You know how I shelled out 3.3K for a new MacBook Pro in May? Well it was money wasted. WASTED.
Because Apple rolled out a terrible operating system–Lion. This cannot handle having 6 windows open at the same time. WHAT? My-5-year-old MacBook Pro had no issues. It could even run Time Machine at the same time. But this “NEW” and “IMPROVED” operating system freezes up constantly.
And by freezes up I mean every application and the entire operating system freezes so that I cannot even force quit. I am given the spinning rainbow pie of death. Then I have to do a hard reboot pushing the on/off switch.
I’ve spent hours on the phone with Apple Care. Guess what? They don’t. They rolled out an operating system that doesn’t operate. It inhibits operation.
As a novel writer, I’ve lost 5k worth of drafting in the past two weeks because when the operating system freezes and I hard reboot–I LOSE ALL MY WORK.
So I have a laptop that is inferior to the one I had in 2007. WTF.
And here is the brilliant advice of Apple Care. You must quit each window when you are done using it. DON’T ATTEMPT TO HAVE MULTIPLE WINDOWS OPEN.
Great, I have a freaking $3.3k typewriter.
AWESOME.
So I can’t allow Time Machine to run during the day because that takes up lots of memory when it starts up. I can only run that at night. And if I want to run Excel and Windows at the same time, well, may the force be with me.
Oh it gets better. I was advised not to have Itunes on while working because that takes up lots of RAM. And my Mac Dictate software–that’a a RAM gobbler too. Um no. Lion is the problem. With all my apps quitted, Lion eats up 4GB of RAM. I only have 8 GB and I paid extra to have that. WTH Apple?! You are Rotten to the core.
If you don’t believe me, google Apple+Lion+Sucks and see what those 5.4 million hits have to say.
Shame on you Apple. It’s like having a PC with an Apple pricetag.
I’m so disappointed. I wish I’d never bought this new laptop because it’s a piece of crap. Thanks Apple for your rotten overpriced garbage. I’m going to go start hitting garage sales and see if I can find a typewriter. At least it would be more stable than your schizophrenic Lion operating system.
46 comments
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July 2, 2012 at 7:54 am
Victoria-writes
Sorry to hear you’re having laptop issues, so frustrating! I have a new Mac and it’s been fine with having things open and iTunes playing. Finger’s crossed it stays that way!
July 2, 2012 at 8:42 am
Kourtney Heintz
Did you get snow leopard or lion as the operating system? Snow leopard is much more stable and doesn’t have these issues. Mine was fine the first few weeks. Until I got MacDictate software then all the daily freezes began. This operating system can’t handle what the old one did unfortunately and it is also highly incompatible with third party software. Joy of joys. Best of luck with yours.
July 2, 2012 at 7:56 am
kford2007
Wow, sorry honey. I wish I had a magic wand. My heart goes out to you and all your lost work. I’ve been there. Can you not take the product back, exchange it for something else? Are you past that time? I would definitely demand Apple replace the equipment or return it to the store and get something else.
July 2, 2012 at 8:44 am
Kourtney Heintz
Apple won’t allow me to exchange it because the buyer’s remorse period is over. They made it clear this is my fault. Because I run third party software and I have multiple windows open and stress the system. Clearly I wanted a computer that was better than my 2007 model and that is just absurd. I have to keep calling and trouble shooting (which takes hours each call) until I prove it is their fault. But they know it is their fault because they know they rolled out a piece of crap operating system. They just refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes. So this will be the last Apple product I ever buy.
July 2, 2012 at 8:29 am
4amWriter
I hit ‘like’ even though I feel awful for you. Your rant is what I like, you’ve got me ready to do battle by your side! I am so so so sorry you’re going through this ordeal.
I don’t own a Mac. I still have a PC, and your post has shown me that I need to kiss my PC and the operating system because I am able to run on multiple open windows. I never thought about it before, something I took for granted.
A writer has to be able to use multiple windows, that’s a huge requirement. There is no possible way to compose a book and not research or trawl through an online dictionary/thesaurus, or check your Notes file, or whatever tools we writers use when we write.
I don’t know how your situation will improve, but I hope a miracle happens for you!
