Why Apple Sometimes Behaves Badly

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We may have directed you to this portion of the site due to an issue whereby some communication you've had with Apple has left you a little dazed and confused. It happens often enough that we thought it a good idea to write some preemptive text on the subject.

All Apple resellers are in the awkward position of selling the product of our main competitor. By now, everyone knows that Apple has an online presence as well as retail stores. The whole idea of a manufacturer selling in direct competition with its resellers is a relatively new one, and believe us when we say that Apple is still working through the kinks and issues on the topic. And they still have a ways to go.

We think it's pretty obvious as to why people should support independent resellers, but in case you hadn't thought about it, here's why:

  1. By buying from an authorized third party source, you have two sources for support. Since Apple manufactures the product, they provide support whether you buy it from us or from them. But when you buy from us, you get very personalized, knowledgeable support on everything Apple and related, as well as the support that Apple offers. That's two sources of support for the price of one!

  2. Hardly anyone believes a monopoly works in the best interests of consumers, so we like to promote the idea for us personally as well as for our customers, that when you "vote" with your dollars, a strong consideration should be made to support competition. Since Apple has their own direct sales, and Apple has the long-term potential of thinking they could sell all products direct themselves (believe us, they would in a heartbeat if the market supported it), so when you "vote" for them you're voting for the potential of there being only one (or just a few) places to buy Apple products. And that wouldn't be good for consumers. Vote for choice!

    Obviously, that shouldn't be the only reason, because if we're screw-ups or deceitful, then it wouldn't be a good choice. Fortunately for you, we endeavor as hard as we can never to be the former, and we couldn't possibly have survived for over 30 years being the latter.

  3. PowerMax gives you lots more options than just about anyone, even if it's just the availability of pre-owned Macs or other special deals. Since we're not the manufacturer, we don't have to drink the "Kool-Aid" that says only the very latest Mac is the one you should have. And heck, there are times when maybe a Mac isn't what you need, especially when it comes to servers and other IT hardware. A manufacturer understandably believes that the only solution is what they offer, and that might not always be the case.

  4. A large entity like Apple is forced to operate under policies, procedures and rules. It's just too far-flung to have every conversation between every employee to go the way Apple management would like. The result is that your personal issues are somewhat irrelevant to big companies because it's all one big machine. At PowerMax, we like to offer very personalized service, and we listen to our customers. So when you have a situation that doesn't fit into a "box," real people with real concerns and real authority to make decisions on your behalf are listening to you.

So an example we run into now and then in dealing with the "machine," is that Apple is forced to set automatic dates in their system as to when warranty starts, which is largely determined by the manufacture date. Once in a while, especially with discontinued machines or other special offers, that date has nothing to do with the date it actually sells (which is when your warranty actually starts), and we've had instances where personnel at Apple tell a customer their perfectly valid warranty isn't actually valid, or it's expired, etc. The reason this occurs is because many of Apple's internal systems of course support their direct sales, and to some extent many of their employees operate within a vacuum, being largely oblivious to the rest of the world and the fact that Apple has a reseller channel at all. So while these individual problems are always correctable, the initial conversation can be a little disconcerting to the customer. But we're here to tell you that one of our jobs as an Apple reseller is to make sense of their systems (it is, after all, what we do for a living), and help you through it. We'll always make things right, even if we have to bang Apple over the head to do it.

If nothing else, hopefully you can tell from the above as well as our other extensive ramblings on this site, that we're not afraid to tell it like it is. The only people we're beholden to is our customers, and we take that duty very seriously (even if we do like to have a good time while we do it).

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