so this is something that I find interesting.
every tech company was plagued with issues at one point or another, apple had their fair share and so did any other company. the thing is - when a flaw is found on apple products people blow it to huge dimensions. apple customers (me included) expect perfection, we expect a flawless product right out of the box, but when we don't get it we judge apple quite harshly.this is some thing iv'e never noticed with any other tech company. why?
I think this comes down to marketing and reputation.
as an example, let's compare Apples reputation with Google and Samsung - the companies making the leading android flagships in the iPhone pro line price range:
Google is known as software company, people see their pixel line as the only way to get the vanilla android experience without bloatware - as such, they don't expect the pixel line to be in the forefront of hardware innovation - and indeed their tensor chips are extremely underwhelming. people buy pixel phones for vanilla android and have no other expectations.
Samsung always had a reputation for half-assing new technologies and rushing them in order to be the first with a product utilizing the new technologies in the market. this is evident back in the days of the galaxy s4 which had face unlock years before apple launched Face ID, and in some parts of the world used their own exynos chip which was the first octa core chip utilizing ARM's big.little in a smartphone - problem was that the face unlock didn't work more than 50% of the time, and the exynos chip had a design issue that allowed either the 4 performance cores to be active or the 4 efficiency cores, which resulted in the galaxy s4 running slower and hotter than the iPhone 4 with a dual core chip. this tradition continues over the years with the galaxy watch, curved displays, and foldable phones. as a result, while on paper the galaxy phones are technological marvels, this doesn't translate well to real world use as they are full of gimmicks and bloatware and become sluggish after very little time.
now we get to Apple. apple always had the reputation of a high quality brand. they would be behind the competition in terms of features, then roll out a feature that would not work seamlessly and perfectly for the end user.
but not only that - unlike other tech bands, Apple also brands their products as a fashion statement and a status symbol. comparing an iPhone to to any other flagship phone is like comparing a Swatch to a Rolex, sure, both are watches and both tell the time, but a Rolex is made from premium materials, with utmost precision and regard to little details.
the way Apple markets their own brand causes their customer base to expect perfection from them.
obviously this affects how mistakes made by apple are blown out of proportion and remembered for years at a time while Samsung's exploding battery fiasco has fizzled out and is largely forgotten by now.
but this also comes into play in what we expect when we buy an apple product:
- when people complain about cosmetic imperfections in their apple products the comments are encouraging them to replace it. since this is unacceptable for an expensive apple device to be imperfect, while for other manufacturers, the comments ae mostly "it's a tool, use it and stop worrying"
- people are willing ro engage in endless replacement loops hoping to find their perfect unicorn device that has not even the smallest scratch, nick, dent, scuff, display unevenness or any other imperfection.
- even I, when I buy an apple product I inspect it the same way I would an expensive watch or piece of jewelry, and I always find some kind of blemish. I only recently learned to lower my standards as I come to realize that the perfect unicorn device does not exist and trying to endlessly replace devices will only waste my time and not bring me closer to getting said perfect unicorn device.
I think this could be solved in 2 ways:
- lowering expectations - change the marketing strategy so that the brand is no longer synonymous with premium quality, and lower prices. but this would of course hurt Apple's brand image which differentiate them from other tech companies
- raise standards - implement stricter QC protocols, send Apple's own QC engineers to oversee the process in factories, make warranty more flexible, maybe release devices that allow for certain cosmetic issues to be fixed on the spot, similar to how a watchmaker can polish watches. this would obviously cost a lot of money, and i'm not sure it is even possible at the large rates most apple products are manufactured at.
what do you think? is that even a problem? if so, how should it be addressed?
