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The Nightmare of Replacing a Battery on a Mac Laptop

179 points by jpatel3 11y ago

joesmo 11y ago
Assuming they resolve his Applecare issue, the cost is zero. At my Apple store, they offered to ship the laptop back to my house directly as an option. Yes, it does indeed take at least three days for any repair on any Apple laptop. If his business depends on your laptop so much, he should have a backup machine to work on for a couple of days or set one up before taking it into the shop. Finally, how can one possibly think these machines are 'pro' quality? They are obviously aimed at and targeted at consumers. Just because it's called pro, doesn't mean it's intended for professionals. Apple stopped catering to professionals a long time ago, and even things like the Macbook Pro are obviously aimed at the end consumer. That's how they can get away with having pretty much all custom, unserviceable parts. Don't get me wrong, they're amazing laptops, but they're just not 'pro'.
ant6n 11y ago
On my macbook pro, the battery is a bit worn down and it hard-crashes when the Battery is at around 5%. You'd think that Apple would be able to write an OS that detects this new low for the battery and adjust the meter correctly and hibernate the computer, so you it doesn't cause you to accidentally loose work. But I guess AAPL can't afford those kind of development costs; or maybe improving the pixels on some transition animation is more important.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  Apple do provide details on how to calibrate a battery correctly; it should be part of your general maintainance, though I'll bet barely anybody bothers in practice. See https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14087 https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14087
  - ant6n 11y ago
    "If your portable Mac has a built-in battery, you don’t need to calibrate the battery." Also, this 'calibration' is just charging and discharging. Which happens normally. Also, the mac doesn't go to sleep, it crashes, so I guess it doesn't get calibrated. Maybe I'm holding it wrong. ;)
    - n1000 11y ago
      It is about the battery controller learning how much charge the battery can still hold. Therefore it needs a completely empty battery and an uninterrupted full charge. Also on the built-in batteries I found that it helps to get a more accurate battery estimate and improve the "battery health" rating.
- vetinari 11y ago
  It looks like you have mis-calibrated battery. Apple did what you ask for in PPC era already. At least I remember, that it worked with PowerBook.
- somewheres 11y ago
  I'd rather see a hard crash and know for sure that the battery is too empty to perform work. Stupid battery warning meters are a lie, and a waste of valuable power. If you have enough power to show me that you don't have power, I know your battery meter is full of shit. It means the board can still operate, and is probably performing a small subset of tasks without my awareness, in a low power mode. Maybe the accelerometer is still capturing events, maybe lots of things are happening, below the threshold of activating the monitor and expensive motors. The greatest sin of all, though. The hands-down WORST crime committed, is when the hardware IS PLUGGED INTO A POWER SOURCE, BUT REFUSES TO POWER ON BECAUSE "THE BATTERY NEEDS TO CHARGE FIRST." WHAT???
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    Stupid battery warning meters are a lie, and a waste of valuable power. No, they're not. Knowing the charge of a battery accurately is essential to managing the performance of a lithium battery; they're pretty sensitive to this stuff. If you have enough power to show me that you don't have power, I know your battery meter is full of shit. It means the board can still operate, and is probably performing a small subset of tasks without my awareness, in a low power mode. See above. Power management systems never let a battery completely discharge; this would destroy a lithium battery. There will always be a small amount of reserve power available for managing battery life. The greatest sin of all, though. The hands-down WORST crime committed, is when the hardware IS PLUGGED INTO A POWER SOURCE, BUT REFUSES TO POWER ON BECAUSE "THE BATTERY NEEDS TO CHARGE FIRST." Again, this is down to the sensitivity of lithium batteries. If the charge of the battery falls below the minimum safe level, the device will charge it before allowing you to take power. There are a couple of reasons – it's important to make sure the battery doesn't fall into deep discharge, and to ensure that device power isn't immediately cut off (=hard crash) if the user subsequently disconnects the power before the device charges to acceptable levels.
    - somewheres 11y ago
      Again, this is down to the sensitivity of lithium batteries. If the charge of the battery falls below the minimum safe level, the device will charge it before allowing you to take power. There are a couple of reasons – it's important to make sure the battery doesn't fall into deep discharge, and to ensure that device power isn't immediately cut off (=hard crash) if the user subsequently disconnects the power before the device charges to acceptable levels. No. It comes down to mediocre design, and unfortunate misconceptions, and tunnel vision about what's worth designing for and what isn't. 1. If the main board is receiving power, it can use some of that power. 2. The user can pull the plug, and and cut power to the main board, and guess what, the main board can simply stop working without trying to consume power from a battery without enough power to operate safely. 3. The operating system can employ an architecture that tolerates hard faults, in the middle of code execution, and address them upon the next successful reboot. Yeah, that's expensive to develop, and yeah, Apple computers are expensive. 4. With each of these preceding points in place Deep Discharge of lithium batteries is irrelevant, because the main board is in control of whether or not the battery is even called into action at all. With AC power, no power needs to be sourced from the battery. Anxieties about a bricked device are circumvented with a durably designed OS. The end.
thearn4 11y ago
I'm curious what other people's perspectives are on the (what appears to me anyway) dominance of Macbooks among developers these days. Is it the convenience of a Unix-y machine with decent drivers, or something else?
- EC1 11y ago
  It took me one day to get up and running and hasn't messed up for me since (3 years on a MBPr that rarely leaves home). Have 3 monitors connected and a ton of other stuff. Never had to fiddle with getting anything working. Apple support has always served me well too.
  - Caprinicus 11y ago
    I am on the same OS X install since like 2009 that I have gradually updated and transferred. Whereas my windows pc seems to need a new install every time there is a major hardware switch.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- larrik 11y ago
  Laptops for devs are a pain, especially since IBM sold Thinkpads to Lenovo. Apple makes reliable and stable hardware, and Linux generally just works on it. That's just not true for almost all of the other manufacturers.
  - gramakri 11y ago
    Linux user here. I have had little luck with graphics working well on the Macs. The pro's used to have dual graphics card (nvidia and built-in) and I never managed to run linux nicely on them. The best luck I had was with running linux on parallels something which messes up all my keyboard shortcuts. I switched to the thinkpad (currently, lenovo carbon x1) and honestly it's fantastic. Never had a better laptop in my life (way better than Macs).
dchuk 11y ago
Isn't this sort of a cake-and-eat-it-too situation? If you want a slim, lightweight laptop that still performs at a high level, you can't expect the old pop out batteries with the little switch we grew up with on laptops. While $400 is expensive to replace a battery, it's obviously not as simple as just popping a new one in, which is the compromise one has to make if they want a Macbook Pro. If you want easily swappable batteries, get a different machine. Also, $400 to get a brand new battery to essentially revive a computer that will probably work great for a few more years is a whole lot cheaper than having to buy a new computer. Just food for thought.
- yeukhon 11y ago
  Depends. These days with hardware failure rate becoming higher (maybe it's just an illusion due to the ability of providing feedback on the Internet, but I argue that most of the old machines I know still work today but not so many with the more recent one), the next victim can be your SSD. Apple does get some good SSD from Samsung though. The benefit of a lock-down is controlling variable, and placing Apple at a higher standard (I hope they still do for software). Raising the bar so fewer people are able to customize computer helps controlling quality and also prevent wasting time on figuring out if problem was caused by foreign hardware's fault or not.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I've been nothing but Apple laptops since 2001, when I ran Yellow Dog Linux on a TiBook, and co-ran a company with ~40 people all using MBPs, and my experience is that Apple hardware is getting significantly more reliable than it was before. I think the effect you're seeing is just that more people are using Apple computers than were even 5 years ago, and so there's just more feedback to read.
    - yeukhon 11y ago
      For the old ones, I am referring to non-Apple machines.
  - relaxatorium 11y ago
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
> Next toss in the problem that Apple thought I didn’t have AppleCare on the machine. This is Apple’s extended warranty. This was despite me showing a receipt that showed that I bought both at the same time. Turns out that if you don’t by the machine from an Apple Store, you have to actually fill out some online form to register your warranty. If you buy at an Apple store, they automatically attach it. Anywhere else, you have to do it yourself. It should be criminal for companies to do this to their customers. It's one thing to require registration for a default warranty, but they shouldn't be allowed to take money for an extended warranty and then not provide coverage because of a pointless paperwork detail.
