Apple

Sounds like bad luck on your end. But in general with the volume apple ships products at defective units are bound to pop up here and there.

Almost every Apple product I've ever bought was repaired or replaced under warranty the first year. Oddly my latest purchases have not so far. The 14 Pro is going on year 2 OK my several years old iPad Air 4 is still fine and so is my watch Ultra so far.

That's how I felt about android. Had better but not complete luck with apple (battery issues)

I've noticed slight defects on almost every Apple I've bought. Strangely enough, both my 15 Pro and S9 were perfect out of the box. IDK, maybe my eyesight has gotten worse as I've gotten older, lol.

I find too many people are obsessed with scratches and chips. I watched a lady in the Apple Store reject 2 iMacs for a small scuff mark on the stand portion. Really?

Everything I own from truck, motorcycle, bicycle to toaster has scratches and dents.

why I made a couple of years break from apple: I bought the 13 pro, it arrived with a 1mm gap between the glass and the frame on the top left corner, the official store employee was assuring me that it's normal (I asked me to show me another such phone in their inventory of thousands, he just shrugged his shoulders and told me there was nothing he could do about it).

sweared to never get another device from them but had lots of issues with missed notifications on my Fold 3 and 4 (family and work is too important to put up with that, no matter how great those devices were overall).

so yeah I am here out of bare necessity only, otherwise I do agree with you 100%. also - my iphone 8 build quality still seems much better than my 15 pro max.

Dying to say this. Particularly true for iPhones.

iPhone 14 Pro camera is noticeably worse than my 11 pro

Even on the software. Its been a long time now but I don’t get how they think the default keyboard is acceptable. It’s the only keyboard I have used that lags in the middle of typing. Switch to Google Board or Swiftkey and zero lag and way better autocorrect

2000s Apple: Amazing software with unparalleled UI design running on mid hardware with unparalleled industrial design

2020s Apple: Mid software with boring UI design running on unparalleled hardware with slightly above-average industrial design

I think it's due to the transition from china to India. As Apple slowly changing up its supply chain parts by parts, from the well experienced Chinese manufacturers to Vietnamese, Indian and other manufacturer's, who previously didn't have experience with apple's standards and quantities, more and more problems will occur until those companies get their stuff, workers and processes together.

Bendgate? Hingegate? All of the 2016-early 2020 MacBooks being pieces of shit? Yellowing iPhone 3GS? TiBook durability? Apple III unreliability?

QC? Not really. Everything else? 100%

Yeah, i bought my mom an SE last year. She’s on her third or fourth warranty replacement because they keep dying. She’s not dropping them or anything. The phones are just dying. I’m holding off apple purchases for a while. I just don’t trust them at the moment.

Yes, I’ve noticed it lately

I mean, I’ve been buying Apple products for a while and I just got the silicone case from the Apple Store for a new phone, it had a chunk taken out of it straight out of the box 😂

So anecdotally, kinda? But it could also just be that they make more things now

It was never good to begin with

I’ve bought a lot of Apple products over the years - just got a 15PM. The only problem I’ve ever had was my watch got bricked by a software update. Apple replaced it within a few days.

Apple has never been a luxury brand.

I must be lucky because I’ve never had one issue, no flaws. Every piece of tech I’ve bought is perfect as expected. That’s not just Apple products either.

I've been purchasing Apple products for about 22 years. If anything, quality, durability, and product lifetime have gotten better. Apple is f-ing amazing when it comes to managing their supply chain these day, and I think a lot of that is Tim Cook.

Apple used to always deliver products late and with problems in the 1980s and 1990s. Look at the number of iPhone, iPads, Apple Watches, AirPods, etc. that they deliver every year like clockwork. The scale of that, and the high quality in general, is just mind boggling and an underappreciated achievement.

I wouldn’t say so, I think it’s more so the fact the pandemic happened, so manufacturing was all over the place even more than usual, and parts were needing to be rushed on high priority in order to make enough iPhones for the yearly release. Hence last year a lot of people struggling to get a 14 pro device till well into 2023… and now they’ve dropped down to just a small handful of manufacturers and lost a few of their really high end manufacturers. The stresses of the economy touch everything and everyone, including the trillion dollar company Apple.

Chinas running out of kids to work the factories

I feel like it’s become more common since manufacturing shifted more to India however if your phone was manufactured in China idk

Apple has had quality control issues in the past like any other firm.

I can recall shoddy keyboards, disintegrating cables, wonky power supplies, lousy antennae, and now that we're entering an economic slow down, I can see cost cutting getting too severe.

What has also changed is Apple overthinking the plumbing. A great example is putting an angle sensor in laptop lids to determine if the unit is closed. Of course it's a more complicated piece just for no reason and will fail more than a plain old magnetic sensor.