July 2, 2012 at 8:48 am
Kourtney Heintz
Thanks! LOL. My rants tend to be legendary. When something makes me furious I write well about it.
I’ve just learned to shut off the auto backups during the day. To not open Itunes when I’m working in Word. To avoid my dictation software. It’s awesome. I have to completely adjust myself to the machine. It’s like hiring a cleaning lady and having to reorganize your entire house for her.
I have learned through trial and error (watching the Activity Monitor screen) that I can open firefox, Excel and Word simultaneously but NOTHING and I mean NOTHING else can be open. And Excel and Word must be closed to open Iphoto.
I guess I’ll just get used to seriously bad products and never ever buy Apple again.
July 2, 2012 at 8:34 am
Gerard
Wow, that’s terrible. Seems like they need to send out a complete upgrade. I’d be furious too.
July 2, 2012 at 8:37 am
Kourtney Heintz
Allegedly they are working on improvements but to roll out a product with this many people having complete computer freezes is ridiculous. It screams of the PC blue screen issues of the 00s.
July 2, 2012 at 8:41 am
Rich Weatherly
Sorry to hear about your Rotten Apple
Maybe they should replace this one. I know they sell refurbished machines.
Maybe this is a candidate.
Also, that is terrible, Non-Service you are getting.
Wish you the best, Kourtney!
July 2, 2012 at 8:53 am
Kourtney Heintz
It doesn’t seem to be the laptop, but the operating system. Based on what I’ve read online there’s a huge loathing of Lion. I asked about that. No replacing because they consider this my fault. I mean I had my calendar, Firefox, Excel, Word, Itunes, and Skype all running at once. Something my old laptop could do with no problem. But this is the improved version which doesn’t allow for that.
Thanks! I’m learning to navigate this crappy operating system. And I’ve accepted that they will never take responsibility for their bad operating system. I just have to live with it until updates are available. Hopefully they will eventually fix this problem.
July 2, 2012 at 10:53 am
CC MacKenzie
Bugger it! Nothing worse. Thank you for the head’s up! This is why there are times when I wish Apples and Blackberries were still fruit.
Hugs
Christinexxxx
July 2, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Kourtney Heintz
LOL. That was adorable and made me giggle!
I’m learning to work around it. Not quite as furious as I was when I wrote the post. I just have to keep Time Machine off when I’m working. I removed the anti-virus software. I don’t use the dictate software. I only have Itunes open with one other application. Same with Iphoto. LOL. GUess I’ll just enjoy working at a 2002 kind of pace. ;P
July 2, 2012 at 12:25 pm
crubin
That is horrible. Makes me glad for my PC, even though I’m constantly seduced by those MacBook Pros. Guess I won’t be anymore. So sorry you have to go through this. Three plus grand is no small price. Yikes.
July 2, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Kourtney Heintz
Seriously. And PCs are so much cheaper. Granted my PC laptops died every 2 years and their hard drives went down. That last mac lasted 5 years. It was a dream. Sigh. This one is requires way too much coddling for way too little performance.
July 2, 2012 at 1:31 pm
crubin
I’ve used Dell for years and never had a problem. Long shelf lives with those–at least the ones I’ve had.
July 2, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Kourtney Heintz
It’s funny what different experiences we have with different companies.:) I had a 3500$ Dell Laptop back in 2002. It was a few days over it’s 3rd birthday when it crashed and deleted it’s own hard drive. Dell couldn’t help me because it was outside the 3 year warranty. I lost everything on my computer because I didn’t have an external back up drive. Painful lesson learned. I had some disks but ended up having to retype my entire first manuscript from a printed copy. I believe that’s the year I kept chanting Dell is the Devil.
July 2, 2012 at 1:44 pm
crubin
Oh, that’s horrible. What a nightmare for a writer. Perhaps there is something in your magnetic wiring–like those people whose watches always stop telling time because of their electromagnetic energy, or whatever that psychobabble is.
July 2, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Kourtney Heintz
LOL. I think I just have tremendously bad luck with computers. My next two PC laptops each died at the 2 year mark (they were Fujitsu and supposed to be top of the line). The only good run I had was from 2007-2012 with my old MacBook Pro. Man I miss her. She was sweet. She was patient. She was a hard worker.