- rkho 11y ago
  This is laziness on the Apple Store employee's fault. There's an "agreement administrator" they can reach at Apple Care to get this fixed.
  - jackgavigan 11y ago
    The quality of service in Apple stores can be very patchy - insultingly bad at times. I once got home from buying a new MBP to find that the RAM upgrade I'd paid (and waited an hour) for hadn't been done. I now adopt an adversarial mindset when dealing with Apple. :-)
- ksec 11y ago
  um..... I am under the impression ALL apple product gets their one year warranty when they first start the machine, which it will register itself. There should be no form to fill in, and this sounds very un Apple.
  - dkonofalski 11y ago
    Yes, but they're not talking about the 1 year warranty. They're talking about the AppleCare extended warranty that the author of the article purchased from a third-party and never registered with Apple. There was no way for Apple to know that this person had purchased the extended warranty but yet he expected them to.
ksec 11y ago
The story is about Apple telling you to replace your battery when it went below 80% of its capacity. And he say you should ignore it and continue to use it until it really die. I think he has a point there, but i also hope the day when we don't have to replace battery due to cycle problem.
- Kluny 11y ago
  The day has already come and gone. Macbooks up to 2012 had serviceable batteries. Technically not user-servicable, because you have to undo a lot of screws and expose the guts of the machine, but quite easy in practice. 20 minute job, tops. Batteries available for $90 OEM or cheaper if you want to risk a knockoff. Or you can run it with no battery at all and use mains power if you want. Since 2013, batteries are unservicable and as a result I will not be buying any more new Macbooks. As long as 2012 models are available and continue to be solid, usable machines, that's what I'm going with, in fact, I bought one last week. $800 was a lot of money for a 5 year old computer, but well worth it for me. An unservicable battery, (and, btw, unservicable RAM, it's soldered to the motherboard), will never be worth one dime to me.
blowski 11y ago
Just as a side-note (IANAL), in the EU, retailers can't refuse to fix something just because it's past their warranty period. If you can establish that the product has broke under reasonable use then you can argue that the product wasn't fit for purpose when you bought it, and therefore it is still the retailer's responsibility to repair it, replace it or give you a partial refund. I did this with Apple when my logic board failed just under two years after buying a Macbook Pro 2009 model. I argued that the product had only experienced normal use, Apple's website implied that their laptops should last 5 years (since they talk about upgrading Macbooks for 5 years), and the price of the laptop was a premium price so I should expect it to last for that period of time. It took a bit of arguing, but in the end they did the work for free.
- shocks 11y ago
  This is excellent advice. Thank you! I will be remembering this...
- creshal 11y ago
  Usually you have a warranty exception on batteries, though, because they naturally degrade with use.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    I assume Apple is still liable, at least for Europe. I'd say Apple knows very well the requirements very well too and the stronger consumer protection factors into the decision of manufacturers to price their devices higher in Europe.
    - jahewson 11y ago
      The don't price their devices higher in Europe, they explicitly include free AppleCare. So it's the bundled warranty service that pushes up the price.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
Out of warranty battery service on a Mac ranges from $130-200: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite.... I think that's a reasonable price considering Lenovo charges $140 for a 75-watt hour 68+ battery for the T450s: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0C52862/460/D91DC49376D94C4690E7BA925BCE90CA http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0C52862/460/D91DC49.... And for $130-200, they will replace your top-case (including keyboard and touchpad). I have had it done more than once and it was a same-day turnaround each time (couple of hours). I wonder if there wasn't something more wrong with his laptop caused by letting a worn-out battery sit in there too long.
- jhugg 11y ago
  This comment needs to be at the top. Something is missing from the story.
  - simonh 11y ago
    I think this is the answer, the Apple Store rep made a mistake. From the comments on the page: BLUESHIRTER MAY 5, 2014 AT 3:44 AM Sadly, the guy you spoke to was very wrong. There are 2 part numbers for the same part depending on why it is being replaced. If the top case is damaged, or failed out of warranty, it’s 399. If it is a failed (out of warranty) or consumed battery, it is as stated above, $199, and 24 hours to replace. For validating your AppleCare, drop the machine for repair, go home, call AppleCare, email a copy of your receipt/proof of purchase, by the time you pick up the repair, you are golden. This is done nearly daily at every store in the country.
- giarc 11y ago
  The article mentions that the actual work takes a few hours, but the wait to get the machine actually serviced was 3 days. That is totally store dependent and very clear in the article.
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    What isn't clear is why he needs to part with his machine for 3 days. Why can't they schedule they swap, and have him come in and wait?
franze 11y ago
new (1 month old) macbook retina, 12 inch, el capitan http://replycam.com/i/Pasted_Image_28_10_15_17_10_1BE12B12.png http://replycam.com/i/Pasted_Image_28_10_15_17_10_1BE12B12.p... fully charged battery -> 4h max ... (running mostly chrome and keynote) not really the "all day battery life" they promised (http://www.apple.com/macbook/design/ http://www.apple.com/macbook/design/)
- MBCook 11y ago
  Have you tried another browser? Chrome has notoriously TERRIBLE effects on battery life on Macs. I'm not kidding. Try Safari for two days and be amazed. There are probably things you can do to make it better, but for whatever reason Google doesn't seem to care and ships (what I would say is effectively) broken software.
  - aaronmiler 11y ago
    Exactly this. Open up your battery menu, it will say Chrome is using significant energy. I've never not seen it there
    - franze 11y ago
      89% charged, 4h calculated time http://replycam.com/i/batterylifetime_1BE12F3F.png http://replycam.com/i/batterylifetime_1BE12F3F.png (but in reality, it will be shorter) yeah, chrome is in there. but switch to safari? my thoughts a) i'm a developer, i rather like new APIs, latest HTML 5 features b) my whole company infrastructure relies on google services (and they work best in chrome, no surprise there) c) my old macbook air (2013, maverick, killed one month ago by my son with self made kombucha) had about 7h battery-life
      - MBCook 11y ago
        I'm not arguing you should switch to Safari (which I like) or arguing feature merits (I don't care much myself). But if you have a Mac you have Safari, so it's an easy test to run. And you will be AMAZED at the difference in battery life. It's pathetic.
jakejake 11y ago
There's a trade off to having a laptop that seemingly defies the capabilities of the day - they have to glue parts and remove coverings. Apple has been shedding ports & user-serviceable parts in laptops for years to get them thinner and lighter. Almost every complaint in the article has a counterpoint. Bought AppleCare but didn't register it. Complains about the Genius Bar repair time - try finding somebody to even speak to you in person for free about your PC laptop.
- vetinari 11y ago
  Disclaimer: I currently own both Apple laptop (MBP13) and Lenovo laptop (T430s). When my previous Thinkpad T400 needed servicing - a line of bad pixels developed on the display - the display was replaced by the next business day, for free (under warranty). The kicker is, that I didn't buy the NBD service and I didn't need to prove anything about the date of purchase or something - I forgot to bring my proof of purchase and the service center looked up everything they needed in their system. I can't expect anything approaching level of service for the Apple laptop. In my country, we don't have Apple Store and Genius bar, and in the past it took the authorised repair center cca 3 weeks to do anything, including simple swapping faulty power supply. Not because they are lazy (they are great guys actually), but because they have to wait for spares.
  - jakejake 11y ago
    Proximity to a particular repair shop is obviously a factor, that's fair. Where I'm at I can be at an Apple store talking to a tech within 30 minutes. For a major problem, I can be walking out of the store with a brand new laptop within an hour. Apple does all the same stuff with your registration, as long as you bother to register it, unlike the author. Getting a PC fixed, on the other hand, it's pretty much going to the retail store where you bought it (which has a tech team that's barely qualified to install anti-virus software) or calling up the company and finding some mom-n-pop repair shop that services their warranty repairs.
  - dkonofalski 11y ago
    That would have been completely possible had he still been under the manufacturer's warranty, as yours seems to have been. The issue here was the he was outside the standard warranty but still within the extended warranty that he hadn't registered. There's no way for Apple (or any company) to know that you bought an extended warranty from a third-party unless you notify them/register it with them. That's the crux of the issue here. If you have an Apple warranty, you can even take it to a third-party authorized Apple center and they can fix it. Their current systems allow them to have parts on order within 12 hours and they don't have to hang on to your machine, if it works (which it would for a battery issue), in order to get something that takes longer to order.
