It Just Works.

I probably complain about my recent Apple experiences too much. I have a higher expectation of an excellent retail experience when it comes to dealing with Apple; this is the primary reason we pay the premium for Apple products for our technology needs.

I ordered a HomePod mini last weekend. Apple sent it out right on time with a promise of a delivery date of yesterday. Unfortunately, in this part of the country they use this shipping service called “Deliver-It” which is really wonky. The tracking website looks like it was created using Microsoft FrontPage in 1999. The website is never updated with tracking information like FedEx or UPS; the listing usually shows “Label Created” until the order is delivered, if it’s ever delivered.

For the holidays I ordered new AirPods for my husband. They never arrived via Deliver-It. I ended up contacting Apple and explaining the situation to them and they ended up shipping another set of AirPods via UPS Overnight. I don’t know what happened to the original shipment as Deliver-It never updated their page.

So the HomePod mini didn’t arrive as scheduled yesterday. There was no update to the website (I expected this) and no one at Deliver-It answered the phone. I contacted Apple this morning and they sent out another HomePod mini via UPS Express. It’s expected on Friday. I mentioned Deliver-It being a constant failure and they agreed. “We get a lot of complaints about this service”. I wonder why they’re still using it.

The Apple ordering system is weird. They added another HomePod mini to the existing order for $0.00. I then received an email telling me my order was on hold because they couldn’t authorize my payment of $0.00 against my credit card. I called again and was told to ignore the email and the HomePod mini would arrive as promised.

Let’s see what happens.