July 2, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Elliot
Sorry to hear of your problems, I don’t seem to be getting them on mine. I don’t think microsoft word and excel work well with lion. I often have calendar, firefox, (or safari), iTunes, Skype, and scrivener running, and don’t get any problems. I haven’t used the latest word or excel on the mac but Neo-office, a virtually free download has equivalents that seem to be stable. Scrivener is the best for writing on, and can handle multiple windows and your research.
July 2, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Kourtney Heintz
Thanks! I’m glad to hear your computer works well. I have lots of old documents from my PC on here so I need to have Word and Excel. Plus everything I submit to agents needs to be a .doc file. I had Word and Excel 07 on my last MacBook and had zero problems. Apple likes to blame third party software, but after all I read online, I’m fairly confident it’s Apple’s operating system that’s the problem. Appreciate the advice, I’ve heard about Scrivener, but I don’t want to add any new software to this laptop unless Apple creates it. It’s just too much of a hassle to trouble shoot. I think I’ve logged 20 hours with Apple Support the past 6 weeks.
July 2, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Elliot
Neo-office lets you input / output in word or excel format. Scrivener I have had zero problems with at all (on lion), not a crash, nothing, and that has lots of different export options. Seriously, as a writer, check out their website (although you can get it through the apple store as well), and the software itself has a generous 30 day trial (I think). It will change your writing life. Especially after using Word!
July 2, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Kourtney Heintz
Thanks for the info. I’ll definitely consider it in the future.
For now, I’m going to concentrate on stabilizing things as they are and not add anything new to the mix. I’m tuckered out with troubleshooting and Apple Care reps.
July 2, 2012 at 2:50 pm
jmmcdowell
In this day and age, there’s no excuse for an OS that can’t handle multiple programs simultaneously. I had some trouble with Dells at work during the late 90s/early 00s and went with Gateway (remember them?!) Then they couldn’t keep up, and I went back to Dell around 2005. I’ve had no trouble since.
Windows Vista was a disaster for most people, but I’m not having any difficulties with version 7. Plus, $3000 is just obscene for a computer that crashes. For that price it should be nearly flawless!
And third party software is part of the real world. Work with those developers, not against them. I never liked Apple because I felt like the company was overpriced arrogance.
And while everyone should work with their preferred system, those systems should all run well!
I hope Apple comes out with a decent upgrade that will make your computer work the way it should!
July 2, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Kourtney Heintz
I completely agree. I feel like they rolled me back to 2002 with this OS. Yeah I had a Dell debacle in 2002. I think they cleaned up their act since then, but I’m stuck with this for 3-5 years. So I am going to try to make the best of it.
Windows Vista sucked. I had it at work and it crippled all of us from admins to managing directors. Godawful stuff.
My last MacBook Pro was flawless and worth every cent. But this one is an utter disappointment. I know Apple hates 3rd party software but I never had issues with it before. I had all these programs on my old MacBook Pro with the older operating system and it was fine. Shame on Apple.
This one is a poor replacement. It’s devolving technology. I have to agree. If they are going to be that arrogant, they better back it up. And sadly they don’t.
I’ve heard rumors of an upgrade sometime in the summer. I hope I hope. I am learning to work around this OS. I uninstalled a couple third party softwares. That seemed to help. For now, I’m just going to work around the computer. I love when technology makes me work harder.
July 2, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Laura
OH my gosh that sucks so bad!! I’m running 10.5 now on a 5 year old iMac. What worries me is that its showing signs of dying off because I’ve noticed out of nowhere it freaks out on me if I have tons of things open too…. it doesn’t fully crash on me though, just freezes up. That didn’t always happen but it has me scared to death one day it’s just not going to work. UGH Good luck with your apple woes
July 2, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Kourtney Heintz
I had a 2007 MacBook Pro up until May. It worked like a dream. 5 years of perfection. Best computer ever. Had tons of windows open without freezing. but it started getting the rainbow pie of death. I’ve actually gotten that more often in the past 6 weeks than the last year on my old laptop. Anyway, try limiting your windows open. Right now I keep it to 3. It’s kinda like reliving 20002. Only a decade later.