deleted 11y ago
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protomyth 11y ago
"Next toss in the problem that Apple thought I didn’t have AppleCare on the machine" I had that happen on a machine bought through Apple education. Had to argue we always buy AppleCare. I was rather annoyed.
8r4n 11y ago
Batteries are the reason I stopped buying laptops. Pry my desktop from my cold dead hands.
jhrrsn 11y ago
Over the course of my professional life with laptops, I've used Apple, Alienware, Dell and Lenovo machines. I can safely say that the three-day turnaround in an actual bricks & mortar store offered by Apple is far and away the best service I've ever received (the worst being a two-week wait that didn't resolve the issue!). Regarding the business-level support, I think it's fair enough for the store to deliver a baseline level of support to consumers for free and a paid-for service for people who need priority and/or loaner machines to cover the repair period. I personally don't think that yelling at managers should result in priority over other people in the queue. I think the main issue here is that because Apple integrate their batteries like they do, it's not possible to perform what was once a simple repair yourself. I'm personally okay with that, because the outstanding battery life on my MacBook Pro is a boon almost every single day.
- giarc 11y ago
  I agree with your assessment of brick and motar store. Having it done in store saves so much time. 5-10 years ago I had a laptop with some screen issues. I took it back to the retailer where I purchased it and they sent it for repair. I was without my laptop for 8 weeks for a simple swab of a screen.
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  Exactly! Try Lenovo EU service, its Medion and they routinely F with you for _couple of months_.
- jo909 11y ago
  When my Lenovo Thinkpad has a hardware problem, a technician comes to my home or office to repair it.
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    For free?
    - ac29 11y ago
      Onsite service is generally a paid add on at the time of purchase. I'ts not uncommon for businesses to pay the extra cost. I've had fantastic <24h onsite repairs or replacements from various PC manufacturers. I have no idea if Apple offers this sort of service, but if they do, I'm sure it isn't cheap. 3 day, in store, in (limited) warranty repairs isn't the same class of service.
daguava 11y ago
Normally I'm not one to praise Apple, but I feel a 3 day turnaround on a process that necessitates opening the entire laptop is amazing: most other vendors would take several weeks.
- EvanAnderson 11y ago
  I've witnessed many replacements of screens, motherboards, and CPUs on Dell laptops performed next-business day, on-site. It's all about how much you spend on the warranty.
- goatforce5 11y ago
  Agreed, and I was going to make the same point. Apple having service centres (ie, the back of their retail stores) scattered in convenient locations in large cities all over the world, where many repairs can be performed while you wait or the same day, really is a treat. Which other brands are offering a similar level of service?
matthewmacleod 11y ago
That's interesting – Macbook Pro batteries are rated for 1000 cycles. Since this machine has only hit 652, I would expect them to replace this for no charge – since it has not met it's published specs. But I guess I might not have all the information here.
wl 11y ago
As of June, Apple will replace laptop batteries under 80% of design capacity under AppleCare for free.
sugarcube 11y ago
I don't quite understand the rage. Doesn't the service agreement comment on the time it might take? I remember from Dell there were different kinds of packages you could buy. Because I bought some business laptop once, they actually dispatched a technician to my office and fixed the problem on the spot. If you need that kind of service level, you simply have to pay for it.
- Daishiman 11y ago
  The rage is that for many lines of work (like mine), 4 days of computer downtime is absolute unacceptable.
  - EvanAnderson 11y ago
    The "rage" seems misplaced. The OP didn't think about their needs when buying the machine and didn't purchase the appropriate warranty service package. Having a backup laptop would be another option, too. (I can't imagine the OP doesn't have backup camera bodies, likely at a greater expense than having a good-enough-to-get-by backup laptop.)
  - mwfunk 11y ago
    If one piece of hardware going down keeps you from working until you get it back, that's on you or your company.
jessaustin 11y ago
This seems to explain somewhat the "safari is the new IE" phenomenon. If using the battery has such drawbacks, one might well wish to avoid doing so, web standards be damned.
bad_user 11y ago
I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro and while I initially liked the portability compared to my old 15 inch laptop, I think this will be the last slim laptop and probably the last MacBook I get. The reason is precisely because the parts in it, like the battery or the RAM, are unserviceable. I have had this laptop for a year and a half, I can't upgrade its RAM from 8 to 16 GB, the battery feels worn out, the Retina screen has stains on it and the command key is discolored from pressing it too much I guess. With my old ThinkPad these would have been non-issues.
roflchoppa 11y ago
The technician that was servicing your machine made an error that can save the author some money. If you have proof of purchase for your applecare, and it was bought within the 1st year, there is an option for to add applecare to said unit. Dept on the situation, and how far the unit is out of warranty they would have to call an agreement admin, and have it added to the unit. Of course this could all be done in one appointment, Order the part, call the admin, when the part comes in repair the unit. I blame the technician for not supporting the client, now of course the client was nuts for thinking that they could offer a turn around time for this machine in a day with no parts in stock. There is also the testing phase to consider which adds several hours to the machines repair time, if not overnight.
kristopolous 11y ago
Out of curiosity, am I alone in not wanting to use apple products because I find such practices as this to be unethical engineered extortion to extract more money from the consumer? I find such things exploitive and the product's success giving a green light for other manufacturers to re-engineer their products based on less honorable principles. For instance, on flip phones, batteries would eject if you dropped it in order to absorb impact. They were designed to fly out to minimize the damage to the device and screen. Very clever - solid engineering. However, what if if you want to sell a phone when the battery dies or make a fall break the phone so you can ... sell more phones! And now the industry no longer follows what was a very smart durability focused engineering practice. Like the laptop in the OPs article. They could have decided to adhere it in a more clever way to make it removable instead of fusing it with glue. Screws, latches ... lots of technology was readily available. I'm not interested in "debating" whether this is "true", clearly I'm the only one at this time, on this thread, that thinks this. I'm curious as to whether I'm just some minority of one here.
- somewheres 11y ago
  You are not alone. It's just that Hacker News suffers from some extremely myopic forum sliding and public relations tactics, as well as groupthink among industry insiders who have rationalized perfectly sensible reasons to never cross the party line on topics regarding the things that make them money. Partly, they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. Partly, they know damn well that they're screwing people over. True believers that actually buy the Brooklyn bridge are rare birds.
- DavidAdams 11y ago
  Apple isn't making any attempt to hide the fact that its batteries are non-user-replaceable. And I think it's clear to any reasonable person that the engineering of these devices isn't intended to generate revenue for the service department, but to create an extremely slim but solid laptop. Now, I think it's very reasonable for a consumer to decide that the'd rather have a replaceable battery than a slimmer laptop, and therefore they should avoid Apple laptops. So to answer your question, I think many would agree with you that it's a bad thing, but not too many would agree that it's unethical.
nickgeiger 11y ago
I found this Apple page that appears to offer battery service for $129: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite... I have the same "Service Battery" warning and I was hoping to eventually get this service on my 13" MacBook Air.
- giarc 11y ago
  >Pricing is for service through Apple. Likely the $129 is for the labour portion and doesn't include the parts cost.
  - sosborn 11y ago
    Nope, that is the total price including the battery.
mbenjaminsmith 11y ago
I went through something similar with Apple not that long ago. I had a retina MBP that had a faulty keyboard. Half of the home row stopped working, starting with a single key in that row. It was some type of physical failure. I thought the computer was still in warranty but after talking to half a dozen people at Apple they told me it was 3 years out of warranty. Then they told me they'd have to replace about half the computer which would, not surprisingly, cost me 50% of what I paid for it. I complained politely for about 45 minutes, talking to a few more people and then they reactivated my warranty and asked me to take it in to a shop. I got it back in about a week and was happy to see that they had also replaced my battery, which for about a year had given the same warning as in the article. While I was happy about that, and it made me like Apple more, the reality is my computer is a business expense and in the big picture not a really large one. Also, computers are still developing fast enough that they're not practically a long term purchase. People talk about wanting to service computer themselves but that's a very small percentage of the overall market.
gambiting 11y ago
