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MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

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Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s why most people buy $500 laptops. Even if the screen broke you can probably buy a 3rd party one from Aliexpress for $100. But $800 for a replacement one? I’d rather sell the MBP for parts on eBay and buy a new one if must then pay that much. Like you would get more for that with a broken screen for sure, some people would fix it on their own or use it as a desktop computer. But I don’t have a SV engineer s…

https://www.apple.com/support/products/mac/ AppleCare+ is $70/year for M1 MacBook Air and covers damages. It also covers accidents such as coffee spills or drops. I have 3 year AppleCare+ for 16" MacBook Pro.

....kind of. It's got a deductible for accidental damage, and the deductible can be fairly significant.

You're going to be out an additional $99 if you only damaged the display or only damaged the top case. But if you had a liquid spill or significant drop, you're likely going to be out the $299 (for damaging both, or for damaging the logic board/anything else internal at all).

It's a decent deal if you've got a high end machine, but it doesn't as much sense IMO if you bought something like an Air or a Base 13".

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In contrast, ~$160 on a $1.5k Dell Latitude will get 3 years of warranty + accidental damage coverage with no deductible.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases a battery replacement = dead. Im unsure about the 2012 MBP (not having had one), but if its an internal battery, battery death usually means user unfixable, for most users.

It’s not supposed to be user replaceable, but there are plenty of kits and YouTube videos available on how to do it.

Kits and YT videos pretty much always means "beyond the average consumer", meaning either paying a repair shop hundreds of euros in labour/profits, or just replacing the device.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#473

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Gnome vs KDE isn't really a thing, deb vs rpm isn't a thing, X vs Wayland is only a temporary thing, Pulse vs PipeWire isn't a thing, PipeWire implements pulse apis. systemd vs $INITSYSTEM is also temporary, though on a longer timescale. We need the old generation to die before systemd is accepted by everyone. I don't mean to shit on your argument, but most things are either just preferences or progress that isn't do…

Fair points, though I don't share your enthusiasm about wayland/pipewire transitions being "temporary." The fragmentation that Wayland has caused will be difficult to recover from - I think many older WM's will just die off. I generally agree that less fragmentation is good, though, so hopeful that desktop linux emerges stronger. But, having used it full time for the last ~15 years, it feels less focused than ever. P…

I'm on NixOS atm, but I've been considering going Ansible+btrfs on some rolling release distro instead, the declarative approach is cool but hard when you're off the beaten path!

For PipeWire I'd say we're already there, it just works better than pulse when doing pulse things, and they also implement JACK and ALSA if you need them.

Regarding Wayland, yes a lot of old DE's and WM's will die, but that's just the way of nature, there are still many great options for people to use, we must deprecate things eventually.

Wayland impressions so far: Annoying that windows can't take focus, annoying that electron doesn't default to it yet, TouchPad input works better, scaling works better. Some apps (vscode) shows a generic icon in Wayland rather than vscode.

Remember that you can run XWayland on Wayland. XWayland will keep most X11 apps working just the same, and X11 really needs depreciation. I'm almost most excited about "Waypipe". When it's mature enough it'll run circles around X11 forwarding while being performant and secure!

I mean I realize how I've turned into one of those "you just have to do these easy things to make it work" kind of people, but for "dumb usersč on "good hardware" (Linux compatible) it's really quite nice, my father had less issues on Linux Mint than Windows.

The year of the Linux desktop is here, it's just wrapped into a VM (crosvm) or a gaming console (SteamDeck/SteamOS).

Honestly with a bit more customization options, and no tracking I would probably get a Chromebook as the next machine (They run Android and "Linux" apps now)

With Waydroid or Anbox you can run Android apps on Linux too, but last I tried wasn't great.

Progress is being made on the shittiest of fronts too! NVIDIA moving code from the driver into firmware is "great" from a usability perspective, I don't really care enough about FLOSS to demand my GPU implementation details being open, as long as compatibility is good.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thread has 50 pages and 2000 votes, so I'd guess even if that is a factor, it wouldn't account for all of them.

Maybe. Apple sold 30 million Macs last year. 2000 complaints would be 0.0067% of those.

I don't think that means much. There were 1500 complaints about the original 12" Macbook's butterfly keyboard in the OG thread[1]. That keyboard went on to be recalled.

