Did I just have bad luck with Apple over the last two years?

It will be four years since I started with the Apple iphones and Macbook Airs. There are positive as well as negative experiences. Despite experiencing daily satisfaction with the Apple products that I have, looking back, I have realized that I have had a lot of bad experiences too. More than I want to bear. Hence I drafted my own buying recommendation: Before you buy a NEW Apple PRODUCT you should WAIT SIX MONTHS after the product's introduction to the market. Then do some research on the general user experience and the rumors in discussion forums, and then decide. This should minimize the risk of getting into a product affected by issues caused by a premature production process or insufficient testing.

My observations, based on my personal experience, are as follows:

• It seems to me that the iPhone production process is not yet ready when new models come to mass production. It seems to me that the first batches of devices are negatively affected by issues that are sorted out later, but that should have been fixed prior to the start of mass production.
• However much I may like the new features introduced in the latest releases, it seems to me that the quality of OS X went down with the OS X Mountain Lion and subsequent releases. It may be the case that there is less OS X testing because of a shorter release cycle, together with a high push on the numbers of new features in any release. It seems to me that Apple releases a new version first and, despite its best efforts, it starts patching the new version only after the issues arise.

The story

Looking back at my four years with Apple, I recalled situations such as the following:

• wandering around my flat trying to get signal good enough for my iphone 4 (which I am not doing with my iphone 5)
• repeatedly losing data from my running because the iphone 5 decided to shutdown - I was NOT HAPPY to put it very mildly.
• losing the video of my daughter who was receiving a gold medal from her very first skying race - this I will not ever forgive Apple for that.
• behaving like a Windows man - walking with my notebook’s lid open just to prevent a slow wake up.
• being stranded by sudden battery charge drops on my Macbook Air.
• being annoyed by excessive fan noise.
• fighting with Mail for access to my mail accounts.
• constantly receiving claims from my friends that I am sending photos to them upsid- down (taken by my iphone). I will elaborate on this issue in my next blog post.

My Apple timeline:

1. Nov 2010 - I bought my first smartphone ever - iPhone4.
2. Jan 2011 - I bought my first MBA (second-hand Macbook Air January 2008, with OS X Snow Leopard).
3. Feb 2011 - I enrolled in the Apple iOS Developer program.
4. March 2011 - I started to feel that the gsm signal on my iphone4 is not always as good as other people experience around me with traditional mobile phones. They could call and receive calls even in places when I could not. I needed to restart my iphone often to sign back into the gsm network, too.
5. Jul 2011 - OS X Lion was introduced. My old MBA started getting slower. I decided to wait for a new MBA model and buy it when it is released.
6. Later 2011 - I discovered that my observation regarding the iphone4 signal and related issues are valid¹.
7. Jan 2012 - I replaced my old MBA with a brand new one - a Macbook Air from mid-2011. It was much faster and my user experience improved significantly. But not for long.
8. July 2012 - OS X Mountain Lion was released. From this moment on, I started experiencing weird issues², ³.
9. Sep 2012 - I bought my iPhone5.
10. Mar 2013 - I realized the first awkward behaviour of my iphone 5 during winter skiing. It suddenly switched off and could not be started. But I did not pay attention to it happened just a few times and it did not repeat later.
11. H2 2013 - Nothing from Apple convinced me to upgrade from the iphone 5 or from the MBA of mid-2011 ⁴.
12. Feb 2014 - I finally lost my nerve with the instability of my iphone5 and I issued an iPhone5 battery complaint. After communication with Apple, I went to the Apple service store. Replacing my iphone 5 required me to be without the phone for a couple of days. Despite the fact that I was eligible to receive a completely new ‘factory refurbished’ device, the Apple process requires that the device be left at Apple’s premises untill the replacement device is sent to the shop from the central Apple service center. Hence I ended up with no phone for a couple of days.
13. Aug 2014 - Apple officially releases the Macbook Air mid-2011 EFI firmware update, which fixes some of my issues.
14. Aug 2014 - I finally sorted out the root cause of several other issues with my MBA and replaced its battery. So, my MBA is again in proper shape. It was miserable a last two years for MBA and me².
15. Aug 2014 - Apple officially admits to issues with the iPhone 5 battery⁵. Well, the Apple plays down the range of the affected devices.

What is my experience with the Apple Macbook Air and iPhone 4/5, so far?

Let’s start with the negative experiences (to that we’ll be able to finish with positive ones).

During my four years with the Apple iphone 4/5 and Macbook Air, I somehow had such bad luck that I ended up with:

• an iphone 4 that had VERY unpleasant issues with the signal.
• an iphone 5 that had SEVERE battery issues before the end of its 2^nd year of usage.
• a Macbook Air from mid-2011 that has been affected by various bugs, both firmware and software that led to SERIOUS bad user experience and, in the end, caused precocious battery replacement.

Even after all the bad experiences over the last four years, I am still under the influence of the ‘first impression’ from Apple because:

• The Macbook Air with Snow Leopard had a user experience so far above anything on the market that the credit earned lasts up to now - despite most of the credit being consumed already by Apple in the last two years.
• The iphone design and iOS user experience/responsiveness is just perfect for me.
• I got used to the bsd style OS X with the superb GUI. I enjoy the command line and the GUI.

Summary?

I would like to demonstrate a switch from Apple, but I am not convinced yet the switch will do me any better.
I started to closely monitor Apple’s competition in notebooks and smartphones. The competion is on the same level.

So, I developed a buying rule/recommendation for me. I will give Apple one last chance with macbook air and iphone using my buying rule. If Apple will fail I will switch.

BUYING RECOMMENDATION: