[hlouey]

Originally posted by hlouey:
Hi all,

You know somethings been troubling me whilst reading all these threads.

First up is the issue of some Apple Centres receiving stock of 17" PB's before others. An example I see is NextByte and Infinity receive shipments before others. My Apple reseller has received no shipment of PB's at all (other than the demo model). Is this favoritism by Apple on some resellers over other resellers perhaps??

Second is hearing of people who have placed orders thru the online store seemingly receiving there machines before the channel receives stock? Again favoritism??

Third, When I rang the customer service hotline I asked a specific question. What are you going to do to compensate customers that have ordered there notebooks early but have had to wait (and still) wait for stock? There answer is nothing can/will be done. So..... why am I hearing of members here getting free copys of Keynote as compensation? Again the only consistant is, and yes you guessed it. These members ordered from the online store!

Call it sour grapes, call it venting, call it whatever you like. Something fishy is going on. I am not happy

Regards,

Henry

[Wet Jimmy]

Originally posted by hlouey:
Call it sour grapes, call it venting, call it whatever you like. Something fishy is going on. I am not happy

I think you'll find that orders are being filled in order from when the STORE placed their order to Apple, not when YOU placed our order. It's already been covered here that the store in BRisbane which seemed to be the first in Australia to receive stock actually ordered a whole bunch of units on the day of the keynote. I suspect what most stores did was wait until they had five or ten orders and THEN place their request with Apple.

I can't see how Apple is favouring on-line store orders over regualr stores though - it seems that most resellers in Sydney, at least, have had stock before the On-Line store shipped any. I haven't heard ANY stories of someone receiving an On-Line store order - I have a feeling I'll be amongst the first when one turns up today.

And do you want to know why there are not more freebies being offered? It's because you're not complaining loudly or strongly enough. I was making multiple phone calls and I wrote a pretty fiery two page complaint letter that seemed to make it up the Apple food chain to the point where I was finally given the treatment I would expect.

Anyway, all I can suggest is to be vocal, but not abusive, and don't take no for an answer. The trick is though, you need to be prepared to cancel your order on the spot - if you're not prepared to do that and potentially wait another month for stock from a reseller to arrive, then you've got no bargaining power...

[hlouey]

Originally posted by Wet Jimmy:
I think you'll find that orders are being filled in order from when the STORE placed their order to Apple, not when YOU placed our order. It's already been covered here that the store in BRisbane which seemed to be the first in Australia to receive stock actually ordered a whole bunch of units on the day of the keynote. I suspect what most stores did was wait until they had five or ten orders and THEN place their request with Apple.

I can't see how Apple is favouring on-line store orders over regualr stores though - it seems that most resellers in Sydney, at least, have had stock before the On-Line store shipped any. I haven't heard ANY stories of someone receiving an On-Line store order - I have a feeling I'll be amongst the first when one turns up today.

And do you want to know why there are not more freebies being offered? It's because you're not complaining loudly or strongly enough. I was making multiple phone calls and I wrote a pretty fiery two page complaint letter that seemed to make it up the Apple food chain to the point where I was finally given the treatment I would expect.

Anyway, all I can suggest is to be vocal, but not abusive, and don't take no for an answer. The trick is though, you need to be prepared to cancel your order on the spot - if you're not prepared to do that and potentially wait another month for stock from a reseller to arrive, then you've got no bargaining power...

Hi WetJimmy,

Thanks for the update. Do you mean you STILL haven't got your machine?? My apologies. In all the messages I have assumed you received yours by now.

So besides me, is anyone else here still waiting for there machines??

Regards,

Henry

[Disko_matt]

What i was told is that my PB was on the VERY first shipment... And now Next Byte have them on display, so where is my PB? I ordered mine from the apple store online in February, and i when asked about the delays i'd heard about over seas, the response was "no, the thirty day waiting period is accurate in your case". So i was stoked. 30 days on, they tell me that my PB is on the first shipment. 2 months on they say it could arrive tommorrow or in 4 weeks. This is unnacceptable for a $7k purchase. I don't mind the waiting, it's the lying that pisses me off.

