There Is No Better Way To Say I Love You. . .

I love Apple.  My love affair with Apple began in college.  The Journalism Department was the only department on campus to have Macs in their computer labs.  At home I had an IBM compatible Hewlett Packard.  I was what you would call "Compu-dexterous," which means I could work on either IBM or Mac.  

I was, and still am not what I would consider computer savvy.  However, there was something about Macs that I just understood.  If you wanted to cut and paste something, just click on the scissor icon and then click on the bottle of paste.  That made sense to me.  Pictures.  I understood pictures.   I understood pictures a lot more than that "Word Perfect" application on my IBM compatible computer at home.  

The "Word Perfect" application required about fifteen discs to load onto your computer, but only one key stroke to permanently alter a document you were working on.  I remember many late nights sitting at the computer on the verge of tears as I neared the end of an assignment only to watch the entire document shift margins or worse yet disappear completely.

In my junior year of college I took my required computer class.  In what some would consider divine intervention I was enrolled for this class the same semester that the Northridge earthquake hit.  All the Engineering Department's computer labs were in buildings that were unable to be occupied, so we had computer class without computers.  How awesome is that?

On a side note this was also the same semester I was enrolled in Bio Lab, again without access to the Lab!  Go me!

So computer class at college was all about MS DOS.  CD\WP51...you get the picture, totally irrelevant to today's world.  I remember the teacher telling the class about a rumored application coming out the following year from Microsoft called "Windows."  So while the rest of the class was learning all about DOS, I was counting down the minutes till my next Journalism class when I could get back on a Mac.

In my adult life I have owned an Apple iBook, an Apple PowerBook, two iPods, and an iPhone.  I also encouraged my parents to get an Apple Macbook when they recently purchased a new computer.  My favorite Apple product is iTunes, which revolutionized my music buying, listening, and mixing habits.

So here is the reason I am telling this story.  I purchased my iPhone at the end of November last year.  From the get go I loved all the features on the iPhone but questioned its battery life.  I also had concerns about its ability to play music and web browse at the same time without restarting.  I went into the Apple Store and explained my concerns to a Genius Bar representative.  He seemed to have heard these concerns before and told me to go home and try "restoring" the iPhone.  I took his recommendations and it seemed to help my web browsing issue.  I still had doubts about the battery life and I had also noticed that sometimes the phone would get really hot.  It was almost like it was thinking too hard or something.

On Friday, I decided to go back to the Genius Bar for a follow up visit.  This was a full five months after my first diagnosis.  I arrived at the Apple Store and signed up on the concierge computer for the next available appointment which was in about ten minutes.  I had barely sat down on the bench to wait my turn when an Apple employee carrying a lap top asked my name.  I gave him my name and he confirmed I was on the waiting list.  He asked me to describe my problem.  I rattled off all my concerns as he clicked and typed away.  All the while he was nodding his head and giving me the occasional "yes" and "oh" and "hmmm."  He said thank you very much, a Genius will be with you shortly.

They called my name and I stepped up to the bar.  The Genius said "I hear you are having problems with your iPhone, tell me what's going on."   I said, "Well I don't know that they are problems, it might be normal I just need you to tell me that is ok or not ok."  I re-explained all my concerns.  After I finished telling him everything he said he wanted to do a diagnostic on the phone.  He hooked the phone up to a lap top and told me to type in my password and we would wait and see what the diagnostic would show.  After a few minutes he said "Hmmm, the diagnostic doesn't seem to have run.  Looks like you are getting a new phone."  "What?" I said. He had already stepped away and retrieved a new phone from a drawer.  As he cut open the box he said,  "I am going to take your word about the issues you are having and just give you a new phone."  Still in shock I replied, "OK.  Cool I guess."

That seems like pretty incredible customer service.  And that is just one more reason why I love Apple.

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