Dear Apple UK

There comes a time in every Apple users life where we discover just how fucking awful their hardware is. While their software and operating systems are great, it sometimes feel like their physical devices were built in the hope that soon, very very soon, they’d be brought back to re-visit the store from which they were bought for repair.

Below is the e-mail I sent to the only two Apple e-mail addresses I could find, since they will only list the e-mail addresses of anyone that will accept money, which I don’t have because I own Apple products.

This is sort of up here in the hope that someone out there knows an Apple employee who might just be able to help me out and get this in to the hands of someone that will either help me or try have me killed for slating their company.

“Hello kind soldiers,

Today is your lucky day – I’m feeling grand and thought I’d get in touch to tell you a little bit about the wicked adventures I’ve had with my Powerbook and iPhone 3G recently. Also, feel free to pass this on to someone who might actually help me other than your easily distracted in-store “geniuses” since your UK website will only list e-mail contacts for me if it will make the company money which means you add to your millions while I move on to a cheaper brand of soup, bread and rice to get through the week.

So, only 6 months after buying my second hand Powerbook G4 from a friend, part of the charger snapped inside the DC in, meaning that I could not connect it to the power, leaving it to effectively die on its arse. Thankfully, I have a decent knowledge of electronics and have saved several PCs from dying untimely deaths. Needless to say, I soon found myself in an Apple store having discovered that, though the external body of your devices will fall to bits before you’ve even opened the box, its inside are so tightly knit that it’d take a hoard of those small chaps from that film The Borrowers (I think they were called “The Borrowers”) to get in about it, since pretty much every single tool possessed by your average human being is too big or clumsy or useful to open them. Having paid £300 for the laptop brand new, I handed over £126 to a man that may as well have belly laughed in my face while handing me back my laptop, knowing fine well that when I got home, it would start to shut itself off whenever I watched Flash videos. Now, I understand you’ll know what Flash is – if you plan on watching any video online, it’s going to be Flash most of the time, be it YouTube videos, illegal streams of some television show or just some good old fashion woman on woman action. As I enjoy indulging in all three, the computer decided it’d had enough and when shutting down for the last time, it turned the lights off, said goodbye and never returned in full power again.

Having taken it back to the shop to ask why this laptop that was once quite happy with that feeling of usefulness that comes with allowing a grown man to watch entertaining videos on your body has now decided to call it a day, he may as well have told me that it was “completely goosed” as he said it’d cost me in the region of £350 to have it fixed. Now, I’m no mathematician – hell, I’d turn Sesame St off whenever that perverted little vampire came on to patronize us with his “mad counting skills” – but having paid £300 for a laptop that was in tip-top shape before handing it on to one of your sausage-fingered technicians to fix it for over £125, only to be asked for pay £350+ to resolve an issue that only arose after this man incapably fumbled about with my machine, doesn’t sound in fitting with a company that prides itself on the build and longevity of its devices. So before I go on with my iPhone query, can you please tell me if there is any way I can have this issue sorted without having to resort to selling a kidney. Again.

Now on to the iPhone…

I recently acquired an iPhone 3G. I know it’s not the iPhone 4 or 3GS but please, save your mocking, at least until we’ve parted ways.

Anyway, I know it’s not your fault but it does have a cracked screen. That, however, is not the issue here. Again, I went in to your palace-esque building on Glasgow’s Buchanan St, slaloming my way between charity workers, ageing buskers and fire eaters in the hope that I could drop off the phone to have it fixed for a not unsavoury price tag. However, standing sweaty from the heat and hungry from having my laptop fixed last December in lieu of a months food, I found no comfort in hearing that it was £139 to have the screen replaced but that for that tag, I could have “either just the screen replaced or the screen and the full casing replaced”.

Now, when I want my screen replaced, it generally means I just want the screen replaced. On the other hand, if I asked to have my screen and casing replaced, then I’d want my screen AND casing replaced. However, as i this just my screen – you may have heard me mention that earlier – it seems like a waste of my time and money as well as a waste of your employees time and resources for you to throw in the casing when really it is not necessary.

So if you’d like to get in touch and tell me if there is anyway at all I can have these devices fixed for less than a combined total of £400+ or even if you know a man with a dog that can do it neatly but cheaply in a back alley somewhere, I’d love to hear from you.

On a positive note, the iPod Classic I bought two years again still works. Even if it was the fourth one I’ve ever bought.”

Let’s start a brotherfuckin’ revolution, friends.

Over and lout.

TMB