Mac App Store and iTunes' support = PITA

It's funny how everything is my fault, so on numerous occasions, I'll say to people "Oh, that was my fault." and they'll reply something like "...but it was on the other side of the world, so you couldn't have anything to do with it."

When dealing with Apple, I've come to see them no different as a cable TV provider or mobile phone carrier.  They never take the blame.

I've been trying to update the Typist/タイピスト and Twitter applications on latest computer, with a lot of trouble.  It changes to download in the Mac App Store application and immediately changes to Installed, without downloading anything.  I can understand that Typist is a problem because the Mac App Store didn't deal with an English name change.  I ended up deleting that application and it was then able to be updated/replaced/installed.

I was told that the problem was my internet connection.

Mind, I went to my older machine with several applications to update, some updated just fine in-between Typist and Twitter, but the latter two won't be updated.  They're stubborn.  However, it's my internet connection that's at fault...or so they say.

It reminds me of Sprint telling me that the phone is at fault when I've had 4 of their phones doing the exact same thing in this location.  That's another story, but they've recently fixed their data problems apparently when they did a voice upgrade.  They claim that there was never a problem.

Besides the two applications, I downloaded a movie via iTunes and a free code with a Blu-Ray combo pack.  I had to go to a phone/computer repair shop where they have a great connection.  Unfortunately, iTunes downloaded everything but couldn't finish integrating the pieces, so I had two 3.5 GB download.m4v files and another file with the movie title.ite

Of course, Apple's response was to delete that and re-download, using the check for unfinished downloads.  It was finished, so it doesn't show up.

Clearly, Apple tests only the best-case scenarios.  They likely have a really great internet connection for all their employees and the employees probably have great connections at home.  They don't go away from the SF Bay Area and test on mobile hotspots or dialup connections.

Now that they have many, many customers (unlike, say 1995), they don't care whether you're a customer or not and it shows in their customer service.

I got a final answer from customer service, who want me to contact AppleCare.  Unless AppleCare has changed to resolve issues not related to warranty service, I don't understand this move:

I had the matter escalated once again, and unfortunately, I was advised have you contact our AppleCare Technical Support team. We cannot find other information that can assist you with the issues you are encountering:

USA: 1-800-275-2273

Contacting Apple for support and service
http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57

Please understand that we can only provide basic troubleshooting steps since we are not completely trained for technical issues.

If our AppleCare Technical Support team is unable to correct the issue, I also recommend asking them to connect you to our Account Security team for verification. They will be able to contact our Tier 2 advisors and possibly run tests on your account.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I'll be more than happy to assist you with whatever you need. Thank you for the chance to improve your iTunes experience. Have a great day, Curt.

Sincerely,

 I got a survey request today.  I was honest that it was a terrible experience.  I questioned why these groups weren't integrated and would pass me indirectly.  I also mentioned that they need to do some real world testing, since they apparently don't do that.  Does everyone have a high speed internet connection?  When Apple took Mac OS X 10.7/Lion away from physical media, they knew that their user base was upset.  Steve Jobs answered an e-mail by telling the person that they could go to the physical Apple store to download it.  Unfortunately, that could be a 300 mile (probably more) trip for some people.  Real world, what's that?  I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love to have my craptacular connection, as it's much better than what they have.  It's no wonder people abuse their employer's connection.

Update 2014.03.03: I'm using an LTE connection now, at roughly 10-12 Mbps down, and the Mac App Store software does the same thing.  It's as though they don't actually test the connection, they just assume something, anything and try something, anything else and it doesn't work.  Then, they push you to the Purchases page to try again, even when you're on the Purchases page.

I even had an incident a couple of months ago where I couldn't buy something in a physical Apple Store, with an Ethernet cable connected to their internal network.