If i haven't heard anything by tuesday of next week, i'm cancelling my order.

[Wet Jimmy]

IT JUST ARRIVED!!! IT'S ON MY DESK NOW!!!

More soon!

[spathi]

Originally posted by hlouey:
So besides me, is anyone else here still waiting for there machines??

yup, im still waiting. They said hopefully they were getting some in this week, and it should be in that lot. Haven't heard anything else, might email then for an update later this afternoon.

[daemon1]

Just as promised.

Im going to go pick up my 17" from maccentric in chatswood in about 15mins!!!

Have burnt a cd with lcdtester.dmg on it to give it a quick test.

Going to also look for:

- sizzling sound
- uneven losing
- uneven trackpad
- that's about it



will mail a quick review when I get back..

[spathi]

Alright, I have an update, apparently they are receiving their first lot from apple australia tomorrow, and im number 5 in the queue. They said mine should be in tomorrows lot.

Unfortunatley because of holidays and such (happy easter everybody!) i probably wont receieve it til mid-late next week if im lucky

Hope it all goes to plan, im glad a lot of you guys have yours for the long weekend! have lots of fun with em! It'd be great to hear your initial thoughts on the machines as well

[daemon1]

Just came back with it...
installing OSX..

All i can saw is WOW

[Martyb]

So besides me, is anyone else here still waiting for there machines??

I am still waiting.
Given my order date, I guess that I shouldn't get excited that some of the guys are getting theirs. Is there a relationship between the status page and the actual order? I guess what am asking is how much warning did you guys who orderd through the apple store get? Have heaps of fun.

Marty

[Wet Jimmy]

All I can say is this - I'm sitting in bed, my wife is watching Fellowship of the Ring on one side of the screen while I type this and chat on MSN Messenger, both thanks to the flawless Aiport Extreme network!

Loving my 17: Powerbook

[Martyb]

Did everyone go away for the weekkend? Or has everyone left?
Am I waiting alone now?
Hope you are enjoying the machines.

[hlouey]

Originally posted by Martyb:
Did everyone go away for the weekkend? Or has everyone left?
Am I waiting alone now?
Hope you are enjoying the machines.

Its now entered the 4th month since I have ordered this machine!

So I did not have a good weekend

I have however managed to buy a Canon EOS 10D while waiting. Amazing how other companies can get "selling like hotcake" product to the Oceana Market signifigantly fast than Apple

Regards,

Henry

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by Martyb:
Hope you are enjoying the machines.

I tell you what - this backlit keyboard is insanely useful, I've worked in bed quite a number of times now (including most of this morning, I was unable to sleep all night thanks to drinking far too much at a party last night) and been able to see perfectly.

The backlit keyboard does have a couple of flaws though. I discussed it with my partner's brother, who is an Apple tech, and he mentioned he noticed the same things but that it is normal. Strange that nobody on these forums seems to have commented on it though.

If you own a 15" PowerBook, the 17" screen is not as "insanely massively dwarfingly huge" as others say - it's BIG, yes, but not THAT big. I think that comes from the height being not much different than the 15", since the screen drops down due to the hinge design, so it merely feels a bit "wider".

The battery life sucks, unless you work in the dark - the reduced screen brightness (whether automatic or manual) saves a lot of power.

If you don't currently own a 15" PowerBook then this is an insanely awesome machine, but otherwise it's merely a "perfection of the TiBook design, with screwed up battery life".

[DVD Plaza]

Guess I should comment on a few other differences between my TiBook and AluBook:

There are now 5, instead of 4, status light on the battery - and pushing the button causes them to (very quickly) light up in sequence rather than simply come on.

The ports being on the sides I've personally found to be a little annoying already, BUT I tell you what the finish is outstanding - everything has a solid plastic surrounding making it quite solid and very elegant. The PC card slot, however, is absolutely sh#thouse - imagine a $2 shop product compared to an Apple/Sony product, it's really crap and flimsy comapred to the elegant one on the TiBook.

