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Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

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Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#41
post #3

A colleague of mine recently got a MacBook Pro, whenever they plug in an external monitor the fans are pretty much fully on when doing not much at all. They now loathe using it. These computers are so expensive. They seem to have a ton of issues with ridiculous repair costs. What's going on? The keyboard issue from before is another example. Clearly they have the profit margin to ensure their products work well. And…

Something is wrong with your colleague's machine, or something else in his toolchain, because that's not normal.

The keyboard issues were really jarring precisely because Apple had, up to that point, a really great reliability reputation - in my experience, on par with the super-overengineered late-90s ThinkPads (IBM, not Lenovo).

I retired several PowerBooks and MacBooks at 6 or 7 years old that were still physically fine, but no longer appealing to use for Moore's Law reasons.

My wife's using my old 6 year old 13" Pro, and while I now find the keyboard weird, it's utterly capable of anything she needs to do with it -- which is pretty much a regular human duty cycle (ie, she's not running virtual servers on it like I was in its initial life).

We then passed on the small Air she'd been using for like 8 years; it's in daily use at a friend's house now as a spare platform (which turned out to be a big deal, given quarantine). My guess is that Intel Macs are about to hit a gate with the shift to ARM, and you won't be able to get 8 years out of one purchased in 2020, but I could be wrong about that. (I mean, I definitely am if you have relatively simple needs -- even if you get stuck at the last rev of Intel-friendly OS X, there's software for you there that will keep working.)

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#43

This is not surprising at all, the retina screen is one of the most expensive parts of the laptop. Lots of household appliances are similar to this too. If you have to repair one of the main parts of a washing machine or a dishwasher a new one will be a cheaper option. Same for a car, a friend of mine flooded his engine by driving through water that was higher than expected. His insurance company just wrote the car o…

Does your country have unofficial repairs? I can't imagine destroying a car just because of failed engine. In my country I would spend around $1k to repair engine if it's still possible and around few thousands dollars to buy used engine and replace it. Actually I would repair it myself for a few hundreds of dollars, but if someone does not want to spend time, those are the options.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#44
post #38

Recently my iPhone XR stopped working after only a few months of usage. I thought it shouldn't be much of a problem since the device still had warranty. But I was very wrong... dealing with Apple Support (Germany) was one of the most frustrating customer support experiences I've ever had. My local Apple Store sent the phone to the repair facility 3 times but it always came back with the comment "Couldn't replicate is…

If you are still in Germany you should report them to Verbraucherzentrale.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#45

This is not surprising at all, the retina screen is one of the most expensive parts of the laptop. Lots of household appliances are similar to this too. If you have to repair one of the main parts of a washing machine or a dishwasher a new one will be a cheaper option. Same for a car, a friend of mine flooded his engine by driving through water that was higher than expected. His insurance company just wrote the car o…

You normally get a rebuilt engine as a replacement, not a new one. So, it’s normally not that expensive.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#46

They’ve also quoted me more than a whole new pair to repair some AirPods Pro that I accidentally washed in the laundry. They didn’t tell me that was the case when I was on the phone with them. Apple uses a lot of customer hostile behaviors nowadays. Recently: * I canceled the Apple TV+ year trial that came with my iPhone. While, I believe, they require other apps to allow access until the trial ends, they ended my ac…

I was anoyed by Apple Music ads as well. To a point where I really started to hate them for that. I do not want a monthly subscription for a streaming service, I do prefer to buy what I want and thats it. After half a year of tapping "No thanks" it suddenly stopped. I am guessing they actually know that some of their customers hate the idea of music subscription. I havent seena Apple Music pop up since many moons.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#48

I'm currently having to go through a home insurance claim for a similar reason. I stupidly took one of the keys off and bent a bit of plastic getting it back on. The damaged part of the key is on the keycap itself, rather than the mechanism underneath. Silly mistake but I imagine not super uncommon. Took it to an Apple store and was quoted £700 to fix it which is equivalent to almost half the cost of the laptop. For…

>Took it to an Apple store and was quoted £700 to fix it which is equivalent to almost half the cost of the laptop. For a single key. Absolute insanity.

I've had this happen to me, although I argued (successfully) that the keyboard was defective and I was trying to repair a stuck key (this was the previous butterfly mechanism) and they did a replacement under AppleCare.

The tech even told me that replacing keycaps on the butterfly keyboards is extremely challenging, and even they break the keys sometimes.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#49
post #33

They’ve also quoted me more than a whole new pair to repair some AirPods Pro that I accidentally washed in the laundry. They didn’t tell me that was the case when I was on the phone with them. Apple uses a lot of customer hostile behaviors nowadays. Recently: * I canceled the Apple TV+ year trial that came with my iPhone. While, I believe, they require other apps to allow access until the trial ends, they ended my ac…

You can completely disable Apple Music in settings.

You shouldn't have to though. Apple Music can potentially be offered once, or advertised in the App Store/iTunes Store, but not in the default, local music player app.

Re: Apple Tried Charging the Price of a New MacBook Pro for a Screen Replacement

#50
post #38

Recently my iPhone XR stopped working after only a few months of usage. I thought it shouldn't be much of a problem since the device still had warranty. But I was very wrong... dealing with Apple Support (Germany) was one of the most frustrating customer support experiences I've ever had. My local Apple Store sent the phone to the repair facility 3 times but it always came back with the comment "Couldn't replicate is…

Did you try going via your consumer rights instead of their warranty?

Completely anecdotal I know, but I had a Apple Pencil fail on me outside of warranty. On the phone they refused to fix or replace it. Once I mentioned my consumer rights (which cover 6 years in Ireland https://www.apple.com/ie/legal/statutory-warranty/ - I'm sure it's similar in Germany) they put me through to a separate phone line and sent me out a new pencil.

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