That is completely not my experience. Not at all. I had to replace the battery on my 2013 MacBook Air. The battery cost 99 British pounds(~$150) in the Apple Store, that included the work. I made an appointment using their app in the morning for an afternoon service, walked in, they took the laptop, I waited 20 minutes, they came back, I paid 99 pounds, got out. Easy, pain free, cheap. Yes, you read that right - cheap. When I wanted to replace the battery on my Dell XPS 13(2010 model?) Dell wanted 220 pounds for the battery, which was absolutely nuts(oh and the delivery would take 3 weeks). Ended up buying a fake one from China for 1/4 of the price.
n1000 11y ago
Well AppleCare is terrible IMHO. On the phone most of them have no clue. If the issue gets escalated you have someone who understands the issue but cannot do a thing. Then you always end up in the Apple store and they will only become active if the issue is acknowledged by Apple and their hardware tests find something. All other issues are basically ignored. I am having kernel panics since 10.10.3 [1] and there is no way to make myself heard... Had to leave my MBP with them for 5 days and they didn't replace a thing even though it has full coverage. [1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7000724 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7000724
- Someone1234 11y ago
  In 2014 BootCamp was shipping on new Macbook Pros which broke Windows 8.1's installer. The version of Bootcamp was actually newer than the newest version available to download, but supposedly the older version worked, but you couldn't downgrade. Anyway I gave AppleCare a call. Told them that bootcamp version XYZ was messing up Windows 8.1's installer and that the older version worked fine, and asked if I could downgrade. Essentially they told me to "call Microsoft for support with Windows." And that's all I could get out of them. Zero bootcamp supported offered, even if it is Apple's own software. The answer in an Apple store was (paraphrasing) "we don't recommend Bootcamp, if you want to run Windows then buy Parallels Desktop." PS - Took them over seven months to fix Bootcamp.
dejv 11y ago
Battery of my mid-2012 Mac Air died (12% capacity) after 550 cycles, they usually just swap the batteries for free, but I bought my computer while living abroad, so no luck. After some thoughts, I just bought replacement battery, two custom screwdrivers and changed the batter by myself (+ upgraded the hard drive) in about 15 minutes. Replacement battery cost around 150 USD here in EU and it is very easy to do.
- kawera 11y ago
  I did the same with my 2010 MBA after it died at around 850 cycles. Easy to do in a few minutes and working flawlessly since.
rasz_pl 11y ago
If you wanted easily serviceable battery you would buy business line DELL or HP, but you didnt. You wanted a powerful slim status symbol. What a whining entitled brat :/ If there was no warning about battery degradation you can be sure he would be making blog posts about losing his work because laptop didnt last whole photo editing session.
toyg 11y ago
Apple moved the MacBookPro line to this hardware design in July 2012 -- I know because it was the first MBP I've ever bought. It was well-publicized at the time that things like battery and memory had become basically unserviceable. There were teardowns all over the internet less than a week from unveiling. This guy comes up almost two years later (the post is from May 2014) and starts ranting...? It's like buying a huge SUV then rant that you cannot find on-street parking spaces in central Paris. Honestly, the only thing this post reveals is how clueless some "experts" are about the expensive tools they buy.
arprocter 11y ago
Replacing an integral part of an expensive computer was expensive? I would hate to be this guy's mechanic
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  Check light came on so I continued to drive for 3 months while ignoring it and complaining loudly. What do you mean fuel pump is in the fuel tank and it needs to go to the shop? Cant you swap it on a parking lot, like right now?? I have places to be!11. $400? Thats as much as I charge for half an hour of one of my photo shoots, and you are just a dirty wrench monkey! Its not like you repair anything, you said it yourself its just a part exchange. This is how some apple owners act when they come for "new phone case" with iphone 6 that has been stepped on.
sxcurry 11y ago
It's pretty clear when you buy this laptop that the battery isn't user serviceable. You might be happier buying a Dell or Lenovo.
adrianmacneil 11y ago
This article seems a bit unreasonable. AppleCare not being automatically associated with a device when it isn't purchased from an Apple store is pretty clearly marked on both the AppleCare box, and every third party dealer I've bought from has either pointed this out or offered to register it for me on the spot. Later in the article he mentions that the Apple tech said they could resolve this issue, so it was really not a problem and just looking for more things to rant about. As others have pointed out, the Macbook batteries are rated for 1000 cycles, and as this was only at 652 it should have been covered by the AppleCare warranty for free repair. Reading between the lines of this article, it sounds like Apple did offer to replace the battery for free in the end here, which negates the whole rant about $400 being too expensive since the repair would have been free. This only leaves the fact that it takes 3 days, which in the scheme of things doesn't seem too unreasonable. In a perfect world, yes, they could service it while you wait. However, I once had to get an Acer laptop repaired, and it took at least 3 weeks. Also, 652 cycles in just 1.5 years of use is insane. That's more than a full charge and discharge cycle every single day. I've had my Macbook for nearly 3 years and it's only at around 500 cycles.
- metalliqaz 11y ago
  I could be wrong but I don't think "cycles" implies complete charge and discharge every time. If I alternated between desk work and meetings all day long, I think the laptop would record several cycles as I went on and off of wall power.
  - adrianmacneil 11y ago
    A cycle is a full charge and discharge. If you use 50% of the battery and charge it twice, that counts as one full cycle. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  I've had my current MacBook Air since February 2014 (so ~1.7yrs) and its cycle count is a mere 75. Granted, most of the time I'm using it with AC connected.
larrybud 11y ago
I'm no fanboy, but I've had excellent service at my local Apple store. Earlier this year, my son's 4 year old Macbook Pro started flaking out (screen glitches, random hanging, etc). Did not have Applecare. Took it to the Apple store, was told it was a known problem with the video card. They said they would repair it for free (!) but needed to ship it to the central repair center in Texas. We dropped it off on a Saturday, and had it back in our hands on Tuesday, all at no cost to us. Then, just this month, the same laptop's power supply cord started fraying and even sparked a little. Took it in to the Apple store; gave them the serial number, and in 5 minutes, I walked out with a new power supply. Again, no cost to me. I couldn't have asked for better service.
- N0RMAN 11y ago
  Me too. Got my display replaced for free within an hour. A Premium Reseller/Service changed my logic board at no cost within 12 hours.
brentvatne 11y ago
A couple of weeks ago I dropped off my well-used, out of warranty, never on AppleCare early-2012 macbook pro to get the keyboard replaced. It turned out that this repair would also, by necessity, replace the battery (it is part of the "top case"). ~$380USD, I was happy to pay that considering that my battery was shot and several of my keys no longer worked at all. A few days later I went to pick it up and they told me that they needed to replace the logic board as well because of an original manufacturing defect, and that I was eligible for a "quality program" screen replacement because the laminate was peeling. Also presumably because of the hassle they decided I was to be charged $235 USD instead of the original amount. I tested it out and bam, kernel panic within seconds of booting into the OS. Same thing on reboot. So they replaced the logic board again, same problem. Formatted the drive and installed the OS from a clean image, same problem. They decided that the best course of action was to replace the laptop entirely. So for $235 I got a brand new 2015 macbook pro. Apple's in-store repair, in my experience at least, is fantastic. If something goes wrong they do whatever they can to address the issue. I'd recommend going through them if you're considering changing some of the internals of a macbook pro given how easily it can go wrong.
- ac29 11y ago
  >I tested it out and bam, kernel panic within seconds of booting into the OS. Same thing on reboot. So they replaced the logic board again, same problem. >Apple's in-store repair, in my experience at least, is fantastic. This reeks of cognitive dissonance. Their repair is "fantastic" yet their repair technicians were incapable of turning on the laptop to see if it was even capable of booting. Then, they did the exact same thing again, eventually giving up and replacing the product? You lucked out that their repair department was so incompetent, or their product was so defective that you got a free upgrade to a newer model. Doesnt sound like a ringing endorsement of anything except customer service.
  - brentvatne 11y ago
    Great point, I suppose I was just judging it entirely on the end result.
hackuser 11y ago
Is the trend toward non-user-replaceable batteries related to LiPo (lithium polymer) battery technology? My limited understanding is that LiPo batteries store more energy/volume or energy/mass than older tech but normally have plastic (i.e., non-rigid) packaging.
- mcantelon 11y ago
  It's probably just cheaper to make them non-replaceable. Replaceable batteries are becoming a fairly rare feature.
gherkin0 11y ago
I like how their battery diagnostic tool has Classic Mac OS Platinum UI widgets.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
KiDD 11y ago
This is a couple years old...

