Bad Apple....Bad!

I am the first to say that I love Apple products. An Apple fanboy if you will. Because of this, and the reticule that I am going to get from those that know me, it pains me to say that I am very, very disappointed in Apple at this moment. Not with the Apple hardware (are and still far more superior than Windows machines), particularly with Final Cut Pro X and Apple customer service. Before I go into my rant, know that I have been a supporter and fan of FCPX since its release, until here of late.

Lets start from the beginning:

Over the course of the past month or so, I have had nothing but issues with FCPX, especially when rendering projects. I get errors and crashes constantly. Also, when importing a regular old MP3 file, you might as well find you something to do for a while, because it is going to take forever. After many errors, today, I decided to call Apple to see if they could tell me what is going on. After several minutes of fighting with the automated voice service, I finally get to a human. After I explain to her that I need FCPX support, she asks for my serial number to my Mac. "Wait a second" I said "I am having issues with FCPX, not my Mac." After insisting on the serial number, I finally give it to her. She then tells me that I only have 15 days left on my Apple Care service for my Mac, and I am not eligible for phone support. "Fine" I said "I don't need service on my Mac, I need service on FCPX." She then says, "Let me get you to someone that can help you". I am thinking, "Finally, I am getting somewhere". The next gentleman answers the line "Apple Care, is this Mr. Allmond I am speaking with?" SUNNUVA!!!! I have arrived at yet another Apple Care person. "So I hear you are calling about your Mac" he says. By now, I have smoke rolling out of my ears. "No" I said. "I am have a tech support questions about FCPX". "Is there anyone there that can help me with this"? He says "sir you only have 15 days left on your Apple Care service for your Mac, and you are not eligible for phone support anymore. If you would like, you can upgrade to an extended service plan for your Mac for $99.95". "No" I said, "I need tech support for FCPX not my Mac"! He says "In that case, you can purchase a one time support ticket for $19.95". At this point, I had all I can take. "No, goodbye" and hung up. Seriously?? You wouldn't even talk to me about FCPX without Apple Care for Mac. This is ridiculous. 

If you read my earlier posts, you will see that I am currently enrolled in Adobe CC for Premier Pro. Now, the only reason that I did this to begin with was for Encore, because its really the only thing worth its weight to encode DVDs with. After the FCPX fiasco, I said, "I think its about time I learned Premier". So, as I start walking through Premier, I noticed that I was taking kind of a long time to render my preview in the project monitor. After toying around with it for a bit I said to myself, "Lets test this. I am going to call Adobe for tech support and compare the results".  After only a couple of button pushes, I was on the phone with a human. No only did this person walk me through what was wrong, he also took control of my machine remotely, and pinpointed other items that could be causing the issues. This person also took time to answer every question that I asked, no matter how irrelevant it was. Now that is what I am talking about.

Apple, you really need to step up your game on this. As an out of the gate supporter of FCPX, it pains me that this product has gotten so buggy, and your support team cannot even take 5 minutes to explain to what is going on because I don't have Apple Care for my Mac. Why does Mac Apple Care have anything to do with FCPX?? 

This FCPX fan has just been converted to a Premier Pro!