A brief Apple gripe

Apple, listen up. I've got some advice for  you.

On Monday, the video card in my G5 tower crapped out. To my dismay and causing me great pain in the productivity, I learned no local computer store nor the closest Apple Store carry Mac-compatible video cards.

More confounding was the lack of replacement parts forThis was not a good customer experience. the particular breed of G5 I own. The systems built in the Fall of 2004 feature PCI slots, which were replaced with PCI-Express slots within a few months. I'd figured that, since I was going to have to buy a new AGP video card I would also add a second video card to expand my display coverage from two to four monitors. But, because my G5 has the PCI slots and not the newer PCI-Express, it turns out that the only Mac PCI cards available have only 32MB memory. Ouch.

So, here is my advice, Apple:

• Stock replacement AGP video cards in your Apple Stores.
• Require resellers to stock Mac-compatible AGP video cards.
• Don't design CPUs with a slot you will replace within six months.
• Acquire a stock of used Mac-compatible cards for sale on Apple.com. They're on EBay, but do your users a favor and make Apple their destination for used cards.

I don't mind owning a computer that is more expensive. I'd like a Porsche, too. I'd never buy a Porsche if it didn't come with solid local repair and parts inventory. This was not a good customer experience, like what owning a VW or a Porsche used to be like when they were "exotic cars." 

As a mainstream PC brand, Apple needs to do better.