The powerpack has the Earth connector introduced with the 1GHz TiBook, and (again, as per the 1GHz TiBook) the connector is now white and the orange/green lighting is lighter in colour than the earlier TiBooks.

The sound quality is a large step up from the TiBook - louder, clearer, and far more depth.

Keyboard feel is outstanding, it's better than punching away at a desktop keyboard infact.

The larger trackpad worked great the first night, but has been a little quirky since then. The button is new and much nicer than the TiBook.

My machine came with the Toshiba drive instead of the Fujitsu, bummer

Fan noise - having gone through the absolute hell of my 1GHz TiBook being noisy as %^&$, refusing to turn off it's bloody hoover EVER, and my 800DVI PowerBook being dead silent and I pleased to report this beast is even MORE silent than my 800DVI. Not only that, I've only ONCE had the fan turn on and it wasn't even due to CPU load - it was due to resting the machine on the wrong side of my bed sheets, a smooth side of the material that caused a massive builtup of heat... I mean I couldn't even touch the bottom of the machine it was THAT HOT, yet not even a minute later the fan had cooled the whole bottom of the machine back down. Not sure if there have been comments about heat on the top of the machine, as there have been for the 12", but I can tell you there is ZILCH heat on top of the 17"!

Power button is recessed now, my partner liked that the most about this machine.

The two clips for the screen don't hold down the increased width enough, they are far too close together. You can very easily grab one corner of the screen whilst it is closed and twist it a bit - but that's not a typical thing one would do

The quiet sparkling/static noise all the TiBooks had coming from the keyboard is louder in the AluBook, I can hear it without putting my hear right to the keyboard, but no big deal.

Otherwise she's the same as the TiBook but much more refined and elegant looking.

Oh, the backlit keyboard quirk - the top row of keys (the function keys) and the arrow keys don't light up evenly, in fact they barely light up much at all. Worse yet, their barely lit state makes them a very light "grey" instead of "white" - so when you are in a dimly lit room you actually see a grey key with grey text, so you have to turn OFF the backlight to read those keys! Also when you first get the machine the auto-dimming controls keep making the backlight brightness of the keyboard 0, so you keep having to manually turn the brightness up all the time until eventually it remembers that in the dark it should turn UP the brightness. Note that when the keyboard does (eventually) correctly light up it "fades" on/off, a typical PowerBook elegant touch.

Anyways cool machine, but if you own a 15" PowerBook then this is more of a perfection of that beast than a mind-blowingly new machine. Then again, being nearly four months since I ordered I guess the hype is all but gone and I just need to get work done now.

[DVD Plaza]

Oh yeah, and the SuperDrive still doesn't quite eject discs 100% smoothly - but is better than what it was. Not sure I'll DOA her because of it though, might just get my partner's brother to fit me a new drive later down the track - especially if there is a revised one later that corrects the reported intermittent DVD-RW issues. Besides, I have one dead pixel that isn't annoying so I'd hate to end up with a machine that has two (though would be nice to have none like my 800DVI and every single PC notebook I have EVER administrated/supported).

[�tomic]

After reading alot of the replies on this forum and more imortantly this thread, I dont seem to have any troubles at ALL. I have no dead pixels, the gap between base and screen when shut is even all the way around, CD's insert/eject smoothly and it also recognised a previously written DVD-RW (Pioneer) without a hitch - I have not tried to record to a brand new DVD-RW however. Battery life is typically 3 hours for me but this area is very subjective.

So far, I'm loving my Powerbook. The only thing I miss is the speed of a dual processor G4. The PB is fast but not as fast as a dualie. Also gaming is not too bad either, I played Quake III Arena on Sunday and it handled it very well considering its a protable.

Overall rating:

[magness]

Despite all the complaints about a long wait, I put my order into NextByte (Baulkham Hills) for a 17" PB last Tuesday (15th April). This is my first Mac and am quite excited about it. I've got NO idea how I made it through the weekend without the toy but by the looks of things I've got a long way to go a well. There was a rumour that Apple wanted to fulfill all it's orders by the end of next week but I'm not sure if it was the salesperson talking trash just to get an A$8K sale.

