Categories
Archive

A Note From A Happy Euro TiBook Owner

According to previous reports here at Go2Mac Apple has had some problems delivering Rev. B TiBooks to European resellers on schedule. While I can’t shed any light on the plight of those who may still be waiting for a machine that was promised weeks ago, I can provide some details regarding the wait for my machine.


According to previous reports here at Go2Mac Apple has had some problems delivering Rev. B TiBooks to European resellers on schedule. While I can’t shed any light on the plight of those who may still be waiting for a machine that was promised weeks ago, I can provide some details regarding the wait for my machine.

For those who do not recall, Apple announced the Rev. B TiBooks on Tuesday, October 16. Due to the 9 hour time difference most of us in Europe received this news on the 17th. I placed my order for a TiBook 667 with a Swedish keyboard and adapter plug but a standard multi-language OS on the morning of Friday the 19th. The build time was estimated to be 8 working days for that configuration while machines with the Swedish OS X were showing 25 working days.

Due to a mixup on Apple’s Swedish Store site my order was switched to a Swedish version of OS X. We caught this prior to shipping so I did get the machine that I had ordered, but it did not arrive until November 23, 5 weeks after I had placed my order.

A slight mixup and an extra few weeks, what is the big deal? Well, due to an error with the Swedish Apple Store on the day that I ordered the non-Swedish OS machines that were being pushed as being ‘Available Now’ were priced just a tad wrong. The iBooks started at just over 10,000 Swedish kronor (1 dollar = just over 10 kronor) and the TiBook 667/512/30 topped out at 12,695 SEK. Add a three year AppleCare contract + 25% sales tax (yes, 25%!) and the total ended up to be 19,275 SEK instead of 43,400 SEK.

That particular deal did not last long, in fact, it disappeared within hours of my order confirmation. I have no idea how many machines were ordered during that time, but I had seriously considered ordering a few extra machines (20 or so) at that price for resale.

As you can imagine, I didn’t really mind the extra waiting time, and my friends who did not jump on the deal despite my encouragement are now green with envy. The money that I saved is going into upgrading my software for X (Office and FMP 5.5 so far and FCP3, DVD SP and Photoshop as soon as they are available). Thanks Apple!

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.