The Apple bites me...

Over the past couple of years I’ve become an “Apple guy” and I’m clearly not alone with a global phenomenon of Apple and the breadth of cool products.  

Now what - once it dies?

 My specific technology issues started this past January when one Friday night deep in the winter I had finished working on my blog (just like tonight), and after packing up turned in for the night.   When I woke in the morning all of my Apple products including my MacBook Air, iPad and iPhone had all been wiped clean, apparently there had been some global cyber attack and all my Apple units had been affected.

I’m not sure if you understand how disconcerting it is to wake in the morning and be faced with blank screens from all of your devices, which effectively have been completely wiped.   Noooooooooooo I cried!

I remember thinking OMG – what now?   Fortunately for me it only took a couple of hours to restore both my iPad and iPhone and got my email accounts and applications reinstalled, but my MacBook Air was a no-go.   

Over the ensuring weeks I endeavoured to get it back to its normal state but to no avail - I researched chat rooms, Apple Support, Apple chat groups, Techie forums – you name it, I tried it.   I just couldn’t get it to restore from my Time Capsule, which was my designated backup.   Unfortunately, every time I tried to run the restore process it decided that for some reason it would become invisible.

The word “crap” became a common mantra when dealing with the laptop.

My MacBook Air - working better now...
thanks for asking!

Then somehow the year got away from me…with work, traveling and the kids it just seemed to get away from me.   I only realized a couple of weeks ago that with my upcoming trip to Italy and the focus of my trip (editing my book in readiness for publishing) I needed a laptop that didn’t have any of my business content or work related materials on it – yes, I don’t want to be distracted during my time in Italy.  ☺

So I decided that I’d better have a professional take a look at it.   I booked into the local Apple store, or should I say the “Genius Bar”, I left work early one day and took it in. The technician took a look at it and quickly ran a series of diagnostics on it and pronounced that it was an easy fix…   Famous last words!

He partitioned the drive and created a new folder and said all I had to do was connect it to my wireless network and choose the backup from my Time Capsule when I got home and connect it to the new folder and it would basically restore itself.

No surprise than when I got home I did as he requested only to be faced with a completely different screen.  I was now faced with a flashing grey folder with a large question mark in it.   I could only turn it on or off, still no love from my dead machine!

Not so sure....

Yeah not so easy and rather frustrated with the process I booked a subsequent meeting with my friends at Apple for earlier today, another ten days since my last visit.

As I drove to the appointment I was stuck on the freeway and found myself in an 8 KM (5 miles for my US friends) tail back behind two different accidents…you have to ask yourself why the accidents on such a beautiful sunny day?

In any event when I realized I would be late for my appointment I called the store in the hopes of taking a later time, but after being on hold for sometime and then finally getting through to an agent I was told that I had missed my time and that there were no other slots available for the day…oi vay!   Please make the madness stop I thought to myself…

At this point I’m still stuck on the damn freeway in this never-ending tailback and now almost beside myself with frustration.   The guy on the phone was very non-committal in terms of whether anyone could help me today even if and when I got into the store.

The "Genius Bar"...really?

When I arrived 35 min late to the store I quickly found the guy receiving and routing people at the front door and after explaining my predicament with the least amount of frustration in my voice as humanly possible (trust me I was on my best behaviour ☺), he said that for some unusual reason the store was pretty quiet and that there had been a bunch of missed appointments (No shit Sherlock!    We were all stuck on the goddam freeway in the traffic jam)

He then directed me to seat at the Genius Bar.  As I sat at the bar I was struggling to understand why it was named the way given my experience to date.   I had to bite my tongue when my very enthusiastic technician sidled up to the bar and asked for my appointment time.   I tried to explain what had transpired, but clearly he was perplexed given that because I had missed my timeslot my appointment had been cancelled and therefore he was unable to find me on his list.    REALLY!!!!

After telling him about the whole experience to date and him finally getting the okay to work on my laptop he once again ran a complete diagnostic...can you say déjà vu?   I now explained in no uncertain terms that I just wanted the machine completely erased so that I could start afresh.

Hhhmmm everything came back clean so he was a little confused as to why it wasn’t working properly.   He asked me a few questions about the laptop which I couldn’t answer – when did you purchase it?   What version of operating system was on it etc…  I was starting to feel as though he didn’t believe that it was my laptop.

Somewhat reluctantly he erased the laptop and re-ran the diagnostic tests, pronouncing it ready to take home.

My final screen...now completely dead and useless.
Hhhmmm - an undocumented feature you say?

Not so fast mister!    I’ve been down this road before, and not leaving until I reboot it and see what screen I get.   At this point in a slightly frustrated manner he rebooted the laptop and said that this could take up to 30 min – yep, I wasn’t leaving until it was done and proved to me that it worked properly.

In actuality it only took about 10 minutes before it came up as though it was a brand new laptop.  The downside was that I lost about 18 months worth of content that I had accumulated including a bunch of stories that I had written.   This was particularly frustrating given that I couldn’t use the Time Capsule backup that I had specifically brought to back up my content.   Clearly an “un-documented” feature of my Apple experience.   

At the end of the day my laptop has been fixed and I should be thankful – no question, but definitely left wondering about our blind dependence on technology and companies like Apple.  There was no cost for getting it back to an operational state and although it took a couple of ugly turns its now done and fixed.    Hallelujah to that! 

All I can say is "just smile and wave boys, just smile and wave…" ☺