Since I'm a VB (ver 6.0 and also .NET) developer by trade, I had to do alot of compatibility testing using VPC 5.0 (for PC) to see if my VB programs would compile and run properly under VPC. I'm assuming VPC 6.0 for mac would give me the same performance as well. So I'm not quite a switcher but more of a mixer. Having looked all most of the PC Laptops out there I does look like the PB shits over most (if not all) of them. Sure I'll cop flack from the twitch kiddies who play Counter Strike but I've got a 2.8GHZ PC for that sort of stuff.

I have got no idea how you guys (or gals) made it through the long wait. Has anyone had experience with NextByte at Baulko?

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by magness:
Since I'm a VB (ver 6.0 and also .NET) developer by trade, I had to do alot of compatibility testing using VPC 5.0 (for PC) to see if my VB programs would compile and run properly under VPC.

Whether you're compiling VB programs, using the Windows version of Office, or playing Solitair makes no difference - you're running within an emulated PC so the VPC session is exactly the same as sitting in front of a PC.

[magness]

Thanks. I had to make sure that the thing worked. Being in the IT industry has made me more paranoid than usual. I didn't want to spend that much money and get a lemon. Well... Sexy lemon anyway. I'm just hoping the damned things gets here soon. Decided to also get a Airport Extreme with it too so I'm sure y'all can imagine the butterflies I've got waiting for my new toy.

[OzAl]

Burning DVD-RW works on PB17.

Having followed other threads on this issue, I just gave it a shot myself. Went to Dick Smith Electronics, and bought an Imation DVD-RW disk for $13.94 (an odd price!).

When I first tried to burn onto it, it failed. But as described by others elsewhere, I then quick erased it using Disk Copy. Next I copied about 70MB of data files to it for a quick test, and burnt it successfully from Finder. Finally, I ejected and remounted it to test all the files were there. No worries!

The burn didn't take too long (or the verify phase at the very end), but the "Finishing...." phase seemed to take forever.

After the test I quick erased it again (seems to take longer once you've burned it previously).

Given the cost of DVD-R disks, this offers a very nice option for data backup.

OzAl

[Wet Jimmy]

Well, I've had a week or so now with my 17" Powerbook, and I've got to say that I am very happy with it (thank god!).

Firstly - no hardware faults and no dead pixels!

Secondly, this is my first mac since 1994, and I've got to say I'm impressed with the OS and the way it handles. I'm loving it! I'm definitely in favour of a mass move to OSX!

I DID have to do a format/re-install within a couple hours of the first day of having the machine, but since then it's been clear sailing. I LOVE the way OSX installs and removes software so cleanly. This is a major boon.

Funnily enough though, one of the things that has impressed me the most is Virtual PC I'm running VPC with Windows XP Pro, and I have to say, while the speed isn't as great as a native machine, it's useable, and more importantly, it's FUNCTIONAL. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I found that I could use work's VPN software to tunnel into our network here under and emulated Windows XP box. Amazingly well designed piece of software. Here's hoping MS only makes it better!

All in all, it's a great machine. It's been a bit of a leaning curve, but it's been thoroughly enjoyable. Purely on a hardware aspect - this is a wonderful machine. Aside from an increase in batetry life, I don't think it's possible to find a fault with the 17" Powerbook. I've certainly got everyone at work envious of me, and my Windows XP box has now been moved to the other end of my desk, only to be used via MS's Remote Desktop Connection.

Loving it

PS: I know the chances are slim, but if anyone has knowledge of Lotus Notes 6 on the Mac, I'm having a few problems and I'd love to hear from you.

[Disko_matt]

Hmm....

I just got off the phone with the apple store people... here's the story:

I was told that my PB would be on the first shipment, and it wasnt. I was told my PB would be here in 30 days, and it wasn't. I am getting sick of the crap that i'm being told by these people to keep me as a customer.

