Nerd News Radio

This is a letter I recently wrote about Apple and what they’ve become. I sent it to David Pogue, Slashdot, Apple Insider, The Boston Globe, Wired, and Digg. Help me get this out! People need to know what’s going on under the surface!

Enjoy!

To Whom It May Concern,
I have loved Apple in the past. They’ve been an outstanding company, giving me, and millions of others, reliability, security, and just an unbelievable OS. Up until June, I had a PowerMac G5 that was just a dream, it still is. I decided it was time to go mobile, and picked up a black MacBook. Sure it put a dent in the finances, but boy was it an amazing machine. It seemed to have the same power as my G5. Well, maybe not quite as much as my G5, but a hell of a lot for a portable machine, more than I’ve ever seen.
This machine was a workhorse, until the last week of August. It was about a week before school started, when I was installing all the software and doo-dads that I might need for school. (i.e. Microsoft Office). I even reinstalled just to clear out my work from my summer job at MIT. I wanted a clean fresh machine, when bam, it shuts off. No warning, screams, lights, just shut off. All of a sudden I am looking starry eyed into a black screen that’s reflecting my face (good job glossy screen!). I couldn’t believe what had just happened! Now, at this point, I had heard very little about what I later discovered was the Random Shutdown Syndrome. I saw Kevin Rose on Diggnation with his RSSing black macbook, and laughed it off, and thought that it was just a freak occurrence on some machines, and it just went away.
So, I went ahead and pressed the power button, and I am greeted by my “Get Firefox� desktop. Everything went fine for the next few days, when bam, again, I was staring at a black screen. Like I did before, I pressed the power button, it lit up, and low and behold, it shuts off again.
I have been battling this issue for a few weeks now, where I have even tried for 5 minutes to get the machine to stay on for a minute. And that’s not even the worst. The support was horrible! I went to the Apple Discussion forums (a great place to get a problem fixed yourself) and I was horrified to see that thousands of people were having the same issue that I had. After an unsuccessful hour browsing the discussion forums and posting my situation, I called AppleCare. AppleCare is usually great at getting a quick, easy answer to your problem. I was put on hold, and then spoke with someone who told me they had never heard of the issue. I was told to go to my local Apple “Genius Bar� (they’re idiots) and have them look at it. So, I went, and was told I had to make an appointment, or call Applecare (what?!?!?) and have them send me a box to send it in to be diagnosed.
Now, let me refresh your memory. I am a student (junior year of high school), a podcaster, and a tech junkie, I need this machine, and I need it to work. I don’t have time to wait the weeks that others have been waiting. Apple even posted a support document (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304308 ) about the RSS, which reads:
If your MacBook is shutting down intermittently, please contact AppleCare for service.
That’s it. No explanation, nada. The worst part is that I already called apple care (the same day I might add) and they told me they’d never heard of it!
Now, why am I writing this. I need guidance. I don’t know what to do with this mess. Apple has been such a great company, but it seems that all they care about now is PR (in the latest issue of “Wired� there is a 14 page fold out “Get a Mac� brochure). And I do have to say; I am a source of Apple PR. On my podcast, Nerd News Radio, I have given hundreds of people rave reviews of Apple products. That will change. They are turning into a bureaucratic giant, that doesn’t care about its customers, like they used to. I need to get this to the media. I am tired of having this issue in the background. People need to know what’s going on, and they need to know now. I need to know if I will ever buy an Apple product again.
I hope you can help me and thousands of others get out of this mess.

Sincerely,
Kabren Levinson
www.nerdnewsradio.com
Kabren@nerdnewsraido.com
Teen Podcaster