[1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7063425

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#475

My 14" M1 MacBook Pro screen repair cost was $809. Supervisor refused the waive the fee. The screen cracked for no apparent reason and then completely stopped working. Some firm already filed a class action complaint, and I submitted my details: https://classlawdc.com/2021/08/04/m1-macbook-screen-crack-in...

I just had my 14" M1 MacBook Pro screen crack a few days ago and it was replaced for free. Be curious about your circumstances whether it was repaired at an Apple Store and when this happened. Perhaps there is a policy that isn't being disseminated around properly.

The magic term is this: "single hairline crack".

If there is one continuous crack with no point of impact or other obvious damage, it will generally be covered under warranty (assuming you are under warranty) and not considered accidental damage. That was policy in the past and I doubt it's changed.

If there is more than one, in any way - not covered unless someone's being nice to you.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#476

My 14" M1 MacBook Pro screen repair cost was $809. Supervisor refused the waive the fee. The screen cracked for no apparent reason and then completely stopped working. Some firm already filed a class action complaint, and I submitted my details: https://classlawdc.com/2021/08/04/m1-macbook-screen-crack-in...

I wonder if Tim Cook has a lot invested in rare earth mining companies or something.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people outside of HN demographic $500 is a lot of money for "a computer" A macbook would be like buying a top spec Mercedes when all they need is a no frills base model Ford.

I don't think that's true. Yes I agree it might be a Mercedes but given that most of Apple's customer base isn't HN and most people seem to be happy spending $1k+ on an iPhone. $500 isn't a lot of money for a computer.

Phone through carriers are heavily discounted with 2 year contracts. Apple also offers zero APR financing to pay for a new phone. Humans have a harder time reasoning about buy now/pay later.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warranty has always covered a single hairline crack. If there are multiple cracks, chips, or a POI on the outside of the glass. It's clear as day what happened to the screen. I can't count on my hands or toes how many people will say they don't know what happened to the physically damaged machine. Maybe someone else broke it and they didn't know. But I can tell you that we fix more physically damaged machines tha…

To me the super thinness out right screams to being part of the cause. Without taking one apart to confirm it for myself, going off past patterns I would guess Apple have thinned the lid and the display past its limits under every day use (not lab conditions). Pair that with People having got used to using a single hand to open/close their screen, heck even Apples marketing pushed one finger lid openning/closing. So…

The tight closure with just about zero clearance and no bezel is a significant part of the difficulty.

Anything in there, even being closed gently and you notice at the first sign of resistance and correct it - has probably cracked the screen.

Charger/cable/pen tip is common, but even a paper clip could be enough. There's no audible crack and you think nothing of it until the next time you take it out of your bag and the display is broken. That said, this sort of thing will typically have a point of impact/multiple cracks, not just one straight line.

Plastic webcam covers will also do this, just less consistently - they hold the display open a bit and concentrate all the force of the closed lid there.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who's read my comments knows I don't usually have the patience to be charming or whatever. I had a battery start bulging with a polycarbonate MacBook and they just gave me a battery off the shelf no questions asked. There was some other underlying problem, and I eventually scrapped it. Its replacement eventually heated up the charging cable enough that the insulation browned and flaked away (computer side so i…

>The problem as I see it is that Apple is relying almost entirely on the discretion of their retail staff instead of having a formal policy in place. So, I worked behind the genius Bar about a decade ago, and can tell you that at least as of then (say iPhone 3g through 6 era) this was definitely not the case. There’s a policy for everything. The issue is that you’re an individual, dealing with another individual who…

>There’s a policy for everything.

The other thing to mention is that regardless of policy, humans are humans.

If you're acting like a Karen to the guy behind the counter, they are going to give you the absolute bare minimum service. They know the policy, and they know exactly how it can be applied to make sure you have a shit day.

If you help them help you, they'll often go above and beyond to make sure you're looked after.

The simplest and most effective strategy I've found, both as a customer and a support rep, is to simply explain the problem you're experiencing at a physical level, keeping emotion and opinion out of it. Then cooperate with them and trust them to do their job.

Support people are almost biologically engineered to want to solve your problems, but do not appreciate being treated as a punching bag or emotional dumpster.

"My trackpad stopped working randomly, do you reckon we can fix this?" is far more likely to get a good response than "My trackpad is broken, I spent $1000 on this computer just 6 months ago! I can't believe you'd sell me such shit!"

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