I've weighed up my options and decided that there are better things to spend seven grand on, so i've given my contact at the apple store a call (michelle). I got her answering machine telling me that she was on leave. WHAT!!? Aww maan. So i called the apple store and followed the prompts. I finally got to an operator and said "Hi, i've ordered a Powerbook and i'd like to cancel my order." I had a quick "please hold", and they swept me through there phone network to a guy called ryan. He was very apologetic about the delays and promised me that i'd have the powerbook by the end of next week. As everyone who ordered in february should. He was doing all he could to persuade me not to cancel the order. He even threw in a copy of keynote. He's going to call me back on tuesday. I'm still not sure wether or not i'll go through with it. I mean, for seven grand, i could buy a whole new guitar/FX/Amp setup or a new bike, or an imac with a fantastic digital camera... so i'll make up my mind over the weekend.

If apple had delivered my powerbook within the time frame they gave me, then i wouldn't even be having second thoughts.

Should i cancel?

[Wet Jimmy]

Ryan is the guy who helped me out, so I'd say you can take him at his word... I'd say hang in there one week more. Having had mine for a week now, I have to say I am amazingly happy that I hung in there, and you will be too.

[BrettOZ]

Wow - Keynote !!

That would not sway me to keep my order. $7000 is a lot of money for a piece of equipment - I can fully understand why you are having second thoughts.

[Disko_matt]

Wetjimmy: Any dead pixels, scratches, or popping sounds in your powerbook? I'm worried about getting a lemon.

BrettOz: Have you got a 17" on order? Do you think i'd be better off getting a 17" imac and then buying a top of the range digital camera to go with it? (i do alot of band's websites, and it's hard getting live photos with bad cameras in dark rooms)

[�tomic]

I did have second thoughts and rang up to cancel also (through a reseller) now I dont know whether or not it was just a huge coincidence or what but when I called to cancel my machine was in the next day

I have a theory about this. If it was not a coincidence, perhaps Apple knows it cannot supply enough machines to satisfy demand so what do they do? They have a stockpile of machines sitting at their headquarters that do not get shipped to customers. Obviously the resellers are losing out here also and you could just imagine the ear bashing Apple Australia have received from them. So Apple decides to have a bunch of standby machines in the wings for their resellers that have customers threatening to cancel their orders. This message is conveyed to Apple Australia and before you know it, a machine is shipped out immediately.

This could all be crap, it could all be true. All I know is that I was willing to cancel eveything until the next keynote and the very next day I had a machine. I would dare say Apple knows whats going on but I seriously doubt it

[hlouey]

Originally posted by �tomic:
I did have second thoughts and rang up to cancel also (through a reseller) now I dont know whether or not it was just a huge coincidence or what but when I called to cancel my machine was in the next day

I have a theory about this. If it was not a coincidence, perhaps Apple knows it cannot supply enough machines to satisfy demand so what do they do? They have a stockpile of machines sitting at their headquarters that do not get shipped to customers. Obviously the resellers are losing out here also and you could just imagine the ear bashing Apple Australia have received from them. So Apple decides to have a bunch of standby machines in the wings for their resellers that have customers threatening to cancel their orders. This message is conveyed to Apple Australia and before you know it, a machine is shipped out immediately.

This could all be crap, it could all be true. All I know is that I was willing to cancel eveything until the next keynote and the very next day I had a machine. I would dare say Apple knows whats going on but I seriously doubt it

Well,

I'm still wating for mine

Henry

[spathi]

mine made it to the store yesterday, and was sent out to me same day, it'll probably be in early next week, i'd like to say it will be here tomorrow - but i doubt it

Atleast its finally on the last leg of its voyage

[Wet Jimmy]

Originally posted by Disko_matt:
Wetjimmy: Any dead pixels, scratches, or popping sounds in your powerbook? I'm worried about getting a lemon.

Nope, everything is working just fine. The screen is brilliant - no dead pixels, and the finish, although it collects dust like nothing else, is flawless.

it DOES have that hissing/sizzling/popping noise under the keyboard from time to time, but you barely notice it when it happens unless you're listening out for it.

