Shattered glass. Flickering displays. Non-booting machines. So-goes the list of maladies affecting Apple’s brand new quad-core 27” Core i7-based iMacs. Threads over on the Apple Support Discussion forums are alive with complaints and debate by affected users.

After hitting the power button, some owners hear the startup chime, but don’t get to boot successfully to their desktop. One particularly high-profile customer was Engadget, who took delivery of a machine that simply refused to boot. They didn’t even get as far as the teasing chime.

A video has surfaced on YouTube of a machine that does boot, but its display ducks out and “flashes” every so often, rendering it impractical (and uncomfortable) for any kind of actual use.

Several customers are reporting shattered or cracked glass on the bottom left hand corner of the iMac’s huge display.

There’s currently no official comment on the matter by Apple (I doubt there ever will be) but the favourite explanation floating around the intertubes is that the packaging for these computers is somehow flawed, leading to damage (visible and otherwise) of their precious contents while in transit.

Gizmodo says:

What’s most plausible is that the packaging just wasn’t designed to handle the size and weight of the giant 27-inch iMac as it gets tossed around the cab of a FedEx truck. Apple has so far been extremely responsive and effective in making repairs and exchanges, but it’s still a discomfiting sign.

This is the second wave of bad news regarding Apple’s new 27″ iMac lineup. Late last month reports surfaced on the Apple Support discussion website of incredibly sluggish Flash playback, and claims of a bug causing hard drives to spin down and even of a faulty Snow Leopard installation. You can read those discussion for yourself here and here.

So, if you bought one of these machines as a holiday gift for someone, it’s probably a good idea to open the box and take it for a test-drive, while there’s still time to get a replacement from Apple should the need arise.

Have you been affected by one of these faults?

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It appeared to be just another innocuous third-decimal-point minor update, but today’s release of iTunes 8.2.1 carried more than the usual “bug fixes and stability improvements.” (Those are still there, too.) For owners of the recently introduced Palm Pre unfortunate enough to have already downloaded and installed the update, it also ends the iTunes playlist syncing party. It was inevitable, since Apple clearly regards iTunes syncing as the exclusive, sacred territory of its own devices, but it probably still has a few Pre owners trying to turn back the clock.

TUAW’s Christina Warren first suggested that Pre syncing was blocked with this update, having spotted a crucial passage in the release notes stating, “Tunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices.” While Warren didn’t have access to a Pre to test her theory herself, many Pre-specific sites and bloggers quickly confirmed that it was indeed the case that the device is no longer recognized. So far, the reports I’ve seen are specific to Macs, but I doubt the Windows version of iTunes would retain Pre syncing.

Interestingly, when Pre owners plugged their devices in, they found that iTunes came to the front, just as it does when you plug in an iPod or iPhone, but no device showed up in the source menu. This suggests that the program is still aware that the device exists, but that Apple has introduced some kind of blocking software to stop the process there. It also suggests that it might be possible for Palm or independent devs to create a workaround to get syncing functioning again.

In the meantime, if no fix ever does surface, Pre owners can always use doubleTwist or The Missing Sync for Pre to get around Apple’s blockade.

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The reviewing process was flawed from the get go. Initially Apple had the idiotic notion that people who had never purchased or used an application should be able give it a review and star rating. Seriously, how could that work out well? The result was people who had no first hand knowledge of a [paid] application or game leaving scathing reviews because they didn’t like the price point. Apple has since fixed this, checking the ability to review an app against the user’s purchase history.

The solution is only partially effective, which is to say, it only works on paid iPhone applications. With the pricepoint of free, the apps that cost nothing are still susceptible of ridicule. Who wants to complain about something that’s free? Well, you’d be surprised. It’s not so much a situation of complaining about the price, but maybe the app, or the social commentary around the app — as was the case with the Barack Obama campaign application. The ‘review’ thread devolved into a Red vs Blue (unfortunately not the Halo machinima Red vs Blue) debacle (before and after the election). Thinking about the silliness of this particular situation, I can’t help but feel like the SNL Weekend Update segment, “Seriously!?!” But I suppose free speech is free speech, be it in a public venue, or an App Store application review thread.

On the brighter side, when Apple released the 2.2 version of the iPhone firmware, they instituted a smart idea to drive more star ratings for apps. If you’ve upgraded to 2.2, when you opt to delete an application from your iPhone directly (rather than removing via a sync with iTunes), you are prompted to give it a rating. It’s similar in feel to the prompt you get from a Customer Service IVR phone system, but with much less fuss — just tap the rating you want to give, and you’re done. If you want to go the extra mile, you can give a wordy review too. But I think the nice part of this feature is that more ratings are rolling in all the time. In fact, if you’ve been keeping score at home, the most popular of apps in the App Store were once maybe around 3000 ratings. Now the in-crowd of apps are surpassing 10000 reviews and beyond. So something Apple’s instituted is driving more people to sound off on the software they use (or don’t use) on their iPhones, which is great, because it only leads to better informed decisions before you click the ‘BUY’ button.

Are there any features of the App Store review process that I’ve missed? Or if you have some interesting ideas on how Apple could further educate potential buyers of App Store software, sound off here.

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