179 points by jpatel3 11y ago

Assuming they resolve his Applecare issue, the cost is zero. At my Apple store, they offered to ship the laptop back to my house directly as an option. Yes, it does indeed take at least three days for any repair on any Apple laptop. If his business depends on your laptop so much, he should have a backup machine to work on for a couple of days or set one up before taking it into the shop. Finally, how can one possibly think these machines are 'pro' quality? They are obviously aimed at and targeted at consumers. Just because it's called pro, doesn't mean it's intended for professionals. Apple stopped catering to professionals a long time ago, and even things like the Macbook Pro are obviously aimed at the end consumer. That's how they can get away with having pretty much all custom, unserviceable parts. Don't get me wrong, they're amazing laptops, but they're just not 'pro'.

ant6n 11y ago

On my macbook pro, the battery is a bit worn down and it hard-crashes when the Battery is at around 5%. You'd think that Apple would be able to write an OS that detects this new low for the battery and adjust the meter correctly and hibernate the computer, so you it doesn't cause you to accidentally loose work. But I guess AAPL can't afford those kind of development costs; or maybe improving the pixels on some transition animation is more important.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
Apple do provide details on how to calibrate a battery correctly; it should be part of your general maintainance, though I'll bet barely anybody bothers in practice. See https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14087 https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14087
- ant6n 11y ago
  "If your portable Mac has a built-in battery, you don’t need to calibrate the battery." Also, this 'calibration' is just charging and discharging. Which happens normally. Also, the mac doesn't go to sleep, it crashes, so I guess it doesn't get calibrated. Maybe I'm holding it wrong. ;)
  - n1000 11y ago
    It is about the battery controller learning how much charge the battery can still hold. Therefore it needs a completely empty battery and an uninterrupted full charge. Also on the built-in batteries I found that it helps to get a more accurate battery estimate and improve the "battery health" rating.
vetinari 11y ago
It looks like you have mis-calibrated battery. Apple did what you ask for in PPC era already. At least I remember, that it worked with PowerBook.
somewheres 11y ago
I'd rather see a hard crash and know for sure that the battery is too empty to perform work. Stupid battery warning meters are a lie, and a waste of valuable power. If you have enough power to show me that you don't have power, I know your battery meter is full of shit. It means the board can still operate, and is probably performing a small subset of tasks without my awareness, in a low power mode. Maybe the accelerometer is still capturing events, maybe lots of things are happening, below the threshold of activating the monitor and expensive motors. The greatest sin of all, though. The hands-down WORST crime committed, is when the hardware IS PLUGGED INTO A POWER SOURCE, BUT REFUSES TO POWER ON BECAUSE "THE BATTERY NEEDS TO CHARGE FIRST." WHAT???
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  Stupid battery warning meters are a lie, and a waste of valuable power. No, they're not. Knowing the charge of a battery accurately is essential to managing the performance of a lithium battery; they're pretty sensitive to this stuff. If you have enough power to show me that you don't have power, I know your battery meter is full of shit. It means the board can still operate, and is probably performing a small subset of tasks without my awareness, in a low power mode. See above. Power management systems never let a battery completely discharge; this would destroy a lithium battery. There will always be a small amount of reserve power available for managing battery life. The greatest sin of all, though. The hands-down WORST crime committed, is when the hardware IS PLUGGED INTO A POWER SOURCE, BUT REFUSES TO POWER ON BECAUSE "THE BATTERY NEEDS TO CHARGE FIRST." Again, this is down to the sensitivity of lithium batteries. If the charge of the battery falls below the minimum safe level, the device will charge it before allowing you to take power. There are a couple of reasons – it's important to make sure the battery doesn't fall into deep discharge, and to ensure that device power isn't immediately cut off (=hard crash) if the user subsequently disconnects the power before the device charges to acceptable levels.
  - somewheres 11y ago
    Again, this is down to the sensitivity of lithium batteries. If the charge of the battery falls below the minimum safe level, the device will charge it before allowing you to take power. There are a couple of reasons – it's important to make sure the battery doesn't fall into deep discharge, and to ensure that device power isn't immediately cut off (=hard crash) if the user subsequently disconnects the power before the device charges to acceptable levels. No. It comes down to mediocre design, and unfortunate misconceptions, and tunnel vision about what's worth designing for and what isn't. 1. If the main board is receiving power, it can use some of that power. 2. The user can pull the plug, and and cut power to the main board, and guess what, the main board can simply stop working without trying to consume power from a battery without enough power to operate safely. 3. The operating system can employ an architecture that tolerates hard faults, in the middle of code execution, and address them upon the next successful reboot. Yeah, that's expensive to develop, and yeah, Apple computers are expensive. 4. With each of these preceding points in place Deep Discharge of lithium batteries is irrelevant, because the main board is in control of whether or not the battery is even called into action at all. With AC power, no power needs to be sourced from the battery. Anxieties about a bricked device are circumvented with a durably designed OS. The end.

thearn4 11y ago

I'm curious what other people's perspectives are on the (what appears to me anyway) dominance of Macbooks among developers these days. Is it the convenience of a Unix-y machine with decent drivers, or something else?

EC1 11y ago
It took me one day to get up and running and hasn't messed up for me since (3 years on a MBPr that rarely leaves home). Have 3 monitors connected and a ton of other stuff. Never had to fiddle with getting anything working. Apple support has always served me well too.
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  I am on the same OS X install since like 2009 that I have gradually updated and transferred. Whereas my windows pc seems to need a new install every time there is a major hardware switch.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
larrik 11y ago
Laptops for devs are a pain, especially since IBM sold Thinkpads to Lenovo. Apple makes reliable and stable hardware, and Linux generally just works on it. That's just not true for almost all of the other manufacturers.
- gramakri 11y ago
  Linux user here. I have had little luck with graphics working well on the Macs. The pro's used to have dual graphics card (nvidia and built-in) and I never managed to run linux nicely on them. The best luck I had was with running linux on parallels something which messes up all my keyboard shortcuts. I switched to the thinkpad (currently, lenovo carbon x1) and honestly it's fantastic. Never had a better laptop in my life (way better than Macs).

dchuk 11y ago

Isn't this sort of a cake-and-eat-it-too situation? If you want a slim, lightweight laptop that still performs at a high level, you can't expect the old pop out batteries with the little switch we grew up with on laptops. While $400 is expensive to replace a battery, it's obviously not as simple as just popping a new one in, which is the compromise one has to make if they want a Macbook Pro. If you want easily swappable batteries, get a different machine. Also, $400 to get a brand new battery to essentially revive a computer that will probably work great for a few more years is a whole lot cheaper than having to buy a new computer. Just food for thought.

yeukhon 11y ago
Depends. These days with hardware failure rate becoming higher (maybe it's just an illusion due to the ability of providing feedback on the Internet, but I argue that most of the old machines I know still work today but not so many with the more recent one), the next victim can be your SSD. Apple does get some good SSD from Samsung though. The benefit of a lock-down is controlling variable, and placing Apple at a higher standard (I hope they still do for software). Raising the bar so fewer people are able to customize computer helps controlling quality and also prevent wasting time on figuring out if problem was caused by foreign hardware's fault or not.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I've been nothing but Apple laptops since 2001, when I ran Yellow Dog Linux on a TiBook, and co-ran a company with ~40 people all using MBPs, and my experience is that Apple hardware is getting significantly more reliable than it was before. I think the effect you're seeing is just that more people are using Apple computers than were even 5 years ago, and so there's just more feedback to read.
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    For the old ones, I am referring to non-Apple machines.
- relaxatorium 11y ago

kevin_thibedeau 11y ago

> Next toss in the problem that Apple thought I didn’t have AppleCare on the machine. This is Apple’s extended warranty. This was despite me showing a receipt that showed that I bought both at the same time. Turns out that if you don’t by the machine from an Apple Store, you have to actually fill out some online form to register your warranty. If you buy at an Apple store, they automatically attach it. Anywhere else, you have to do it yourself. It should be criminal for companies to do this to their customers. It's one thing to require registration for a default warranty, but they shouldn't be allowed to take money for an extended warranty and then not provide coverage because of a pointless paperwork detail.

rkho 11y ago
This is laziness on the Apple Store employee's fault. There's an "agreement administrator" they can reach at Apple Care to get this fixed.
- jackgavigan 11y ago
  The quality of service in Apple stores can be very patchy - insultingly bad at times. I once got home from buying a new MBP to find that the RAM upgrade I'd paid (and waited an hour) for hadn't been done. I now adopt an adversarial mindset when dealing with Apple. :-)
ksec 11y ago
um..... I am under the impression ALL apple product gets their one year warranty when they first start the machine, which it will register itself. There should be no form to fill in, and this sounds very un Apple.
- dkonofalski 11y ago
  Yes, but they're not talking about the 1 year warranty. They're talking about the AppleCare extended warranty that the author of the article purchased from a third-party and never registered with Apple. There was no way for Apple to know that this person had purchased the extended warranty but yet he expected them to.

ksec 11y ago

The story is about Apple telling you to replace your battery when it went below 80% of its capacity. And he say you should ignore it and continue to use it until it really die. I think he has a point there, but i also hope the day when we don't have to replace battery due to cycle problem.

