Greeks demand local Apple support
Macworld reports that Greek Mac users want a greater Apple presence--and an official Greek localization. They feel neglected and overlooked despite their fondness for Macintoshes.
The aptly named WeWantAppleGreece.com has sprung up to help fill the support gap.
The group offers both Hellenic localization and greek fonts under the GNU general public license. They've also started a e-mail protest campaign to demand that Apple "treat your Greek clients and end consumers equally to the rest of the Europeans".
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Maciek said 4:57PM on 11-28-2006
Actually the creation of this web page was influenced by Polish Mac community. Check this: http://www.wewantapplepoland.com/
Greetings from Poland!
Reply
Erica Sadun said 4:58PM on 11-28-2006
Pike:
Pop into System Preferences -> International. Notice anything missing?
Reply
Aron T said 5:01PM on 11-28-2006
And after My Big Fat Greek Wedding they deserve it!
Reply
Jon said 5:07PM on 11-28-2006
"Everyone demands local support. So what? Apple might make it at every country it's present? Silly decision. And expensive for them. As for me they would better make one really big support for a whole Europe. For example in every country there are offices, which are accepting broken items and answer customers' questions. And everyday they sent goods to 'big' office, where everything is repairing"
I don't think that would work because of the variety of different languages spoken in Europe.
Reply
Chewbaca said 5:39PM on 11-28-2006
i love greek.
Reply
Pike said 5:57PM on 11-28-2006
Everyone demands local support. So what? Apple might make it at every country it's present? Silly decision. And expensive for them. As for me they would better make one really big support for a whole Europe. For example in every country there are offices, which are accepting broken items and answer customers' questions. And everyday they sent goods to 'big' office, where everything is repairing
Reply
Ala said 5:59PM on 11-28-2006
I dont know why i first read the heading "Geeks demand local Apple support".
was like wth @_@
Reply
Sara said 6:17PM on 11-28-2006
Amen to this! When I was living in Athens last year it was a pain in the ass to get myself Apple accessories for my computer (like an airport card) over there. Although, it's fairly easy to set your computer up so that you can type in Greek (you can turn on Greek in the International> Input Menu under system prefs, though you can't set your entire computer to Greek), so I never found a separate font necessary.
Reply
lefkasboy said 6:49PM on 11-28-2006
Things are relly bad for us living in Greece. The system localization is the least of the problems in my opinion. The major problem is that's it's really hard to actually walk into the Greek Apple Reseller and buy a Mac. They only sell you through their on-line store IF you provide them with all your personal information (including a form that states that you are ok with your taxes the IRS!!!). Everything is rediculusly overpriced. There is almost no support at all... and I will not say anything about the attitude, because this post is alresy getting pretty big. The bottom line is... WE NEED HELP!
Reply
Jonathan Schor said 8:47PM on 11-28-2006
Would it not be that the Hellenes want Greek Language support?
Reply
annon said 1:54AM on 11-29-2006
I've been to Greece, and even the Greek don't speak Greek anymore. It's a dying language...
Reply
Dimitris Karakatsanis said 2:44AM on 11-29-2006
Here is a small example of what is going on in Greece: "We pay for a little patch that offers Greek localization into Mac OS X (free in most of other EU countries), plus 12 keyboard keys with Greek-Latin characters engraved on them, the price of 103.00 euros to 239.00 euros …it depends on which Mac we are buying! In the invoice it appears that it costs 0.00 euro, but we are enforced to buy the “Greek version” of Mac, together with some CD/DVDs, for example “In the steps of Alexandros the Great”. Oh yes, these are nice DVDs but we don’t want to pay 239.00 euros extra for those! It is a comic situation, isn’t it? It does harm Apple promotion, doesn’t it?"
Reply
RedDM said 3:03AM on 11-29-2006
I think that all of Europeans feel neglected by Apple :-).
At least we get our MacBooks, iPod mini's, iMac G5's if all American's have them already two months running at home...
But it's not only Apple, somebody mentioned Playstation 3?? Anybody?? ;-)
Reply
K. G. said 4:13AM on 11-29-2006
"I've been to Greece, and even the Greek don't speak Greek anymore. It's a dying language..."
Look if you are a 1,8m tall blond with sexy curves and screaming tourist from a mile away they would certainly talk to you in English, trying to seduce you....
If it is not the case tell us where have you been in Greece and you haven't hear the Greek language been spoken. Thank you.
Reply
AT said 4:15AM on 11-29-2006
Hm...to whoever posted that Greek is a dying language and Greeks don't speak Greek (! ?) : How about write for something only if you know what you're talking about ? What you posted here is the most redicilous thing I have read for a long time, especially since you are refering to something that exists for thousands of years. In any case, the topic here is not the OSX localization. Most serious issue with Apple in Greece is the sale/aftersale support, not the localization.
Reply
Martin said 8:45AM on 11-29-2006
Greece isn't the only European country that lacks local support. As far as I'm aware, only Britain has Apple Stores right now. I live in Germany and recently I brought my MacBook which heavily suffered from Random Shutdown Syndrome to an "Authorized Service Partner" that Apple recommended me (only a couple days later, Apple released the SMC Firmware Update). I don't want to go into details here, but I went through hell. It took the alleged "partner" 5 weeks to fix the problem and their offices looked as if WWII had only ended yesterday here in Berlin.
Give me just one Genius Bar in a 500-mile radius around here and I'd even walk there if I had to.
Reply
anton said 9:14AM on 11-29-2006
we have the same problems with apple IMC and no real apple in russia. i personally solved it by moving to california.
Reply
Richard said 1:33PM on 11-29-2006
I dig how you wrote Greek over the Apple symbol. Mainly because of the novelty that I could read it. Yay me! Unforunately my brand of Ancient Greek, is useless in modern Greece, darn.
Reply
Mapplethorpe said 2:23AM on 12-02-2006
grow up silly boy at number 7. Maybe it's because you dont seem to be more than 15yo.
Greeks dont speak Greek ? So what now, they speak Geek?
And finally (coz it's becoming ridiculous here talkin about GeekGreeks n more), if it wasn't the Ancient Greek bath, many people nowadays would smell like shit.
GeekyGreeky cheers mates,
Feel free
Reply