Not all is sunshine and roses for Cupertino’s Apple Inc. and its customers. In the recent years Apple has experienced tremendous growth. Five years ago Apple introduced iPod, which was an innovation in the digital music market. The iPod became so popular that it put Apple back on the technological map. Fueled by wide range popularity of the iPod, Apple’s computer hardware business began to grow as well. Apple has seen the most growth in the last year as they have moved all of their computer product lines to Intel’s Core Duo processor chips.
Despite the incredible growth Apple hasn’t escaped challenges. The new Intel based notebooks are great machines. They are fast and packed with a whole slew of features. However, MacBooks and MacBook Pros have had their share of shortcomings. In the recent months consumers have experienced random shutdowns on their MacBooks. It is understandable that new products may have unforeseen problems. Nevertheless, those affected by these issues are frustrated by Apple’s lack of response. When a company portrays its products to be high quality, consumers come to expect more. Issues such as a whining fan sound may not have raised much concern for other computer hardware makes, but Apple customers expect their computers to run flawlessly. And I don’t blame them.
As a Mac user myself, I expect my Mac to always run without a hick up. Whenever I encounter a problem I am disappointed, because I don’t expect problems to occur. I am happy to see that Apple has set a high standard of quality, however I hope that they are able to live up to their own standard. My hope is that these issues are only temporary growing pains. And that Apple will continue to build confidence among its customers.
Palm Beach Post published an article exploring this issue of quality and growing pains at Apple Inc. Bob Keefe calls the recent issues with MacBooks a testing of Apple’s fans. Read his article for more details on Apple’s recent growth and challenges.