The Apple loses its polish

A little over a year ago, I enthusiastically switched computer teams . On the recommendations of many friends, I embraced The Apple Lifestyle. I didn't need much persuasion after having fallen in love with my iPod. I figured that if Apple could create something as perfect as that, their computers must not be half bad.

But now I'm not sure if they're more than half bad.

My woes started last spring, only 6 months after I fell in love with my iBook G4 in its gleaming white plastic shell, the troubles began. Program hangups, lost data, and then, the inability to boot. I took the computer to the Genius Bar in SoHo. The hard drive was bad. The hard drive was replaced. Then the memory logic board was found to be bad. The memory logic board was replaced. I suffered for a month without my iBook. When the troubles started I went out and bought a 200-GB external hard drive to store my music, photos, movies, and other files. I know this is what you're supposed to do anyway, but few people I know ever do it, and it was the first time I'd ever done it.

By the end of the summer my iBook was up and running again, after I reinstalled everything. It performed beautifully at Jenn and Steve's wedding, where my computer was transformed into a DJ station. But shortly thereafter, the problems started again. I had upgraded from Panther to Tiger the minute Tiger came out. That may have been a mistake. While playing a video in iTunes 6.0.1, the spinning disc appeared. The program wouldn't quit. I forced the computer to shut down. iTunes wouldn't load, nor would QuickTime. Mail stopped working. Finally, I couldn't boot up again.

Frustrated, I took the iBook to the Genius Bar again, but after 2 hours even the geniuses couldn't detect anything wrong. It was as if my iBook had one of those undefinable diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome or lupus. Reinstall your operating system, the genius told me.

So I did. Four times.

Each time I would get the promise of normal functioning. The system would appear to work smoothly, but I could tell it was slower than usual. Any time I tried to install a system update, the updater would crash. I spent hours on Mac forums trying to find the solutions to problems. Sometimes I got leads, but most times the solutions were too advanced for me to try. And then one day, again, I couldn't boot up.

I ran hardware diagnostics, and the problem seemed to be the new hard drive that Apple had replaced just three months earlier. Since I'm still under warranty, I called AppleCare and sent the iBook for repair. The whole process took less than a week. Very impressive. I got my iBook back yesterday. I knew it was mine from the scratches, which look like battle scars. The system booted up fine. Apple had reinstalled Panther, the original operating system that came with the computer. I installed all the system updates. Everything was ready to go.

Then I looked in Finder, the Mac equivalent of Windows Explorer, and noticed taht available memory left was 3.5 GB. The hard drive is supposed to have 80 GB. I hadn't transferred any data or reinstalled new programs. So I ran the disk utility and noticed that, indeed, my hard drive capacity was 80 GB, but only 12 GB was actually available to me. Somehow when Apple reinstalled my operating system, they partitioned it the wrong way. Now I don't know what to do. I don't have the time to call tech support. Sigh.

I have spent hours trying to get my system to a usable state, a situation that had
become all too familiar to me with Windows PCs and that I had hoped to avoid by switching. I know that all of my problems are atypical, but frankly, I am
beginning to lose hope that Apple is different from Microsoft. As a company, Apple is clever, innovative, efficient, and friendly. I'm just not sure I want to invest more time and energy troubleshooting an operating system that I can't figure out. A Windows PC is like being with a lover that beats you: You know you should get out, but you know what to expect.

I just want to play on my Apple like my friends do, not spending my days covered in soot like Cinderella. Like my scratched clamshell, the luster has worn off.