They don't ship the laptop, they send a technician and do the repair on-site. I have personal experience with a Lenovo ThinkPad. Dispatching the technician may have taken one or two business days (I don't remember exactly).
One could start with the fact, that with most laptops, one could exchange the battery without sending the whole laptop in... And as this is their pro laptop (and certainly priced such) one could expect on-site service even.
That's just not true. Depending on your warranty you could have on-site service. In that case, the repair would happen on-site and maybe take an hour or two. In my experience, this even worked while traveling to another country. Sometimes manufacturers would also send you a replacement part and you could replace it yourself (happened to me with a failed hard drive).
5 to 10 business days to fix literally years worth of laptops is impressively fast turnaround. How long do you think is reasonable to do battery swaps en masse like this?
Those 5 - 10 business days will be 30 seconds and an aftermarket replacement battery if Apple loses enough of their fights against the emerging 'right to repair'.
or own your fuckup and dispatch people to homes and offices.
Basically, no one is going to take apple up on this (and Apple know that perfectly well) if the price is buy a second laptop for the HALF MONTH Apple is going to keep your computer.
Imagine if the way a car recall worked was "haha, we keep your car for a month and you pay for a loaner. Tada!"
Most Macbooks are going to show symptoms before catching fire -- which is thankfully a very rare event. For most people, it's going to manifest as a swollen bottom case. Here's what I look for:
- If you put your Macbook on a flat desk, does the aluminum on the bottom touch the desk? (The rubber feet should touch the desk; aluminum should not.)
- If you close the lid, does it seal all the way around? (You shouldn't need to apply pressure to make the lid seal. Closing the lid should not bend it. It should not pop open on its own.)
- Cracked trackpad is a bad sign
- Look along the edges; any warping is a bad sign too
I had a swollen battery that manifested with a trackpad that couldn’t click but I thought it was maybe damaged from accidentally dropping something on it that I couldn’t remember. Had it like that for many months until I googled it. Replacing the battery fixed it straight away.
For their battery replacement program, my serial # did not come up as affected and they refused to service it over the phone. They quickly changed their minds when I showed up at the Apple store with a battery so swollen it was pushing through the trackpad.
Do service centers for these devices have special storage / handling requirements (especially when mass recalls are announced)? I can't imagine having a large amount of these ticking time-bombs, pending repair, all stacked together on a shelf is that great of an idea.
Yeah I read that in the article, but that was after the laptop already burst in to flames. I wonder if they place 20-30 of them in there at once? Surely they would all just slag if one decided it was time.
I recently had my spare macbook’s battery replaced by paying quite a lot. I even had to do a second trip to the store because the returned item was also faulty. They did something to the motherboard while changing the battery I guess because they also replaced that for free, but not before I diagnosed the problem for them...
Then today I learned that the battery I got replaced was included to this program butit seems Apple doesn’t want to refund the money I paid for the battery and they can’t guarantee if the replaced battery is healthy, so I have to do a 4th trip to the Apple Store make sure it won’t explode to my face...
I don’t understand why Apple can’t track what it put to my laptop and tell me if it dangerous or not.
It’s just annoying and painful. I’d expect better -which was the case for the past 6 years.
I'm going to say Apple no longer respects their customers. It's been a downward moving trend for the last several years. Keyboards, bad screens, batteries, etc.... They used to be able to charge the prices they did because A) it worked and B) was the best.... I can't say that anymore for them.
I have had a MacBook Air Mid-2012 since... 2012. Last year I bought new batteries online myself for like 80-90$. Replacing them took like 15 minutes by following a webpage linked in the battery package; it was idiot proof.
The new batteries have like at least 20% more capacity than the old ones ever had, and almost a year later are still going strong.
Couldn't been happier.
This Macbook Air mid-2012 is the best laptop I've ever had. I've been wanting to upgrade to a new laptop but I haven't been able to find one that makes the upgrade worth it. Paying 2000$ for 30% better performance isn't really worth it for me.
"[Ineligible because our] records show that your device has already been serviced ..."
Cool, thanks Apple. Glad I got to pay like $700 for this when my 2015 MBP was overheating so much last year that the battery swelled and broke the motherboard. I just did a quick live-chat with one of the tech support people... no chance for a refund on the work I had done 8 months ago to replace the battery and repair damage it caused. It really sucks that people who proactively dealt with this can't get compensated for what is now acknowledged as a manufacturing flaw.
A less immediately malicious (and simpler) interpretation of what's happened, is that it's taken this long for battery problems to start widely manifesting.
Of course, but normally it takes a lot of noise to make so that Apple does something like this. I personally have not heard any "multiple reports" news.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadI thought companies already figured out in the 90s that there's nothing more annoying than that. I guess I was mistaken.
Visit about:config?filter=autoplay and change media.autoplay.allow-muted to false.
> Replacing the battery, however, "may take 1 to 2 weeks" with the company advising users to make sure to back up their data first.
Peacing out with a laptop that someone uses for 7-14 days is unbelievable.
You don’t know how good you have it.
That was a long time ago though.
or own your fuckup and dispatch people to homes and offices.
Basically, no one is going to take apple up on this (and Apple know that perfectly well) if the price is buy a second laptop for the HALF MONTH Apple is going to keep your computer.
Imagine if the way a car recall worked was "haha, we keep your car for a month and you pay for a loaner. Tada!"
Which is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to give up my laptop for two weeks for Apple’s issue. A few hours is okay. Maybe a day. But not DAYS or WEEKS.
It’s completely unacceptable.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bulbhv/my_macbook_pr...
Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240359
- If you put your Macbook on a flat desk, does the aluminum on the bottom touch the desk? (The rubber feet should touch the desk; aluminum should not.)
- If you close the lid, does it seal all the way around? (You shouldn't need to apply pressure to make the lid seal. Closing the lid should not bend it. It should not pop open on its own.)
- Cracked trackpad is a bad sign
- Look along the edges; any warping is a bad sign too
I think this keeps getting reposted because it falls of the front page very quickly for whatever reason.
Then today I learned that the battery I got replaced was included to this program butit seems Apple doesn’t want to refund the money I paid for the battery and they can’t guarantee if the replaced battery is healthy, so I have to do a 4th trip to the Apple Store make sure it won’t explode to my face...
I don’t understand why Apple can’t track what it put to my laptop and tell me if it dangerous or not.
It’s just annoying and painful. I’d expect better -which was the case for the past 6 years.
The new batteries have like at least 20% more capacity than the old ones ever had, and almost a year later are still going strong.
Couldn't been happier.
This Macbook Air mid-2012 is the best laptop I've ever had. I've been wanting to upgrade to a new laptop but I haven't been able to find one that makes the upgrade worth it. Paying 2000$ for 30% better performance isn't really worth it for me.
Cool, thanks Apple. Glad I got to pay like $700 for this when my 2015 MBP was overheating so much last year that the battery swelled and broke the motherboard. I just did a quick live-chat with one of the tech support people... no chance for a refund on the work I had done 8 months ago to replace the battery and repair damage it caused. It really sucks that people who proactively dealt with this can't get compensated for what is now acknowledged as a manufacturing flaw.
Originally posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240359