I have a quick question for the Max saavy amongst you - how do I get specific items to start upon system start? I've tried sticking Alias's of the programs I want under the StartupItems folder in the various libraries, but no such luck. What am I doing wrong?

[�tomic]

Originally posted by Wet Jimmy:


I have a quick question for the Max saavy amongst you - how do I get specific items to start upon system start? I've tried sticking Alias's of the programs I want under the StartupItems folder in the various libraries, but no such luck. What am I doing wrong?

In the preferences folder there is an icon called startup items, just select the applications you want launched at startup and you done. No need for shortcuts, or moving stuff in and out folders...simple

[daemon1]

Just like to confirm,

Have 17" powerbook

with Matshita UJ-815 drive, firmware: DWDB

I have used Imation DVD-RW Disc: http://www.imation.com/en_US/product.jhtml?Id=IM_PRD425

Put the DVD in, used Toast 5.2 to erase. Did a full erase (which took a while!).

Burnt about 280mb on the disk... ejected and reinsterted, the files were all ok, open/read everything

Erased the disk again, with the Finder Disk Copy program (in Application/Utilities), did a quick erase.

Loaded up Toast again, burnt 3.8gb on the disk.... (took about 40-50mins) support 1x speed.... ejected, reinserted disc, all files ok, no probs...

Burnt same image on apple dvd-r disc, got a fork something error when there was about 10sec left... rebooted the system (the dvd wouldn't eject.. read the contents ok, files that i looked at seemed fine)... Toast said it was an osx error which caused the burn to fail, I was running the battery down (it was on about 5% at the time), also doing some stuff in terminal... anyway the disc survived, didn't come out as a coaster.

Also have read the pdf from the industrial panasonic site, which tells you what the drive can support.

Based on this, the apple firmware doesn't cripple DVD-RW on firmware DWDB.

Im not eager to change anything about the drive... my dvd region is 4 (Australia) - have only region4 discs, dont need to be region free...

The drive burns DVD-R, DVD-RW and does CD-R @ 16x (have burnt about 20 cds at that speed on the weekend - no probs)... That's all I need... if it does DVD-RAM now, or in the future, its a bonus, if not, am happy with DVD-RW

Hope this helps!!

[Martyb]

Wet jimmy,
Did you check the order status page every day? I am and it is atill at the "being assembled" stage. I was wondering what time period you had after it move to the "being packed" stage. It this order different from other orders that have still taken a week or more after the order was shipped. I don't know why but I am now losing my conviction. Perhapse It was because I have had to spend a longweekend at home with nothing like 17" to play with. Does size really matter?
Martyb

[hlouey]

[magness]

I could be wrong here but I find it amazing that a company that's seen as the "mainstream underdog" of computing can afford to have such a cavalier attitude this when it comes to order delivery and service. I thought apple was trying to win people over to the "light side". I've seen people waiting a month or longer for one of these babies. I have no idea but I don't think I'd have that amount of patience even for something as phenomenal as the 17" ALBook. And becasue of it's cost, I'm sure that you all agree that we should have received some priority service. (not sure how much you guys and gals paid but A$8K is a big wad of cash for me)

I feel sorry for the reps at the AppleCentres having to give bad news everytime pests like me call them up asking when it's in or not (mind you I also feel sorry for them having a pest like me as a customer too .. he he..)

I know that when ordering a wintel portable, you could just pick one off the shelf and take it home that same day (and probably get bored with it in the same amount of time too... he he..). However, while apple doesn't seem to have the market saturation as HP / Compaq / Dell / IBM etc.., Steve's (I think) statements about it being the year of the laptop should have at least have some clout behind it like say STOCK for example.

This is my first Mac, being a switcher and I must say from the posts I've read, I'm not feeling a whole lot confident with my decision to go with an apple. While the hardware may not be a lemon (Kernel Panics, DVD-RW problems, sizzling, covers not closing properly and MSUAM problems aside ... not confident here but then again Windows has it's "features" as well), service is a very important part of the purchase and ownership process.

