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.
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