iPods and Dells and the Apple Store, Oh My

For Christmas, my sister received a new 40 GB iPod as well as a new Dell laptop (since she already has an iMac, she had wanted a PC, too). She copied all of her CDs onto the Dell and planned to use the iPod with that machine so she could copy the songs in iTunes on the Dell.

Simple enough, we figured, and we proceeded to look for the USB cable to connect from the iPod to the Dell, since the Dell (like most PCs) doesn't have built in FireWire (it's an optional extra on the "video editing" version of the machine). It wasn't to be found anywhere. There was nothing in the box about it including or not including a USB cable. So we called the Apple Store where it had been purchased.

"Oh you have to buy a USB cable for $20."

Fine, but you'd think they'd tell you that's what you need when you buy the iPod (and especially since it had been asked if the iPod could be used with USB on a Windows machine). So we bought the USB cable, installed the software, and plugged the iPod into the Dell.

The Dell didn't recognize it. At first it told me that the hardware had malfunctioned and couldn't be used. So I uninstalled it and tried again. This time it said I needed to format the drive of the iPod, so I clicked continue and followed all of the instructions. Except when I plugged it back into the machine, it was unusable again.

By that time I was getting a bit annoyed. When I first bought my iPod, I plugged it into my Mac, filled out a little dialog (what I wanted to call it, whether I wanted to copy the music over automatically), and it worked.

It shouldn't be any more difficult on a PC, but in this case it seemed to be.

So we called the Apple Store.

"We've had lots of people come in with Dells who are having the same problem you're describing. We can't do anything. Call Dell."

Come on. The iPod isn't being recognized; you'd think it'd be an iPod problem. So we called another Apple Store, and they told us to bring it in, which is exactly what we did.

They were pretty helpful; we set it up and showed them exactly what had been happening, so they went in the back to test the iPod. They found no problems, so we plugged it in again, and, of course, it still didn't work. The guy was leaving for the day, so he had another guy come and help us, and he couldn't get it working either. He called over one of his coworkers, and he wasn't sure what was wrong either. At some point, with no less than four people trying to get it going, someone decided to remove the wireless network card (why I never thought of that, I have no clue).

It worked immediately.

Which is when one of the guys remarked, "So that's what iTunes looks like on a PC."

I've got to say, I was surprised to hear that from someone who was supposed to know about the product they're selling. Sure, they know how to use it on a Mac, but the iPod is supposed to work on PCs, too. At least that's what they say.

If Apple wants to be able to succeed in selling iPods to Windows users, they've got to train their employees to know how to support them when the customer has a problem. They need to be proficient in Windows and Mac, and they know how to configure iPods on both systems. Just by luck, the Apple support guy we went to managed to figure it out, but what about for those people who are having similar problems when the support people couldn't help them. What does that tell them about Apple as a company?

Frankly, if I didn't like the user experience of using an Apple product, I'd probably go off and buy a Dell DJ or something else, which is exactly what Apple doesn't want.