An ipain in the ibum.

I dislike ranting in blogs because it's boring and achieves little. However, I feel the need to rant. So I will. But promise to keep it short, if not sweet.

When I bought my top-of-the-range imac two years ago I was very excited. I had saved hard and finally it was delivered. It's been brilliant. Loved it. Awesomeness in the shape of a 27" screen – get the picture? However, it does have a fault. In fact, it has two. Firstly, ever since I have had it when it goes into power-save mode the screen begins to flicker. It's annoying and to be fair I should have sent it straight back, but I was too excited and that would have been a pain. The second problem is that during a certain period of time Apple used some dodgy hard disks from Seagate. They are now recalling all the Macs that used them and replacing the disks for free. It was only by chance that I stumbled across a thread that led me to discover this.

Apparently Apple are contacting everyone who is affected by this issue... yeah right! After entering my serial number into the Apple website I was told I am eligible for the replacement. Okay, so why wasn't I contacted? Oh no! Wait a minute – two minutes after I've entered my serial number into their website I get an urgent email from Apple telling me about the problem and that I need to take me computer in for maintenance and should not delay. How kind of them to alert me to the problem. So they advise me to contact my local Apple store and direct me to the phone number. Going well so far. After waiting over thirty minutes to talk to someone at the Kingston Apple store, I'm told that I need to google the Kingston Apple store and book an appointment online (can you just not book me in? No?). Great. And will they be able to replace the drive on the spot? No, apparently that will take between 7-10 days. And what will I do without a computer for 7-10 days? "Sorry, Sir, I don't know." Funny – BECAUSE NEITHER DO I!

So, just to clarify. I spent over 30 minutes on the phone, had to then book the appointment online, am going to have to waste a morning carrying 20kg of computer from my car to the shop (and presumably another morning picking it up), and then make do without a computer for over a week (baring in mind I work from home). And if I am not mistaken, I have to restore all my data and applications myself. And is any of this my fault? No, because let's face it, companies don't recall products unless they really have to. So since Apple are to blame, you would expect the least they could do was: arrange to pick it up; send out an engineer to do it at my home; be able to do it in store while I waited; or provide a suitable computer on loan. But no, Apple like to 'think different'.

In fact, they've just launched a new imac. The little tag line reads "Performance and design. Taken right to the edge." Well they've certainly taken me to the edge... and I kind of get the impression that if they could, they'd give me a little push – then they wouldn't have to mend my Mac.