This is a [multiple expletives deleted] disgrace, but it's nothing new for Apple. Back in '87, I bought an (expensive!) Apple IIgs at the end my senior year of high school, and by about (ironically) 18 months later, it wouldn't keep date, time, or other CMOS settings.
I took it to the local computer store, whose owner said the only way to fix it was to replace the motherboard (!!!). There was a $5 lithium cell SOLDERED TO THE MOTHERBOARD. Talk about planned obsolescence! This sort of crap borders on outright theft, with a heaping helping of deception thrown on to boot.
Well, it turns out the tech only half right. Instead of forking over ~$250 for a new mobo, I nipped the battery off and alligator-clipped a $2 Radio Shack battery box's leads to the stubs. A pair of D-cells did the job just fine for the next 18 months. That is, until I finally just got sick of the CRAPPY PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE and CONSTANT CRASHES, and dumped Apple forever. Good job with the customer relations, Apple!
Batteries are consumables and should be treated as such. You wouldn't buy a car if the wheels were welded to the hubs! Actually, this is more akin to a gas tank that may hold a thousand gallons or so, but it has no filler pipe!
Apple's miserable quality may have chased me off, but their arrogance will keep me away, permanently! Re: the movie, they've got a lot of 'nads giving their phone-bot a script like that one to read!
" CRAPPY PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE and CONSTANT CRASHES, and dumped Apple forever"
Hmmm, ok last time I checked my mac at home has had an uptime of 232 days. That is 232 days without a single reboot. Final cut pro, Photoshop, Garageband, Office X, Gimp, Open office, Firefox, Avid, and just about any Unix app you could ever want, etc etc, Yep all proprietary and crappy you really got us mac users with that one.
It's almost 20 years later. Might be time to let that Apple grudge go. Most of the employees are different now.
Excellent rant, grounded in false information.
Oh I forgot to mention Logic pro, boy that is a real piece of crappy software.
Sarcasam off.
I bought a Duran Duran CD once, and now I think all recorded music is crap.
That's funny... My dad's GS is still around (he isn't), hadn't been turned on since I set up a localtalk network to transfer files to his Mac Performa 6360 (circa 1996), and when I put the components together and fired it up last month, the clock was still running. The date and year were correct, but somewhere along the line the daylight savings time changes got missed. It was off by three hours.
My anecdote beats your anecdote, because mine is characteristic of Apple customers' experience. Yours is characteristic of customers of your local computer store.
Er, do you have any experience with Apple products that were manufactured in this century?
My, you DO carry a grudge... First of all, the price in 1987 for your IIgs was only $999... plus $495 for a color monitor. Compare that to the $2495 for a basic PC and $2999 for the Macintosh. The IIgs were built in response to the Amiga 500 ($1295 plus monitor - if I recall correctly) and Atari ST.
As for your complaint about the battery, you have a point... but only on the very first ROM I version which was replaced after only about 3 months.
If your IIgs logic board is ROM 1 (256k), then the battery requires leads, which are very hard to come by nowadays. . . The IIgs ROM 2 (512k) and IIgs ROM 3 (1 megabyte) logic board hav a battery holder and will only require removing its cap to replace the old one.
Apple did not require the you to "replace the motherboard" simply because the CMOS battery was soldered in (an almost industry wide standard at the time). A reputable Apple service dealer would replace the battery for a nominal charge. Your local "computer" store was trying to rip you off.
Apple's miserable quality may have chased me off, but their arrogance will keep me away, permanently!
Apple has never been challenged on "quality" and their service has always been considered the "gold standard" in the industry. Your experience with a "local dealer" is not the general experience of Apple customers.