An Open Letter to Steve Jobs

You may not remember me — after all, we only briefly brushed shoulders at the Mandarin Oriental in New York this time last year, and I have a feeling you meet a small handful of people a day, so I won’t hold it against you — but I have a bone to pick with that little company of yours. You know the one I’m talking about, it’s pomaceous and someone apparently was quite hungry when he conceived the whole idea of the logo.

I was always a PC user at home, Mac at work. I never particularly liked my work Macs, but I got used to them and after using quite a few friends’ iBooks and MacBooks, I bucked up and purchased my own 13 months ago. The Dell laptop I was using was far too bulky for the amount of travel I do, and anyway, all the pixels were dying, thus creating giant purple blobs all over the LCD. So I forked over 2Gs to purchase your sleek, highly-acclaimed model.

And I was happy, oh was I happy. After a year, my battery still holds for three hours or more, She never takes more than a minute to load up (versus the 10 minutes it took my Dell), I can run multiple programs on her at once and all still runs smoothly, She is incredibly user friendly. And I’ve even converted many a PC-loving friend to the wonderful world of Macintosh (including my 19-year-old sis who bought one and promptly had her motherboard fail RIGHT BEFORE FINALS. She wasn’t all too happy with me for the recommendation, but I stood by my faith. At the time.)

Then, the day I moved to San Francisco, February 4 if we’re being specific here, I had three stories due to one editor, on top of finishing packing up my apartment and making it to the JetBlue terminal in time for my flight. I turned Her on on that dark, rainy Monday morning, and the Apple began turning. And turning. Still turning. For an hour, it turned. It turned while I packed, turned while I ran to the UPS store one last time, turned while I ate my last sundried-tomato-on-everything bagel from the bodega next door, turned while I was on the phone with Apple Support. In the end, your technical department failed to assist me, as my install disk was somewhere on a moving van around Boise, and while my year warranty hadn’t yet come up, apparently you only dole out three months worth of phone support with each model. Sorry, they essentially told me, you’re SOL. So I conveniently tracked down a handy-dandy Apple Man just 10 blocks from my apartment who spent three hours patching her up, and I still made my flight and sent in my stories via JFK’s free WIFI in the JetBlue terminal. I didn’t appreciate the hundreds it cost me, but whatever, sometimes the money is worth the stress relief.

Then, yesterday, while it was a glorious 80 degrees and I would have preferred to be working from my backyard again — yet couldn’t, because someone mowed down a skunk somewhere along Hillside, and the rank smell permeated all of South City, our house worse than others, as apparently said skunk shimmied through our yard, tearing through our trash and leaving a stench along the fence — but instead took up residence at the handicap booth at Peet’s in Burlingame, right beside the Apple store there where I used your Internet connection all day long (thanks for that, by the way). She (being my Mac) was running smoothly for hours as I typed away working (and reading blogs, of course), yet when I came home, She wouldn’t start up again. Uh-oh. I knew this scene all too well. Luckily (or so I thought), I had both the install disks and Apple Care this time around, so I figured a brief phone call would cure Her. It did not. The phone technician — friendly though she was — sent me to downtown SF for an appointment with the Genius Bar. (Lucky for you, I was already heading directly across the street from the Stockton store for a dinner and stay at the Four Seasons SF, and extreme comfort + one serious dinner with two amazingly wonderful publicists and an equally amazing boyfriend who sat at the Apple store trying to recover every last bit of data on my hard drive were about the only things that would lift my mood. If it weren’t for the aforementioned, I might have come hunting you down, and you might have heard, but I have a bit of a temper. Actually, I’m a redhead at heart.)

Even though I had an appointment at the SF headquarters store, I was still kept waiting nearly half an hour (forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the whole point of having an appointment in the first place, so you’re not kept waiting?). Andrea, the darling bright-eyed Genius who helped me out, tried to doctor her up, but alas, her hard drive, it was failing. It was only a matter of time. I, being of Carrie Bradshaw-like mind (OK, for the record, I absolutely loathe when journalists — particularly ones based in NYC — call themselves Carrie Bradshaw, but I’m simply referring to her idiocy in backing up her comp in that one episode, you remember the one I’m referencing) have not put my external drive to use . You’d think I would have learned the first time; you’d be wrong.

So since you already charge an astronomical fee for a data transfer for a faulty hard drive — again, I’m not understanding, your product UNDER WARRANTY failed me TWICE, and yet you still have the nerve to charge me a fee for it??? — what the Hell, I just bought a new external drive to do the work for me, since it was the same price and at least I walked out the store with something for my money. Also, while Apple Care covered a hard drive replacement, I was forced to dish out an additional $100 for your ProCare plan, since it would be more than a week before I would get Her back, and as her laptop is a writer’s heartbeat — a writer who’s under multiple magazine and book deadlines in the coming week — this simply wasn’t an option.

All that said, I do appreciate the enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of your Apple-certified Geniuses. In the end, it only took half a day to get Her all patched up (guess that speedy ProCare works, after all), and once She was ready to come home from Her trip to the Apple Hospital, I receieved two e-mails and two phone calls from the store alerting me to this. Now, that’s service (but why couldn’t it have gone as smoothly all along, I ask you?). Is it just that you’re producing so many products and coming up with cutting-edge technology like the new iPhone that you’re neglecting the original products that made your company so ubiquitous in the first place? Something’s gotta change here, my friend, because two failed hard drives in one year is a little ridiculous; if it were a PC, I’d even say the same, but since it’s an Apple, it’s doubly so. I expect more from your mutli-gazillion dollar corporation.

So Stevie, send me a check for costs incurred (roughly $400, more if we’re counting time lost), and all will be well with the world again. I also accept payment in the form of cash or PayPal. Deal?

xoxo,
Me

P.S. I currently type this from a PC desktop, and as infuriated as you’ve made me, Steve, I’m now convinced I will never go back to a Mac-less existence. So uphold your end of the bargain, and that way, I can keep my word.