In late December of 2009 I hurt my back seriously enough that I needed to take to my bed for ten days. As if to test me, Job-like, no sooner did I become ambulatory again and start to catch up on heaps of postponed work than my trusty 15" Apple MacBook Pro began presenting me with psychedelic screen displays and inexplicable system crashes. When it rains, it pours.
Fortunately, the machine remained under a three-year AppleCare warranty. A lengthy phone conversation and diagnostic with the tech division of Apple led to a Martin Luther King Day appointment at the "Genius Bar" of the Apple Store on West 14th Street in Manhattan, just two blocks from the railroad flat in the meat-packing district that my family occupied for several years in the mid-1950s. A personable tech there listened carefully to my description of the problems, ran several diagnostic tests, and took the machine in for examination, telling me I'd have to surrender it for 5-7 working days.
Aside from a few out-of-town or overseas trips made before I acquired a laptop, I haven't lacked access to a computer or the internet for close to 20 years. Just about everything I do nowadays depends on the computer, and much of it is web-related/reliant. I have no substitute machine (though I do back up my files, sporadically), and I'd no idea what I'd do for the week to ten days in which they'd have my MBP in the shop. Indeed, by the end of the first full day without it I felt like climbing the walls — especially because the back problem restricts my capacity to do any kind of serious physical work around the house. I concentrated on cleaning up my desk and getting some papers filed away.
To my great relief, just two days after I'd turned in my MBP the Apple Store called to tell me they had it ready. I went in the next morning to claim it. They'd replaced the motherboard, the optical CD/DVD drive, and the two fans — everything but the hard drive, the screen, the keyboard, and the case. They threw in a new battery as well (the battery in this model had known problems). So I got back a radically refurbished "like new" machine (with all my data intact), plus, as a bonus, a heightened sense of my extreme dependence on the computer for most of my projects and activities. While extremely appreciative of the quality of Apple's tech support and commitment to its extended warranty (which earned back its cost and then some with that visit), I promised myself more frequent data backups and, ASAP, the purchase of a second machine, so as never to get caught short again.
Though I'm a geezer geek, a long-time Mac user, and probably qualified as a Mac addict, this was the first time I'd done more than step into an Apple store for a minute. The experience proved entirely positive, from the bright, airy interior to the efficient organization of appointments at the "Genius Bar" to the tech savvy and interpersonal skills of the Apple expert who handled my situation.
Months later, in the spring, I finally got serious about initiating a comprehensive backup program for myself, to ensure maximum safety of my data in my own home. Mac Edition Radio's editor, Harris Fogel, had returned from the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show impressed by a new product, the ioSafe, and suggested that it was indeed the tool that everyone who cares about preserving their data should have. At our request, ioSafe sent me for review an ioSafe 1.5tb Solo: a 15-lb. hunk of steel-encased, insulated, waterproofed serious equipment, which the maker claims will protect against fire up to 1550F for 1/2 hour, and against flooding in up to 10 ft. of water for 72 hours. (MSRP $299.99. They also offer 500 gb and 1tb versions.) Setup proved itself the essence of simplicity, literally plug-and-play -- more on that in a forthcoming piece -- so I began backing up via Time Machine forthwith.
Almost immediately, and quite unexpectedly, the opportunity for a test of the ioSafe's basic function presented itself. Now almost three years old, and nearing the mid-July 2010 end of its Applecare coverage, my MacBook Pro still manifested a few problems I considered minor but worrisome. Its first visit to the Apple Store in January had involved what I thought were more substantial issues, with the results indicated above. Everything ran much better after that, but the fans still got noisy from time to time, the machine got hotter than I thought it should, and paint had chipped off from some of the keys on my keyboard.
So, a week after getting the ioSafe operating and Time Machine running daily, I called Applecare to make another appointment at the store. I took it in on a Monday, around noon. A smart, personable tech named Matt verified the problem with the keys, then ran assorted diagnostics on the fans and the internal temperature. All fell within normal parameters, he told me, but they'd check it out further.
Then Matt ran Disk Utility, just as I do myself, periodically. But Verify Disk turned up a problem with the hard drive — a problem Disk Utility couldn't repair. He actually put his ear to the drive to listen; I told him he should buy a stethoscope. He thought he heard a grinding noise from the drive (I didn't), so he announced that they'd install a brand-new drive.