Kluny 11y ago
The day has already come and gone. Macbooks up to 2012 had serviceable batteries. Technically not user-servicable, because you have to undo a lot of screws and expose the guts of the machine, but quite easy in practice. 20 minute job, tops. Batteries available for $90 OEM or cheaper if you want to risk a knockoff. Or you can run it with no battery at all and use mains power if you want. Since 2013, batteries are unservicable and as a result I will not be buying any more new Macbooks. As long as 2012 models are available and continue to be solid, usable machines, that's what I'm going with, in fact, I bought one last week. $800 was a lot of money for a 5 year old computer, but well worth it for me. An unservicable battery, (and, btw, unservicable RAM, it's soldered to the motherboard), will never be worth one dime to me.

blowski 11y ago

Just as a side-note (IANAL), in the EU, retailers can't refuse to fix something just because it's past their warranty period. If you can establish that the product has broke under reasonable use then you can argue that the product wasn't fit for purpose when you bought it, and therefore it is still the retailer's responsibility to repair it, replace it or give you a partial refund. I did this with Apple when my logic board failed just under two years after buying a Macbook Pro 2009 model. I argued that the product had only experienced normal use, Apple's website implied that their laptops should last 5 years (since they talk about upgrading Macbooks for 5 years), and the price of the laptop was a premium price so I should expect it to last for that period of time. It took a bit of arguing, but in the end they did the work for free.

shocks 11y ago
This is excellent advice. Thank you! I will be remembering this...
creshal 11y ago
Usually you have a warranty exception on batteries, though, because they naturally degrade with use.
- newjersey 11y ago
  I assume Apple is still liable, at least for Europe. I'd say Apple knows very well the requirements very well too and the stronger consumer protection factors into the decision of manufacturers to price their devices higher in Europe.
  - jahewson 11y ago
    The don't price their devices higher in Europe, they explicitly include free AppleCare. So it's the bundled warranty service that pushes up the price.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

Out of warranty battery service on a Mac ranges from $130-200: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite.... I think that's a reasonable price considering Lenovo charges $140 for a 75-watt hour 68+ battery for the T450s: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0C52862/460/D91DC49376D94C4690E7BA925BCE90CA http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0C52862/460/D91DC49.... And for $130-200, they will replace your top-case (including keyboard and touchpad). I have had it done more than once and it was a same-day turnaround each time (couple of hours). I wonder if there wasn't something more wrong with his laptop caused by letting a worn-out battery sit in there too long.

jhugg 11y ago
This comment needs to be at the top. Something is missing from the story.
- simonh 11y ago
  I think this is the answer, the Apple Store rep made a mistake. From the comments on the page: BLUESHIRTER MAY 5, 2014 AT 3:44 AM Sadly, the guy you spoke to was very wrong. There are 2 part numbers for the same part depending on why it is being replaced. If the top case is damaged, or failed out of warranty, it’s 399. If it is a failed (out of warranty) or consumed battery, it is as stated above, $199, and 24 hours to replace. For validating your AppleCare, drop the machine for repair, go home, call AppleCare, email a copy of your receipt/proof of purchase, by the time you pick up the repair, you are golden. This is done nearly daily at every store in the country.
giarc 11y ago
The article mentions that the actual work takes a few hours, but the wait to get the machine actually serviced was 3 days. That is totally store dependent and very clear in the article.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  What isn't clear is why he needs to part with his machine for 3 days. Why can't they schedule they swap, and have him come in and wait?

franze 11y ago

new (1 month old) macbook retina, 12 inch, el capitan http://replycam.com/i/Pasted_Image_28_10_15_17_10_1BE12B12.png http://replycam.com/i/Pasted_Image_28_10_15_17_10_1BE12B12.p... fully charged battery -> 4h max ... (running mostly chrome and keynote) not really the "all day battery life" they promised (http://www.apple.com/macbook/design/ http://www.apple.com/macbook/design/)

MBCook 11y ago
Have you tried another browser? Chrome has notoriously TERRIBLE effects on battery life on Macs. I'm not kidding. Try Safari for two days and be amazed. There are probably things you can do to make it better, but for whatever reason Google doesn't seem to care and ships (what I would say is effectively) broken software.
- aaronmiler 11y ago
  Exactly this. Open up your battery menu, it will say Chrome is using significant energy. I've never not seen it there
  - franze 11y ago
    89% charged, 4h calculated time http://replycam.com/i/batterylifetime_1BE12F3F.png http://replycam.com/i/batterylifetime_1BE12F3F.png (but in reality, it will be shorter) yeah, chrome is in there. but switch to safari? my thoughts a) i'm a developer, i rather like new APIs, latest HTML 5 features b) my whole company infrastructure relies on google services (and they work best in chrome, no surprise there) c) my old macbook air (2013, maverick, killed one month ago by my son with self made kombucha) had about 7h battery-life
    - MBCook 11y ago
      I'm not arguing you should switch to Safari (which I like) or arguing feature merits (I don't care much myself). But if you have a Mac you have Safari, so it's an easy test to run. And you will be AMAZED at the difference in battery life. It's pathetic.

jakejake 11y ago

There's a trade off to having a laptop that seemingly defies the capabilities of the day - they have to glue parts and remove coverings. Apple has been shedding ports & user-serviceable parts in laptops for years to get them thinner and lighter. Almost every complaint in the article has a counterpoint. Bought AppleCare but didn't register it. Complains about the Genius Bar repair time - try finding somebody to even speak to you in person for free about your PC laptop.

vetinari 11y ago
Disclaimer: I currently own both Apple laptop (MBP13) and Lenovo laptop (T430s). When my previous Thinkpad T400 needed servicing - a line of bad pixels developed on the display - the display was replaced by the next business day, for free (under warranty). The kicker is, that I didn't buy the NBD service and I didn't need to prove anything about the date of purchase or something - I forgot to bring my proof of purchase and the service center looked up everything they needed in their system. I can't expect anything approaching level of service for the Apple laptop. In my country, we don't have Apple Store and Genius bar, and in the past it took the authorised repair center cca 3 weeks to do anything, including simple swapping faulty power supply. Not because they are lazy (they are great guys actually), but because they have to wait for spares.
- jakejake 11y ago
  Proximity to a particular repair shop is obviously a factor, that's fair. Where I'm at I can be at an Apple store talking to a tech within 30 minutes. For a major problem, I can be walking out of the store with a brand new laptop within an hour. Apple does all the same stuff with your registration, as long as you bother to register it, unlike the author. Getting a PC fixed, on the other hand, it's pretty much going to the retail store where you bought it (which has a tech team that's barely qualified to install anti-virus software) or calling up the company and finding some mom-n-pop repair shop that services their warranty repairs.
- dkonofalski 11y ago
  That would have been completely possible had he still been under the manufacturer's warranty, as yours seems to have been. The issue here was the he was outside the standard warranty but still within the extended warranty that he hadn't registered. There's no way for Apple (or any company) to know that you bought an extended warranty from a third-party unless you notify them/register it with them. That's the crux of the issue here. If you have an Apple warranty, you can even take it to a third-party authorized Apple center and they can fix it. Their current systems allow them to have parts on order within 12 hours and they don't have to hang on to your machine, if it works (which it would for a battery issue), in order to get something that takes longer to order.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

protomyth 11y ago

"Next toss in the problem that Apple thought I didn’t have AppleCare on the machine" I had that happen on a machine bought through Apple education. Had to argue we always buy AppleCare. I was rather annoyed.

