Apple are certainly one smart company.
We all know about their products and how well they sell to the iMasses.
We also know how incredibly fragile some of their products are.
Their fragility also just happens to guarantee more sales of the same product (how serendipitous is that?)...
After all, any Apple devotee will happily hand over their hard-earned cash for a replacement iPhone /
iPad / iWhatever...
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A common sight.
Spare a thought for the Foxconn staff who made this...! |
Apple would never admit to it, but hey, it certainly is one clever way to boost sales...
I mean everyone drops their phone at some stage - more dropped phones = more sales of new ones!
Now this may just sound like a bit of Apple-bashing, but I work in the IT field daily, and I see more trashed
iDevices than any other phone or tablet.
To take this example further, let's look at that once famous Finnish company - I think they called themselves
Nokia... ;)
Now if you drop a Nokia E7 from, let's say a metre above the ground, it will bounce around a bit and exit the encounter scratched perhaps, but otherwise probably unscathed.
Repeat this exercise over and over, and you will likely just end up with a trashed looking, but still fully functional Nokia.
Trust me, I speak from experience.
It's a win for the phone, but a loss for Nokia I suppose - by the same stage in the game, Apple would now have sold an additional unit for every time the phone was dropped, their devices being as susceptible to damage as they are.
There may well be exceptions to this, but in my experience at least,
iPhones and
iPads do not take kindly to any form of rough handling.
Oh and that awesome "Gorilla" glass on the front and back of the iPhone 4 is great if you feel like a nice flesh wound, so when you do pick it up off the floor, take care not to get the glass shards anywhere near your skin.
So where the hell am I going with this? Geez I almost forgot what I was on about...
First, let's bash a bit more - not mentioning any names, but the "official" company in South Africa who deals with Apple repairs does not have the greatest reputation when it comes to customer service.
Terribly long turnaround times, lost stock and a general "we just don't give a damn and we look down our noses at you" attitude are a few of the problems that spring to mind.
Enter iFix -
www.ifix.co.za.
iFix are a breath of fresh air, in what has become the Achilles heel of Apple in South Africa - their support and after-sales service.
If I go out and buy a "premium" product, then I expect the service I receive to be premium as well.
iFix do not meander via the painstaking channels of the "official" South African Apple channels when repairing iDevices, and it shows.
Their staff are friendly, device book in is quick and easy (at least it always has been for me), and their Melrose Arch branch offers a decent cup of coffee while you book your device in... decent coffee ALWAYS scores high up on my list ;)
So next time your iPhone, iPad,
iPod,
iMac or Macbook needs some attention, or takes an unceremonious dive onto the floor, and unless you have a warranty in place, think twice about where you go to get it fixed.
Head on over to
www.ifix.co.za for more info - they have branches in JHB, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.
If you have previously used iFix to repair a device, please let us know what your experience was like by posting a comment to this post. We wanna hear from you!
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