July 31, 2006 11:14 AM PDT
.Mac users mock Apple slogan during outage
Last modified: July 31, 2006 1:56 PM PDT
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Apple Computer's latest advertising campaign, pegged to the slogan "It just works," is irritating some .Mac users as they wonder when the service will become operational again.
Over the past four days, .Mac users have struggled to get its Web site publishing features, iWeb, and related file-share capabilities, iDisk, to work. Users have complained not only about the length of the outage, but also what they say is a tardy response from .Mac's technical support team, according to postings on Apple's discussion board.
"It is going on 96 hours for me. Completely Unacceptable," wrote a user named BK Broiler in a post to the discussion board. "The .76 IP now pings, since yesterday, but iDisk does not work still. It'll only work with the /etc/hosts trick, but not on its own. I got a canned e-mail from Apple today after 72 hours of silence from the time I sent the trouble call. Thanks, Apple, for making a joke out of long term customer loyalty, and for just not giving a ****. It may be time to switch away from Mac after 20 years."
Apple said Monday it is investigating the issue.
"We are aware of the outage and are looking into it," an Apple representative said.
The representative noted that it is premature to discuss whether Apple plans to reimburse users a portion of their $99.95 annual fee for .Mac service, which also includes data synchronization tools and group e-mail.
The outage has created particular problems for some .Mac users, who rely on the service for their businesses.
Brian Guy, a technology consultant in Seattle, noted he built an SVN server to replace iDisk and has since deleted all his files off iDisk.
"I'll still use iDisk in the future, but only for noncritical needs," he said.
Guy, along with several others on Apple's iDisk discussion board. point to a ripple effect iDisk is having on the .Mac service.
".Mac's entire iLife suite is affected, because so many things rely on iDisk," said Guy, pointing to iPhoto, iWeb and the ability to perform daily backups via iDisk.
Apple declined to comment on the extent to which any iDisk issues might be affecting the iLife suite.
Meanwhile, the ad campaign only adds to the exasperation some users are describing.
"(I) had no issues with any .Mac service before now...I am now suffering from post-traumatic-Windows-type stress symptoms, i.e. nail biting and hair pulling," a user named Allan Bell wrote on the discussion board. "And those new Apple adverts are now starting to irritate me lol. Yes, 'it just works' is looking funnier by the minute...'occasionally' would be more apt lol."
See more CNET content tagged:
outage,
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Apple iLife
accessing it this weekend when my cable modem started acting up,
but dot Mac does require a good internet connection!
trouble accessing my account.
Apple folks know the stakes and they'll do their best to get the
outtage fixed. Just like the telephone company and the power
company and the cable company, and, and, and. Go do something
productive. By the time you think of it again it will be all better. No
more boo-boos.
Now-a-days Windows runs just as good as Linux from an install perspective. Now crashes and reboots are another story, but that is more a software thing than an OS thing. I could write software to crash a Mac and Linux box too.
I would love to switch to Linux if my software compatibility met that OS. I just don't like to pay for OS's, or have them tied to my hardware.
This is the problem with creating an experience as generally seamless as Apple's... you have to deal with really indignant users when something does go wrong.
I can't wait to hear this guy scream once he switches to Windows!
And for the record, my .Mac account hasn't gone down at all in, oh, maybe two years or so.
with OS's from 10.1 to 10.4. Without any OS crashes. When
software crashes - and it does - the OS remains solid as a rock.
That is, essentially, five years of running an OS 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, without a crash, on what is clearly obsolete
hardware.
I recently bought a Intel Core Duo iMac and loaded Windows XP.
XP crashed three times in the first hour! and, almost
immediately, was infected with spyware and adware. (I have
never had either on any Mac I have used - the last virus I
encountered using MacOS was in the late 1990's, when I found a
copy of nVir on a piece of shrink wrapped, commercial software)
I have three other Windows machines that run half as often and
crash at least two or three times a week, per machine.
Given Apple's poor history with online services - anyone
remember eWorld? - and the low priority Apple gives these
services, it does not surprise me that .Mac is having problems.
Apple should stick to what they know and do best - OS's and
hardware.
Oh, and they should hurry up and get out a Power Mac with two
Intel Core 2 Duos! I am thirsting for PCI slots and more
computing power than ten space shuttles... LOL
and I want to help set it straight.
I have used my .Mac account all weekend without any problem
whatsoever.
I'm in charge of a large family reunion website with 6 different
PC family members who successfully uploaded over 3 GB of pix
and video clips from all over the country without one hiccup
yesterday alone.
I subsequently uploaded and published 4 new completed pages
last night, and have been using my .Mac account all day today.
No problems whatsoever!
