14 DAY TRIAL // The second piece of evidence that Apple is keeping a close eye on its Apple Discussions forum comes from MacBook Pro owner and forum user Jkosh. The guy experienced some trouble with his laptop and decided to seek resolutions on the forum, rather than bother the company. As it turned out, Apple decided to “bother” him soon after he had posted his complaints online.
“MBP hangs on the initial Gray Screen when anything is plugged into either of my MBP’s USB ports on boot and reboot,” JKosh writes. “I’ve tried it with a USB mouse, USB2 Hard Drive, USB Memory Stick and USB RF Mouse. It DOES NOT happen when anything is plugged into the Firewire 800 port, only either USB port ... As soon as I unplug the USB item, the HD whirls up and a few seconds later the booting continues as normal. I have booted in verbose mode just to see what the system says. It stays on the gray screen, again, until I unplug the USB device.” JKosh goes on to post the message his MBP was displaying at this point, “The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep retrying. (Port 3 of hub @ location: 0×6000000)”.
The next day...
“Apple Support contacted me (on their own volition) early this morning and we discussed the issue,” reads another post signed JKosh. “They have offered to replace my MBP with a new one, as their engineers have asked to get their hands on my MBP to dissemble. It was unusual to just get a call from Apple from 'out of the blue.' I had only posted my problem in this forum and had not made an official inquiry with Apple. To say the least, Apple has been extremely supportive and helpful. Hope they can dissect my MBP and prevent it from occurring in the future.”
It is the second time this month an Apple Discussions poster claims to have been contacted by Apple on their own volition following a complaint. However, things haven't always been this way.
Upon reporting that Apple might have people hired to do some monitoring over the forums, Softpedia got a comment from reader Lyndsey, who wrote “I purchased a Imac G5 and unfortunately had one of the 'bad batches' affected with the vertical lines. I have complained about this several times on the discussion boards because I am a student and mother, and so financially cannot afford to get this problem solved. I think it would be lovely if Apple could bother to ring me to sort this problem out, instead of ignoring me like the thousands of others out there who have been affected like myself”.
When exactly do you think Apple really started to care?