I haven’t had a crash in a couple days.
I think when Mountain Lion comes out–I’ll upgrade. It’s supposed to be an improvement. Let’s roll the dice and see.
July 2, 2012 at 6:24 pm
berry
Get ur old one back. Write letters. Call tv. Consumer reports. Make a biggggg stunk. And keep at it. Someone has to hear.
July 2, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Kourtney Heintz
I still have it. I just don’t want to go back to it and be stuck with a brand new laptop I don’t use. No one cares. I read tons of online posts about how shitty Lion is. Millions of hits. Apple won’t admit they screwed their customers over. They’ll just let them pay outrageous amounts of money for a computer that is hobbled by its operating system. This is how 5 years of amazing computing is washed away. Nice job Apple.
July 2, 2012 at 8:01 pm
EllaDee
Great post expressing your disappointment & frustration, which I totally understand. Big corporations although reliant on our dollar are all about themselves, and often release products with R&D issues and fix the bugs courtesy of user feedback. Even though your buyer’s remorse period is over and Apple are placing the issues with you I’m wondering if in the PDS there is any mention of the constraints given your previous product in the same series didn’t have them. Apple won’t of course be open to admitting your issues because then it would open them up to the all the rest. Keep fighting.
July 2, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Kourtney Heintz
Thanks for your support!
Ah well you see since in Apple’s mind it is all my fault for running third party software (Mac dictation software, Mac Office 2011 and anti-virus software), I’m sure they practiced CYA (cover your ass) in any written documents and denounced third party software. This is the fourth version of Lion–it’s been around almost 2 years and it seems these issues have been around since before the roll out. My mistake was not doing my homework and believing Apple produced top notch products like my last MacBook Pro.
July 3, 2012 at 12:27 am
Running from Hell with El
Gah!!! Thank you for the warning!!!
July 3, 2012 at 10:14 am
Kourtney Heintz
You’re welcome! I’m truly shocked by Apple rolling out a bad product and not fixing it. That’s so unApple to me. But I guess this is just what happens in the pursuit of profit. You stop caring about your customers and delivering a good product.
July 3, 2012 at 2:38 am
Lily Paradis
The same thing happened to me… or, my sister. She got a brand new computer and I was trying to teach her how to use it. I thought the differences were purely cosmetic, but she continually tells me how awful her mac is, and I’m hoping mine lasts forever because I definitely don’t want to deal with that! Hopefully the next operating system is better! Someone told me that you might be able to revert to the old system by buying it on the app store but I don’t know if it’s still available…good luck!
July 3, 2012 at 10:12 am
Kourtney Heintz
It’s quite a shock when you have a good MacBook Pro for 5 years and then you get this throwback to an earlier decade. There are rumors that Mountain Lion (the next OS) will improve things. I hope so. This is pretty horrible. I think I might be able to revert but then I’d have to transition to Lion again to get Mountain Lion. What’s sad is I’ve read comments from 2011 on all these freezing issues in Lion and Apple clearly didn’t fix them. That really shakes my confidence in them. Create a crap OS and don’t address its issues?! That’s just a bad company.
July 3, 2012 at 5:52 am
Sofia
I completely agree, I have a problem with my internet browsers, more often than not I can’t read wordpress because it loads so slowly or only HTML, and mostly just freezes. I end up having to read and write blog posts on my phone!? when I have two perfectly good computers (a laptop and a macmini) right there. New apple system gets a big fat razberry from me.
Great post!
July 3, 2012 at 10:08 am
Kourtney Heintz
Are you using safari or firefox? Both froze on me. BTW, when you click on the red x to shut windows of any application, the program still run in the background and uses RAM memory up. You have to quit each program using the drop down Quit application. That was part of my problem and I had 8GB of RAM. Apple swears if you use too much RAM that causes it to freeze. So I now keep “activity monitor” open and carefully watch my “free GB” in the system memory tab. I agree this is a ginormous plunge backward in technology. I so miss my old Mac and my old OS.
