I swear if I wasn't so used to owning a mac I'd never own one again. This week both my old imac and my powerbook became nothing but giant paperweights! Not only that in my attempts to correct what appeared to be a display issue on my powerbook I accidentally wiped out my hard drive, by selecting restore instead of reinstall (doh!). Luckily all my music was saved on a external as well as all my pics through 2007. BUT 2008 was wiped out. All my kaiju pics/searches/bookmarks gone.

As I write this I'm on my g/f's "borrowed" old iBook she wasn't using. So no kaiju for me for awhile (I was taking a break anyhow) and all money I would have saved to build a nest egg now has to go towards a new computer. Oh and on a side note my apple ear buds went in one ear yesterday as well. Question:

Does Apple ever make any product that works great forever and doesn't go belly up all at once?

Awnser:

No

pc/zune for teh win.

add: sorry to hear of your troubles, lixx. hope it not too long before you can spend on vinyl again.

Thanks Tavaro. I just was looking forward to having more than 20 bucks in my bank account for once. Now this! Haven't owned a PC since 1998 but I'm seriously considering it. Apple totally puts kill switches in everything they make. AND they charge you as much as buying new to fix anything, usually as soon as your Applecare expires. Also did anyone notice how lame it was that they stopped putting firewire outputs on the new macbooks (well the affordable ones at least)? Such a rip. I don't care that Steve Jobs is ill, if I saw him walking down the street I'd kick him in the nuts right now.

Surely that's an error on your part. It's pretty obvious you should only use one per ear.

Lol. Yeah but you have to admit when sound is only coming out of one side (always seems like the left goes) it's pretty annoying.

You should use Disk Utility to make a clone of your HD to an external drive. Then if you have to reinstall the OS or format your drive, you can load your entire system back exactly the way it was during your last backup. For PC there's an app called Acronis that does the same thing, with tons of options. It's paid for itself many times over for me already.

I've had a Powerbook G4 for years - don't like it one bit. Crashes as much as any Windows PC and the IBM processor just blows. I just like PC for the wealth of 3rd party applications that Mac will never have, and the capability of having insane amounts of graphics power in a laptop. Can't knock the Apple design aesthetic though, they're pretty incredible in that aspect. I wouldn't mind checking out a newer Mac.

I chime in with you pain. This is my 3rd apple. And I also hate that your forced to buy new as the repairs make no sense money wise. Apple knows what their doing, on how to keep you coming back like a junkie.

I'm still using my first MacBook Pro that I got in 2007. Works alright. I heard that the repairs (without warranty) at the Apple store are expensive. Hopefully mine holds in there.

If you're just using the computer to surf and for media, a PC is much cheaper.
As far as making something that lasts, well...that would put all companies out of business. When I was in school we debated on a topic called planned obsolescence. Probably one of the reasons I am not a practicing product designer. I should have done graphic design/illustration.

I'm still using my g4 Powerbook that I got in 2004.
It's survived several falls and still keeps ticking.

yes.. im still using my sony vaio from 2002.

IBM/Lenovo bucks this trend. Their machines are built to last, which they do - in my experience, bare minimum 5-6 years for a notebook if you take care of it. The new models have super tough endo-skeletons to survive all kinds of mayhem. I'd get one, but I'm still using the book I bought in 2003 - works like new, including the original battery.