8r4n 11y ago

Batteries are the reason I stopped buying laptops. Pry my desktop from my cold dead hands.

jhrrsn 11y ago

Over the course of my professional life with laptops, I've used Apple, Alienware, Dell and Lenovo machines. I can safely say that the three-day turnaround in an actual bricks & mortar store offered by Apple is far and away the best service I've ever received (the worst being a two-week wait that didn't resolve the issue!). Regarding the business-level support, I think it's fair enough for the store to deliver a baseline level of support to consumers for free and a paid-for service for people who need priority and/or loaner machines to cover the repair period. I personally don't think that yelling at managers should result in priority over other people in the queue. I think the main issue here is that because Apple integrate their batteries like they do, it's not possible to perform what was once a simple repair yourself. I'm personally okay with that, because the outstanding battery life on my MacBook Pro is a boon almost every single day.

giarc 11y ago
I agree with your assessment of brick and motar store. Having it done in store saves so much time. 5-10 years ago I had a laptop with some screen issues. I took it back to the retailer where I purchased it and they sent it for repair. I was without my laptop for 8 weeks for a simple swab of a screen.
rasz_pl 11y ago
Exactly! Try Lenovo EU service, its Medion and they routinely F with you for _couple of months_.
jo909 11y ago
When my Lenovo Thinkpad has a hardware problem, a technician comes to my home or office to repair it.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  For free?
  - ac29 11y ago
    Onsite service is generally a paid add on at the time of purchase. I'ts not uncommon for businesses to pay the extra cost. I've had fantastic <24h onsite repairs or replacements from various PC manufacturers. I have no idea if Apple offers this sort of service, but if they do, I'm sure it isn't cheap. 3 day, in store, in (limited) warranty repairs isn't the same class of service.

daguava 11y ago

Normally I'm not one to praise Apple, but I feel a 3 day turnaround on a process that necessitates opening the entire laptop is amazing: most other vendors would take several weeks.

EvanAnderson 11y ago
I've witnessed many replacements of screens, motherboards, and CPUs on Dell laptops performed next-business day, on-site. It's all about how much you spend on the warranty.
goatforce5 11y ago
Agreed, and I was going to make the same point. Apple having service centres (ie, the back of their retail stores) scattered in convenient locations in large cities all over the world, where many repairs can be performed while you wait or the same day, really is a treat. Which other brands are offering a similar level of service?

matthewmacleod 11y ago

That's interesting – Macbook Pro batteries are rated for 1000 cycles. Since this machine has only hit 652, I would expect them to replace this for no charge – since it has not met it's published specs. But I guess I might not have all the information here.

wl 11y ago

As of June, Apple will replace laptop batteries under 80% of design capacity under AppleCare for free.

sugarcube 11y ago

I don't quite understand the rage. Doesn't the service agreement comment on the time it might take? I remember from Dell there were different kinds of packages you could buy. Because I bought some business laptop once, they actually dispatched a technician to my office and fixed the problem on the spot. If you need that kind of service level, you simply have to pay for it.

Daishiman 11y ago
The rage is that for many lines of work (like mine), 4 days of computer downtime is absolute unacceptable.
- EvanAnderson 11y ago
  The "rage" seems misplaced. The OP didn't think about their needs when buying the machine and didn't purchase the appropriate warranty service package. Having a backup laptop would be another option, too. (I can't imagine the OP doesn't have backup camera bodies, likely at a greater expense than having a good-enough-to-get-by backup laptop.)
- mwfunk 11y ago
  If one piece of hardware going down keeps you from working until you get it back, that's on you or your company.

jessaustin 11y ago

This seems to explain somewhat the "safari is the new IE" phenomenon. If using the battery has such drawbacks, one might well wish to avoid doing so, web standards be damned.

bad_user 11y ago

I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro and while I initially liked the portability compared to my old 15 inch laptop, I think this will be the last slim laptop and probably the last MacBook I get. The reason is precisely because the parts in it, like the battery or the RAM, are unserviceable. I have had this laptop for a year and a half, I can't upgrade its RAM from 8 to 16 GB, the battery feels worn out, the Retina screen has stains on it and the command key is discolored from pressing it too much I guess. With my old ThinkPad these would have been non-issues.

roflchoppa 11y ago

The technician that was servicing your machine made an error that can save the author some money. If you have proof of purchase for your applecare, and it was bought within the 1st year, there is an option for to add applecare to said unit. Dept on the situation, and how far the unit is out of warranty they would have to call an agreement admin, and have it added to the unit. Of course this could all be done in one appointment, Order the part, call the admin, when the part comes in repair the unit. I blame the technician for not supporting the client, now of course the client was nuts for thinking that they could offer a turn around time for this machine in a day with no parts in stock. There is also the testing phase to consider which adds several hours to the machines repair time, if not overnight.

kristopolous 11y ago

Out of curiosity, am I alone in not wanting to use apple products because I find such practices as this to be unethical engineered extortion to extract more money from the consumer? I find such things exploitive and the product's success giving a green light for other manufacturers to re-engineer their products based on less honorable principles. For instance, on flip phones, batteries would eject if you dropped it in order to absorb impact. They were designed to fly out to minimize the damage to the device and screen. Very clever - solid engineering. However, what if if you want to sell a phone when the battery dies or make a fall break the phone so you can ... sell more phones! And now the industry no longer follows what was a very smart durability focused engineering practice. Like the laptop in the OPs article. They could have decided to adhere it in a more clever way to make it removable instead of fusing it with glue. Screws, latches ... lots of technology was readily available. I'm not interested in "debating" whether this is "true", clearly I'm the only one at this time, on this thread, that thinks this. I'm curious as to whether I'm just some minority of one here.

somewheres 11y ago
You are not alone. It's just that Hacker News suffers from some extremely myopic forum sliding and public relations tactics, as well as groupthink among industry insiders who have rationalized perfectly sensible reasons to never cross the party line on topics regarding the things that make them money. Partly, they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. Partly, they know damn well that they're screwing people over. True believers that actually buy the Brooklyn bridge are rare birds.
DavidAdams 11y ago
Apple isn't making any attempt to hide the fact that its batteries are non-user-replaceable. And I think it's clear to any reasonable person that the engineering of these devices isn't intended to generate revenue for the service department, but to create an extremely slim but solid laptop. Now, I think it's very reasonable for a consumer to decide that the'd rather have a replaceable battery than a slimmer laptop, and therefore they should avoid Apple laptops. So to answer your question, I think many would agree with you that it's a bad thing, but not too many would agree that it's unethical.

nickgeiger 11y ago

I found this Apple page that appears to offer battery service for $129: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite... I have the same "Service Battery" warning and I was hoping to eventually get this service on my 13" MacBook Air.

giarc 11y ago
>Pricing is for service through Apple. Likely the $129 is for the labour portion and doesn't include the parts cost.
- sosborn 11y ago
  Nope, that is the total price including the battery.

mbenjaminsmith 11y ago

I went through something similar with Apple not that long ago. I had a retina MBP that had a faulty keyboard. Half of the home row stopped working, starting with a single key in that row. It was some type of physical failure. I thought the computer was still in warranty but after talking to half a dozen people at Apple they told me it was 3 years out of warranty. Then they told me they'd have to replace about half the computer which would, not surprisingly, cost me 50% of what I paid for it. I complained politely for about 45 minutes, talking to a few more people and then they reactivated my warranty and asked me to take it in to a shop. I got it back in about a week and was happy to see that they had also replaced my battery, which for about a year had given the same warning as in the article. While I was happy about that, and it made me like Apple more, the reality is my computer is a business expense and in the big picture not a really large one. Also, computers are still developing fast enough that they're not practically a long term purchase. People talk about wanting to service computer themselves but that's a very small percentage of the overall market.