Great, I said. Would they transfer over my data? "No," he replied; "no way of knowing whether your data is intact or damaged. Do you have a backup?" Yes, I told him — via Time Machine, on an ioSafe. Did he know what that was? He did: "The fireproof, waterproof one, right?" When I confirmed that description, he asked, "When did you last back it up?" Just before I left this morning for our appointment, I answered. "You'll be fine," he reassured me. "When you boot this up after you get it home, just restore everything from Time Machine."
They had the parts in stock. Tuesday afternoon I picked it up and brought it home. The start-up screen asked me if I had another Mac from which I wanted to import data. I connected the ioSafe and set Time Machine to restore at 2:30 p.m., then went out to run some errands. When I got back, at 3:30, my MBP was fully functional again, with all my data and apps intact. There's a 90-day warranty on my new parts. And they'd even upgraded my OS from Leopard, which I'd been running, to Snow Leopard — and to the latest iteration thereof, 10.6.4, released just that day, June 14.
My three-year AppleCare contract had now paid for itself several times over. Between the two visits, January and June, they'd replaced every moving part in the chassis. In effect, I had a brand-new MBP with an old screen. The ioSafe, in tandem with Time Machine, had me back at work in a hour. A few software updates brought various apps up to speed.
I can't certify the completeness of the full restore I achieved via Time Machine and the ioSafe without checking all my apps, but those I use most often seem to work just fine. So far I've experienced just one glitch. My Samsung ML-2510 printer wouldn't work after I fired up the MBP subsequent to the full restore. I kept getting an error message telling me that I had the wrong software installed. I reinstalled the software that came with the printer; no improvement, same message.
Some nosing around online revealed that this particular Samsung model's driver had a known conflict with Snow Leopard. Various fixes were suggested, such as deleting and then adding it anew in SysPrefs>Printers & Faxes (no dice) and running Disk Utility>Repair Permissions (nope). Finally, in a forum, someone noted that one could download an updated Samsung Driver and Smart Panel good for OS 10.6 from Samsung's site. That did the trick.
Much as I appreciate the free OS boost, I have to add that some people (not me) consciously opt not to install a new OS upgrade, whether it's a specific one or just on general principle — because it's still buggy, because it conflicts with or obsolesces software or hardware they use, or just because they don't like it. They should not have that forced on them; it should get offered as an option, which means that the Apple Store Genius should note the currently installed OS and offer the upgrade, or (if it comes pre-installed on the drive) should indicate that the customer must immediately reformat if an earlier iteration is preferred. Finding this out after the fact would make some people cranky, especially if they did a full restore first.
As it happens, I consider it icing on the cake. Glad to have that task taken care of for me, at no cost; charmed to have the latest release running before anyone I know, including Harris Fogel, Ye Editor of MER; and willing to put up with any bugs and problems that come with it.
During those pleasant and exceedingly productive visits I couldn't help recalling that, when Apple announced its plan to open its first two stores in early 2001, David A. Goldstein, president of the Dallas-based research consultancy firm Channel Marketing Corp., predicted a disaster. "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake," Goldstein opined. (See Cliff Edwards' May 21, 2001 commentary in Bloomberg Businesweek.) I assume that by now the gentleman has taken his foot out of his mouth in order to publicly eat those words. Apple now has over 200 such stores worldwide; notably, the economic meltdown has not forced them to close even a single one.
Speaking as an entirely satisfied customer, delighted not only with Apple's commitment to fulfilling its AppleCare warranties but with the ease of having that done by skilled diagnosticians with excellent people skills on Apple's own premises, I hope Apple puts one of those stores in my neighborhood — right next to a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, and a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Nothing adds tone to a community like an Apple Store, I say.
A.D. Coleman, posted 7/2/2010
For more information on AppleCare visit: www.apple.com
For more information on the iOSafe visit: www.iosafe.com
For more information on A. D. Coleman visit: www.nearbycafe.com
© Copyright 2010 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. By permission of the author and Image/World Syndication Services, imageworld@nearbycafe.com.