Further, there are some 150+ family members who are ALL PC
owners, and many have already reviewed the new pages, again
without ANY problems.
If there is some problem with .Mac, no one has experienced it in
our family!
I don't use .mac, but if I had such problems and it was apple's fault (I'm not sure if it is or not at this point), I would ask for my money back. But switch to windows? Sounds a bit silly to me.
that's news to me, since I haven't had any problems.
CNET, as usual, completely distorts matters. They write the
article as if all .Mac users are having problems, when really only
a few are. Even the title is bull. One person mocking Apple ads
becomes users in general?
So a few people having problems with .Mac, which might have
nothing to do with .Mac itself and their ISP is to blame, and
CNET deems it a "Top Headline." CNET has really become a joke.
a while for 5 to 35 it may go down for me... but usually, this is
when I am sleeping... so, I don't give a rats a$$ anyhoo. Now, if I
could only get my WAMU account working again!!!!!!!
server-side issue. To me the rules for servers are different than
the rules for desktop machines so all this hyper-reacting is silly.
I also assume these folks will disconnect their cable, their
phone, and their power when they run into problems associated
with those services.
That said, Apple needs to stop being so secret about
EVERYTHING. I understand the secrecy of product releases (to a
degree). But if they a providing a service such as .Mac, there
should be a place to obtain server performance/access status
that is easily accessible to their customers.
Once they find and address the problem, they should also
explain what happened and how they are going to insure it
doesn't happen in the future.
Now is not the time to get in the cone of silence.
based mail w/o ads forwardable anywhere; a constant email
address independent of your ISP; backup solutions; Home Page;
etc. However all the associated problems with it severly detract
from it and keep making me question if it is worth its yearly fee.
Virus protection , when they had it was buggy to the point of
almost unusable so I have mixed feelings about them taking that
away. Virus Protection was one of their big selling points that
they took away and have never offered anything to replace it.
Why would a .Mac person need virus protection if there are no
serious viruses associated with Mac? So you don't pass a
Windows virus on to your friends when you send them files. Now
with dual boot, it is even a greater issue. Does .Mac offer a
solution as orginally promised? No.
.Mac also promises additional benefits, extras, and undefined
features that never seem to happen or are anemic when they do.
Addotionally may of these so called benefits are really nothing
more that opportunites to spend more money with Apple thinly
discused and enhancements or features. . .MAC now seems to
be charging the same for less features. And then there is the
stability issues that seem to occur at the most inconvient times.
A lot of this would be more tolerated if it wern't for the abysmal
tech support that comes with this product. Phone tech support is
simply not available even under AppleCare. Support is email
only, which is real useful if your .Mac address is not working!
The promise 48hr max responce, not very timely. But your lucky
if you get that as it is as rigorously adhered to as a well known
grocery store slogan of "threes a crowd." If you have shopped
there you know what I mean. If not, you don't want to.
When you are finally annointed with a response it is usually
"boilerplate" that often as not does not address your real issues.
Usually you have to email the problem several times and state
your problem in a number of different ways before you might
get a satisfactory answer. ,NAC suuport gives me the impression
that the staff rarely completely reads a message but they on
scan the first line or two and then copy and paste a boilerplate
response.
Often times if they don't have a boilerplate response for a
question they will send you a general boilerplate response of
common troubleshooting techniques in the hope that such
procedures and a little bit of luck will solve the problem. But you
had better not reject such a response or then next one will be
that your question is deemed inappropriate and as such will not
be answered.
Additionally for .MAC there is no escalation path for users. If you
don't like, agree with, or have an issue with an agents response
- forget it. There is no way to escalate the issue - not even in
person at MacWorld SF. Believe me, when I say I have tried and
failed. The staff that supports .MAC is untouchable, unreachable
and unappealable. Their email responses are like messages from
the Pope himself.
For what I pay for .MAC I just expect better. Instead it leaves me
with the sinking feeling that when it comes to .MAC either the
Apple Executive Management Team does not care about
the .Mac service or the customers that use it.
There are free email account that work very well, and rarely go down. I am a person who likes to tweak his work to fit what I need to do, and .Mac is too restrictive to advanced users like me.
Someone who is stupid and don't know anything about how servers works, HTML, a little bit of scripting, to them I am sure it is worth the money, point and lick, I mean click and you're done.
I spend $2000 on a G5 Power Mac, I should get my frist year for free, is what I am thinking, but it isn't anything but that.
This is the only area where Apple is screwing up and getting too greedy, can anyone say, Microsoft.
Other then that I am a loyal fan of Apple, but I guess 100% satisfaction is not realistic to ask these days from no one.
- .MAC outage
-
by peterdom
July 31, 2006 3:29 PM PDT
- I've had no problems with iDisk or mail
-
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