It’s not new. I remember when the G5 iMac came out they had numerous problems with burned out midplanes. What I recall was that the Mac when sleeping would turn off the fan and it somehow literally burned out some capacitors and it was a replacement that cost almost as much as a new Mac if it happened outside of warranty or Apple Care. I didn’t own the particular machine, but I recall a relative had one that was always running in reduced mode as he didn’t want to have it burn up. I have not myself encountered any problems so far with poor quality control of my own Apple products though.

Apple has one since they move manufacturering from China to India. Let say they have a lot of catching up to do, and the labors are of different culture and government style so it will be never be an Apple to Apple comparison (no pun). Perhaps you need to understand India productions control as a whole, as a country compares to other Asiatic countries: Taiwan , Vietnam, China, Cambodia , etc.

It's not only hardware, but software releases too.

There is a thing called cost cutting. Apple has been cost cutting not because of lack of money but to increase profit margin. I think they also subtly had a problem with the company that made motherboard parts for iPhones. Now they got 2-3 companies making it for them. China discouraging their citizens from purchasing Apple product has affected their sales to a great extend. India has seen a rise in sales because of recent sales and 2 year EMI facility without downpayment on E-commerce websites. They even got tie up to manufacture base model iPhones here with a big old company that basically owns Land rover even adding the same chassis to their SUVs and runs all chains of Starbucks here.

Dust inside iPhone 13 Pro Max lens two years in. Yes.

Perfection? Lol. I could not roll my eyes further back

Apple's quality control has been questionable since I purchased the first-generation MacBook, the white polycarbonate one, long before they switched to aluminum. I saved up to buy this laptop, but the palmrest deteriorated quickly. It turned yellow after a year and eventually cracked and disintegrated. Years later, I assumed their quality control would have improved, but the MacBook M1 still had questionable quality in its palmrest. After a few months of use, the anodized aluminum faded, and the areas where you rest your wrists became extremely noticeable! Apple's quality control is crap.

I've purchased several Apple devices over the years, yet each time I buy one, there's always something that seems like it should have failed their quality control. For instance, there was even a speck of dust inside the screen of my iPad Mini 3!

ps: I don’t complain as much with Android devices because due to their reasonable price, my expectations are set accordingly.

I remember the fiasco with the fitst iPad Retina models and the yellow blotches on the screens because of glue that had not dried well yet. So many of those devices came with that issue, it was insane.

Man, I totally get where you're coming from with the Apple frustrations. It's like, you dish out a hefty sum expecting top-notch quality and then bam! You're hit with issues right out of the box. It's not just you; I've heard similar stories about iPhones looking like they've been in a pocket with keys, iPads with that weird display tone thing, and don't even get me started on the MacBook lids.

You'd think with the price tag and Apple's rep for quality, these things would be flawless, right? But nope, there's always something. And trying to get a replacement feels like entering a loop of imperfection. It's wild that they let the whole butterfly keyboard debacle drag on for ages too.

You bring up a solid point about expectations. If it was some mid-range brand, maybe these issues wouldn't sting as much. But Apple's like the Gucci of tech, so you're not just buying a gadget; you're buying into this idea of luxury and perfection. It does make you wonder about their quality control process. Like, how does this stuff slip through, especially given their reputation?

Anyone out there with insider knowledge on Apple's QC? It'd be interesting to get some insight into why there's this mismatch between Apple's luxe image and the reality of their product quality.

If I am understanding your question correctly, you want to know why the apple products are not perfect?
What product have you bought in the last 5 years that was perfect? Understanding that perfect is subjective.
Where was it manufactured?
How much did it cost?
Did it's perfect add to it's performance or appearance?

People have had hip replacements that were defective.
$3.2M homes with all sorts of defects.
Boeing's 737Max had software defects that killed people.

I’m old enough to remember when an iOS update would crash your entire phone if you answered an incoming call.

Or the time the early, brand new aluminum 15” MBPs shipped with poorly seated displays that developed big white spots all over.

And the original, original 12-inch MBP that ran so hot people cooked eggs on it.

And the Mac OS X (yes that was its name) release that was heavily marketed as “no new features this year, just bug fixes.”

I’m not excusing any of it. Apple’s made of humans. Humans are flawed. 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Hubble telescope cost $2 Billion and another $700M to fix the spherical aberration defect.
Boeing built a $99M 737Max with a fatal software flaw that ended up killing 346 people.
What is the combined number of auto recalls due to defective components/manufacturing around the world each year?
....good luck finding perfection and expecting flawless iPhones and MacBooks.

Yes.