Forums | MacLife

A WARNING to anyone out there considering use of the iPhoto book printing service...

Have you been to an Apple Store lately?  Have you seen the beautiful, linen-bound books they have on display that were "created" by simply clicking a few buttons in iPhoto?  Or maybe you've seen their samples on line.  Each photo is rich in color, perfect in contrast and beautiful in detail.  BEWARE!!!  This service is the biggest rip off perpetrated on us poor Mac lovers since Apple started charging us for technical support.

I have an iMac DV / 500 running OS 10.1.5 and iPhoto 1.1.1.  I recently bought a Canon Digital ELPH S200 at the local Apple Store to ensure compatibility.  I was thrilled with iPhoto from the moment I first saw it and I couldn't wait to use the book creation service.  I eagerly laid out the photos from my recent vacation and -- boom! -- instantly zapped my photos into the expert hands at Apple for printing.  A few extra pages upped the price to $58.86 including shipping and tax, but I figured it was a small price to pay for a beautiful book like the one I saw in the Apple Store.

I'm sure you can tell where this story is going by now... When I received my book about 10 days later, I was horribly disappointed.  Granted, the photos I sent in for printing were taken at medium resolution, so I expected some loss of detail, but what I got back was just plain ugly.  The greens and reds in each picture had a ghoulish fluorescence.  The contrast was so skewed that in one photo, my daughter's face was nearly washed out. 

This was not the quality I had come to expect from Apple.  Heck, the printouts of those photos on my Epson C42UX were far superior.  So I did what any Apple lover would do.  I called the iPhoto customer service number to tell them of my dissatisfaction.  If I was dissatisfied with their product, surely they would rectify the situation... WRONG!  Not only did the curt customer service guy who answered my call emphatically state that, according to the Terms and Conditions that I agreed to upon ordering Apple does not take returns due to customer dissatisfaction (what?!), and then, right while I was on the phone he looked up my "original files" and then sanctimoniously told me that his monitor was "configured for true-to-photo colors" and that the reds and greens were indeed fluorescent and that the contrast was indeed all out of whack.  Now thoroughly steamed, I told him that if I had money and/or desire to purchase a monitor and professional software that ensure "true-to-photo colors", I wouldn't be using his (obviously) amateur survice to begin with.  His response:  "Sir, are there any other *questions* I can answer for you today?"  Again, I tried to voice my dissatisfaction.  He cut me off with a "thank you for calling Apple".

I called right back.  This time, after reminding me that a less abrasive woman admitted that the photo files sent from iPhoto to Apple's servers are converted to .PDF files, so sometimes there can be some quality loss in the process.  "The iPhoto book service was not a 'professional' service," she reminded me.  Yeah.  Obviously not. 

I was really disappointed -- mostly in myself.  Since purchasing my first Color Classic ten years ago, I was hooked on the tribe of Mac users.  I used a superior, underground computer!  I was independent from the Wintel empire.  In short, I thought different!   I thought I was too old to be taken in by slick marketing.  But now, it's sadly clear to me that Apple Computer is just another cold corporate entity with no more empathy for its consumers than McDonalds or -- ghasp -- Microsoft.   The customer service people did not offer an apology, did not offer a refund, did not offer anything to rectify the situation or even thank me for using their products.... So you can keep your $58.86 Apple.  But you've lost me as a blind evangelist for your products.     

I don't think it should be wrong that when we spend more for so-called superior products, Apple should provide superior customer service.  If anyone else out there is as dissatisfied as I am, please add a post to this forum.    Maybe there's someone in Cupertino who actually cares what we think.