Polished website and Poisoned Apples

Having spent (who said wasted?) more hours working on the website than I care to tally, I finally managed to do the two things I wanted to do to ‘polish’ it off — I put up my cheeky changeling free reads as downloadable pdfs, and I made a slideshow of works for the front page — not random as I had hoped, but at least it’s working. Naturally, ‘finished’ is as relative as Einstein’s theory, but it’s done for a good long while. I’ve also cleared out many old posts that were just taking up room, and that’s something for me to do on a yearly basis, possibly the same way I shred all those old bills and statements that seem to feed themselves through my letterbox with alarming frequency. There’s certainly no need to keep every announcement once the news equals a release that has its own page. Besides, opening the windows and sweeping out the cobwebs is cathartic.

I need a totally different type of purgative when we get to the subject of poisoned apples, namely referring to my iPad. This expensive little ‘toy’ was meant to help me with my writing and, for a time, it did. It enabled me to get online and check in with all my contacts when away from my main computer. It allowed me to type on it, to proof-read in a different format — something I found very useful — to catch up on some reading generally and for research purposes. Still, it only had moderate use, and, unfortunately, the ‘time’ it lasted has proven to be annoyingly short. Not even two years old and it’s died on me. This lead me to a poisonous experience at an Apple store.

So much for booking in to make an appointment to see someone at their ‘Genius Bar’. We were dutifully ten minutes early and yet waited over thirty minutes beyond our time slot. This in itself, though irritating, wouldn’t have been so bad if someone had the courtesy to tell us and all the other people waiting that there would be a delay. Basic training in customer service one would think, but it’s as if everyone is too afraid to apologise these days — an apology seems to amount to admitting wrong-doing and no one does anything ‘wrong’. And thank you ‘Patrick’ for the first constructive comment coming out of your mouth being one of, “Oh, you’ve probably dropped it.” That equalled the woman beside us being told she had got ‘sweat’ into her phone — like we haven’t heard *that one* before.

I would KNOW if I had dropped my iPad, but it was worth hearing Patrick accuse me and for me to deny it just to see the awe-struck look on his face when he couldn’t find a mark on it. Yes, even Patrick had to admit my iPad looked immaculate and I hadn’t damaged it. Not. One. Scratch. I take care of my things — I’m funny like that.

My poor sickly iPad was taken away from me for all of five minutes for the ‘Genius’ to attempt the same restart I had failed to accomplish, only to admit it was faulty, and to tell me that the iPad is a sealed unit that is non-repairable. The only thing they could offer was to exchange it so they could dissect it for re-usable parts and give me a ‘new’ iPad for £199 made out of refurbished elements. Erm…no thank you. Mostly no thank you because this so-called ‘new’ tablet would only have 90 days warranty. The salesman tried to sell me on statistics, but if the unit is so likely to last, why only the 90 days guarantee? I’m afraid I horrified him by pointing out I can take the £199 and buy a competitor’s tablet with a full year’s warranty.

There may be better news. We’ve been referred to an Apple store that may do repairs even on iPads. Don’t know how accurate the information is, but if this proves to be the case…Well, I’m curious to find out because if it can be repaired, I’ll be thanking Apple for providing inaccurate information and trying to sell me what they tried to make look like a nice shiny rosy apple that I suspect was rotten inside.