I hope I haven't started any flames here but I just had to rant or maybe I just have the "want it now"s bad. :-)

[Disko_matt]

Originally posted by �tomic:
I have a theory about this. If it was not a coincidence, perhaps Apple knows it cannot supply enough machines to satisfy demand so what do they do? They have a stockpile of machines sitting at their headquarters that do not get shipped to customers. Obviously the resellers are losing out here also and you could just imagine the ear bashing Apple Australia have received from them. So Apple decides to have a bunch of standby machines in the wings for their resellers that have customers threatening to cancel their orders. This message is conveyed to Apple Australia and before you know it, a machine is shipped out immediately.

This could all be crap, it could all be true. All I know is that I was willing to cancel eveything until the next keynote and the very next day I had a machine. I would dare say Apple knows whats going on but I seriously doubt it

Well, as you can see from my last post... i tried to cancell my order yesterday. Today my PB shipped. Crazy eh? I think there may be some truth to your theory.

[magness]

So should eveybody threaten to cancel their orders? I for one only ordered almost two weeks ago but I can see this stretching out further. I've already paid for the thing too. It seems to me that everyone who's threatened to cancel has got theirs shipped immedietly. It does seem funny but I'm not sure I'd like to do something to hurt the resellers.

[hlouey]

Originally posted by magness:
So should eveybody threaten to cancel their orders? I for one only ordered almost two weeks ago but I can see this stretching out further. I've already paid for the thing too. It seems to me that everyone who's threatened to cancel has got theirs shipped immedietly. It does seem funny but I'm not sure I'd like to do something to hurt the resellers.

So its now 3 days to the end of April and no PB's in sight. So much for another Apple promise of all orders received before March 31st being fulfilled by end of April



Henry

[Disko_matt]

I just got off the phone with Ryan... My PB has been shipped and will be in my hands tomorrow. I've spoken with the couriers and organised a time.

My advice: Threaten to cancel.

[magness]

I ordered my PB with NextByte, Baulkham Hills. There was a clause in the receipt of paying a 15% restocking fee if I cancel. They still make their profit so I'm not too sure I'd like to do anything to antagonise them just yet as I've received great service so far. As I mentioned, it's only been just over two weeks since I've ordered it so I might try to be a little more patient. Either that or I might change to a 15" 1GHZ which may hopefully arrive sooner. I guess I could live without the 17" screen.... *sniff*

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by magness:
I ordered my PB with NextByte, Baulkham Hills. There was a clause in the receipt of paying a 15% restocking fee if I cancel. They still make their profit so I'm not too sure I'd like to do anything to antagonise them just yet as I've received great service so far. As I mentioned, it's only been just over two weeks since I've ordered it so I might try to be a little more patient. Either that or I might change to a 15" 1GHZ which may hopefully arrive sooner. I guess I could live without the 17" screen.... *sniff*

If you just ordered two weeks ago from NextByte then you should probably wait and they *might* charge you 15% restocking fee if you cancel yours. However, for those who had ordered for more than two months, and given the promise of "two weeks" numerious times, then I cannot see it can be justified to charge the 15% fee if you cancel the order, because it wait is getting unseasonable (because you were given wrong information at first). I suggest anyone who had 2+ months wait and dealer not willing to repay the deposit in full for cancelling the order talk to your state's consumer affairs department or ACCC for help.

For those unfortunate people I would also suggest to write to Tuesday's Australian IT, IT section of SMH and other newspaper which has decent IT coverage to voice your frustration.

Apple Australia: you'd better to come up some freebies to all those people who just receive or still waiting for their 17" PowerBook. It's a big PR disaster for you, and upset a lot of loyal Mac fans (whether they ordered a PowerBook or not). Even through I didn't (or intent to) order a 17" PowerBook, I feel extremely angry with the way this matter has been handled, and I would say a lot of Mac users from now on would not order any Apple products, until it is not the shelf and do it "cash and carry" ways. Certainly people would bypass Apple online store...

