regular day a return flight can cost around $500+ and driving 1500km would not only take more than one day but would cost me around $700 return. So to get my Mac fixed, which is under warranty, I have to spend money.
I find this absurd because I bought the computer online. It was shipped to me. Telling me you don’t have a better solution for people like me, in my situation, is a complete oversight on your part. If you offer you devices online and allow them to be shipped all over the world, you should be able to accommodate my warranty repair and have a solution over the phone.
We haven’t even touched on the issues that I would – and probably will – have to be without my computer for a couple weeks when I’m self employed.
Apple, I’m not here to bash your products or support. I’m still going to use your products, because they are great and I like them. I just want you to know that people like myself are being put penalized by where we live and I think this is unacceptable of you, one of the biggest companies in the world.
Sincerely,
Kyle Thomas.
Photo from: Unsplash.com