July 3, 2012 at 10:42 am
Sofia
I’m using firefox, safari and google chrome. At the moment safari’s the only one that seems to be working ok to open wordpress. I hope they can fix the problems for next update, it gets a bit tiring trying to find a browser that works. I also had to disconnect the adblock add-ons, that seemed to help a bit.
Cheers, and I’m glad you made this post, perhaps the more people complain the better it might get
July 3, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Kourtney Heintz
I’m so sorry to hear about that! It stinks to have an unreliable computer that can’t do the basics.
My freezes and crashes have stopped for the past 4 days. I just have to monitor how much RAM I am using and limit the programs that are open. Also I turn time machine off all day. It’s stupid but it helped me. I spent hours on the phone with Apple Care to find all these work arounds to make my computer semi-abled.
I hope they realize if they keep charging customers high prices for crap, customers will go elsewhere.
July 3, 2012 at 6:32 am
zelmare
Bummer!!!!
If they claimed that this thing can do a lot of stuff that it actually can’t, surely you can take steps against them? I’ve always wanted an Apple computer, but now I’m not so sure anymore…
July 3, 2012 at 10:04 am
Kourtney Heintz
Zelmare, their argument is that they don’t support third party software and it’s causing the issues. (My old Mac Book Pro had no issues with third party software btw). You’d be amazed at how little you can do against a giant corporation. They don’t just deny culpability they actively blame their customers. It’s really been an eye-opening experience. I never understood the hatred of Apple before…now I totally get it. I’d read lots of reviews before purchasing anything Mac. For some reason they rolled out a crap operating system that can’t handle third party software and really limits your computing abilities.
July 3, 2012 at 11:39 am
zelmare
It’s a sad situation. I’ll make sure to steer clear of them.
July 3, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Kourtney Heintz
Truly it is. To make me long for a PC. Shame on Apple. Best of luck with your computing needs. I will say the Iphone works very well. My Ipad Safari app crashes often. But at least it doesn’t require me to power off. I just reopen safari and start over.
July 3, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Emmie Mears
Wow, that’s frustrating. My six year old iBook G4 still runs pretty well, though it’s a bit slow. This makes me think twice about saving up for a new MacBook, which is unfortunate because I loathe PCs.
July 4, 2012 at 12:03 am
Kourtney Heintz
Emmie, I loathed PCs. I had 3 PCs die on me and make it impossible to access my hard drive. I got more blue screens of death than any person should. I was so happy in 2007 when I got my first macbook pro. Finally a taste of real computing power. Efficiency. Stability. Dependability. For 5 years Apple and I had a terrific relationship. I bought an Ipad and Iphone. I loved everything and felt the higher price was worth it. Until Lion. To pay this much for a computer that sorta works is bull. Supposedly Mountain Lion OS (the next OS) is supposed to be better. If it turns out to be more stable, it might be okay to buy a Mac. But just absolutely avoid the Lion OS.
July 4, 2012 at 1:27 am
Samir
How dreadful! I’ve been using Lion with my new iMac for the past six months but haven’t had the kind of problems you’re having, although it did freeze a few times (which took me by complete surprise)! I have to say that snow leopard was a much better and more stable OS. It’s really strange to read that Apple rolled out this system without adequately supporting third party software… very sad and pathetic. Considering how big and popular they’ve become, you’d think they’d have learned from the mistakes of Microsoft and PCs what not-to-do!
I hope they’ve improved things with the new Mountain Lion OS. What a shame to pay so much money and be disappointed.
July 4, 2012 at 10:07 am
Kourtney Heintz
It’s weird because Nuance is the best voice recognition software. It ran fine on my old MacBook Pro’s OS. And Nuance’s website states that they worked out all the kinks with Lion via their updates. But when I downloaded it, the freezing and crashing became a daily event. If they are not going to roll out their own Apple voice recognition software, they really need to allow Nuance’s to work on their system. I feel horrible for anyone with a permanent disability who can’t type. If they are on Lion they are seriously screwed. Not cool Apple.
It’s a bitter disappointment. I won’t buy Apple again. It’s just riding its name brand into the ground. No substance to back up the price or the reputation.