[hlouey]

Originally posted by magness:
I ordered my PB with NextByte, Baulkham Hills. There was a clause in the receipt of paying a 15% restocking fee if I cancel. They still make their profit so I'm not too sure I'd like to do anything to antagonise them just yet as I've received great service so far. As I mentioned, it's only been just over two weeks since I've ordered it so I might try to be a little more patient. Either that or I might change to a 15" 1GHZ which may hopefully arrive sooner. I guess I could live without the 17" screen.... *sniff*

Magness,

Rang Apple today. Quote "70% of all orders will be fulfilled the end of April".

Yet again the rules have been broken with Apple!




Henry

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by hlouey:
Magness,

Rang Apple today. Quote "70% of all orders will be fulfilled the end of April".

Well, did you ask Apple whether your order is one of the "70%" to be fulfilled within the next two days?

I hope your order is not "the other 30%"

Yet again the rules have been broken with Apple!

Henry

Well, for Apple, it's

Stop smashing your head against the brickwall Apple won't see it, and they are not going to pay the medical bill for your injury

[spathi]

mine came in yesterday around lunch, its a fantastic machine, fast, beautiful - can't say enough good things about it of course if had recieved ita few months ago i'd be even more over the moon.

now i just have to get used to using a mac, not that it should be a problem, as a long time linux user im finding the terminal quite useful

I hope everyone who is still waiting gets theirs soon, I know how it is, this was ordered first week of february.

[magness]

Originally posted by veryniceguy2002:
[B]Well, did you ask Apple whether your order is one of the "70%" to be fulfilled within the next two days?

I hope your order is not "the other 30%"




Well, for Apple, it's

Stop smashing your head against the brickwall Apple won't see it, and they are not going to pay the medical bill for your injury

I'm just wondering if %70 is the rest of the world and %30 is Australia. In the least people are getting their machines out there, even though it seems like a trickle.

I had a chat with someone at AppleCentre Broadway and they said all orders that were made before April would get theirs within the next couple of days. Any that ordered after that will be well into the next Month or beyond.

Does anyone know what the root cause of the delay is?

[hlouey]

Originally posted by veryniceguy2002:
[B]Well, did you ask Apple whether your order is one of the "70%" to be fulfilled within the next two days?

I hope your order is not "the other 30%"




Well, for Apple, it's

Stop smashing your head against the brickwall Apple won't see it, and they are not going to pay the medical bill for your injury

The Applecentre looked into this order for me. They were told the same thing. There is no way to track an individual order.

Henry

[magness]

Does anyone know if the Apple Centres order in bulk or just get one by one at a time per customer basis? If it's a one on one basis, would we have been better off going through the Apple.com store?

[Disko_matt]

I am typing on a 17" Powerbook. Well worth the wait... i'm not sure if it's worth the $7k yet. I'll see how it goes with movie editing later.

Apple took 2 months and 1 week to deliver my pb after an original quote of 30 day delivery. Looking at the info of my HD, it was "created" on February 26th - 3 days after i ordered it... perhaps they were waiting on enough orders before they shipped heaps of PBs over??

Good luck with your orders guys.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by Disko_matt:
Looking at the info of my HD, it was "created" on February 26th - 3 days after i ordered it...

That would just be the standard setup Apple created and wiped onto every hard drive going into a 17" PowerBook, it's not specific to your machine's production

[magness]

Well guess what I'm bloody posting on this forum with, I called the guy up today and asked where the laptop was. While he as halfway telling me the "2 weeks" he went "hang on a minute". The 5 minute pause was excruciating. He came back with the best two non-sexual words anyone can hear. "It's here". Joy oh bloody joy, I dashed down castle hill road and was given a br nd spanking new 17" powerbook. The 2.5 week wait may noot have been long but it certainly was excruciating.

I finally got it. I can't believe how easy it is to set up. I'm kinda wishing for a "Windows Explorer" but everything else makes it such a breeze to use. I can't belive I finally got it.

The first test was the new matrix video and FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK... (sorry about the swearing) it was goood. Since I work at IBM, sooo many people were impressed with the screen quality. I plan to play all night unless my girlfriend decides to reel me into bed.

I learnt one lesson though. Good things come to those who pester.