gambiting 11y ago

That is completely not my experience. Not at all. I had to replace the battery on my 2013 MacBook Air. The battery cost 99 British pounds(~$150) in the Apple Store, that included the work. I made an appointment using their app in the morning for an afternoon service, walked in, they took the laptop, I waited 20 minutes, they came back, I paid 99 pounds, got out. Easy, pain free, cheap. Yes, you read that right - cheap. When I wanted to replace the battery on my Dell XPS 13(2010 model?) Dell wanted 220 pounds for the battery, which was absolutely nuts(oh and the delivery would take 3 weeks). Ended up buying a fake one from China for 1/4 of the price.

n1000 11y ago

Well AppleCare is terrible IMHO. On the phone most of them have no clue. If the issue gets escalated you have someone who understands the issue but cannot do a thing. Then you always end up in the Apple store and they will only become active if the issue is acknowledged by Apple and their hardware tests find something. All other issues are basically ignored. I am having kernel panics since 10.10.3 [1] and there is no way to make myself heard... Had to leave my MBP with them for 5 days and they didn't replace a thing even though it has full coverage. [1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7000724 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7000724

Someone1234 11y ago
In 2014 BootCamp was shipping on new Macbook Pros which broke Windows 8.1's installer. The version of Bootcamp was actually newer than the newest version available to download, but supposedly the older version worked, but you couldn't downgrade. Anyway I gave AppleCare a call. Told them that bootcamp version XYZ was messing up Windows 8.1's installer and that the older version worked fine, and asked if I could downgrade. Essentially they told me to "call Microsoft for support with Windows." And that's all I could get out of them. Zero bootcamp supported offered, even if it is Apple's own software. The answer in an Apple store was (paraphrasing) "we don't recommend Bootcamp, if you want to run Windows then buy Parallels Desktop." PS - Took them over seven months to fix Bootcamp.

dejv 11y ago

Battery of my mid-2012 Mac Air died (12% capacity) after 550 cycles, they usually just swap the batteries for free, but I bought my computer while living abroad, so no luck. After some thoughts, I just bought replacement battery, two custom screwdrivers and changed the batter by myself (+ upgraded the hard drive) in about 15 minutes. Replacement battery cost around 150 USD here in EU and it is very easy to do.

kawera 11y ago
I did the same with my 2010 MBA after it died at around 850 cycles. Easy to do in a few minutes and working flawlessly since.

rasz_pl 11y ago

If you wanted easily serviceable battery you would buy business line DELL or HP, but you didnt. You wanted a powerful slim status symbol. What a whining entitled brat :/ If there was no warning about battery degradation you can be sure he would be making blog posts about losing his work because laptop didnt last whole photo editing session.

toyg 11y ago

Apple moved the MacBookPro line to this hardware design in July 2012 -- I know because it was the first MBP I've ever bought. It was well-publicized at the time that things like battery and memory had become basically unserviceable. There were teardowns all over the internet less than a week from unveiling. This guy comes up almost two years later (the post is from May 2014) and starts ranting...? It's like buying a huge SUV then rant that you cannot find on-street parking spaces in central Paris. Honestly, the only thing this post reveals is how clueless some "experts" are about the expensive tools they buy.

arprocter 11y ago

Replacing an integral part of an expensive computer was expensive? I would hate to be this guy's mechanic

rasz_pl 11y ago
Check light came on so I continued to drive for 3 months while ignoring it and complaining loudly. What do you mean fuel pump is in the fuel tank and it needs to go to the shop? Cant you swap it on a parking lot, like right now?? I have places to be!11. $400? Thats as much as I charge for half an hour of one of my photo shoots, and you are just a dirty wrench monkey! Its not like you repair anything, you said it yourself its just a part exchange. This is how some apple owners act when they come for "new phone case" with iphone 6 that has been stepped on.

sxcurry 11y ago

It's pretty clear when you buy this laptop that the battery isn't user serviceable. You might be happier buying a Dell or Lenovo.

adrianmacneil 11y ago

This article seems a bit unreasonable. AppleCare not being automatically associated with a device when it isn't purchased from an Apple store is pretty clearly marked on both the AppleCare box, and every third party dealer I've bought from has either pointed this out or offered to register it for me on the spot. Later in the article he mentions that the Apple tech said they could resolve this issue, so it was really not a problem and just looking for more things to rant about. As others have pointed out, the Macbook batteries are rated for 1000 cycles, and as this was only at 652 it should have been covered by the AppleCare warranty for free repair. Reading between the lines of this article, it sounds like Apple did offer to replace the battery for free in the end here, which negates the whole rant about $400 being too expensive since the repair would have been free. This only leaves the fact that it takes 3 days, which in the scheme of things doesn't seem too unreasonable. In a perfect world, yes, they could service it while you wait. However, I once had to get an Acer laptop repaired, and it took at least 3 weeks. Also, 652 cycles in just 1.5 years of use is insane. That's more than a full charge and discharge cycle every single day. I've had my Macbook for nearly 3 years and it's only at around 500 cycles.

metalliqaz 11y ago
I could be wrong but I don't think "cycles" implies complete charge and discharge every time. If I alternated between desk work and meetings all day long, I think the laptop would record several cycles as I went on and off of wall power.
- adrianmacneil 11y ago
  A cycle is a full charge and discharge. If you use 50% of the battery and charge it twice, that counts as one full cycle. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
I've had my current MacBook Air since February 2014 (so ~1.7yrs) and its cycle count is a mere 75. Granted, most of the time I'm using it with AC connected.

larrybud 11y ago

I'm no fanboy, but I've had excellent service at my local Apple store. Earlier this year, my son's 4 year old Macbook Pro started flaking out (screen glitches, random hanging, etc). Did not have Applecare. Took it to the Apple store, was told it was a known problem with the video card. They said they would repair it for free (!) but needed to ship it to the central repair center in Texas. We dropped it off on a Saturday, and had it back in our hands on Tuesday, all at no cost to us. Then, just this month, the same laptop's power supply cord started fraying and even sparked a little. Took it in to the Apple store; gave them the serial number, and in 5 minutes, I walked out with a new power supply. Again, no cost to me. I couldn't have asked for better service.

N0RMAN 11y ago
Me too. Got my display replaced for free within an hour. A Premium Reseller/Service changed my logic board at no cost within 12 hours.

brentvatne 11y ago

A couple of weeks ago I dropped off my well-used, out of warranty, never on AppleCare early-2012 macbook pro to get the keyboard replaced. It turned out that this repair would also, by necessity, replace the battery (it is part of the "top case"). ~$380USD, I was happy to pay that considering that my battery was shot and several of my keys no longer worked at all. A few days later I went to pick it up and they told me that they needed to replace the logic board as well because of an original manufacturing defect, and that I was eligible for a "quality program" screen replacement because the laminate was peeling. Also presumably because of the hassle they decided I was to be charged $235 USD instead of the original amount. I tested it out and bam, kernel panic within seconds of booting into the OS. Same thing on reboot. So they replaced the logic board again, same problem. Formatted the drive and installed the OS from a clean image, same problem. They decided that the best course of action was to replace the laptop entirely. So for $235 I got a brand new 2015 macbook pro. Apple's in-store repair, in my experience at least, is fantastic. If something goes wrong they do whatever they can to address the issue. I'd recommend going through them if you're considering changing some of the internals of a macbook pro given how easily it can go wrong.

ac29 11y ago
>I tested it out and bam, kernel panic within seconds of booting into the OS. Same thing on reboot. So they replaced the logic board again, same problem. >Apple's in-store repair, in my experience at least, is fantastic. This reeks of cognitive dissonance. Their repair is "fantastic" yet their repair technicians were incapable of turning on the laptop to see if it was even capable of booting. Then, they did the exact same thing again, eventually giving up and replacing the product? You lucked out that their repair department was so incompetent, or their product was so defective that you got a free upgrade to a newer model. Doesnt sound like a ringing endorsement of anything except customer service.
- brentvatne 11y ago
  Great point, I suppose I was just judging it entirely on the end result.

hackuser 11y ago

Is the trend toward non-user-replaceable batteries related to LiPo (lithium polymer) battery technology? My limited understanding is that LiPo batteries store more energy/volume or energy/mass than older tech but normally have plastic (i.e., non-rigid) packaging.

mcantelon 11y ago
It's probably just cheaper to make them non-replaceable. Replaceable batteries are becoming a fairly rare feature.

gherkin0 11y ago

I like how their battery diagnostic tool has Classic Mac OS Platinum UI widgets.

deleted 11y ago

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KiDD 11y ago

This is a couple years old...