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My daughter wants a Macbook when she leaves for college next month- no Apple store within a 8-hour drive. Does anyone have experience getting this type of stuf
by panzagl 7y ago
My daughter wants a Macbook when she leaves for college next month- no Apple store within a 8-hour drive. Does anyone have experience getting this type of stuff fixed through whatever arrangement Apple has with a typical University? Is Applecare an absolute requirement in this type of situation?
- jonplackett 7y agoIf you can wait until September that’s the month some people predict there will be a new MacBook Air with a new type of keyboard that goes back to the original design.
- dpkonofa 7y agoDon't make recommendations based on predictions. That's a terrible reason to wait for a necessary purchase.
- OrangeMango 7y agoBut they do offer a small education discount ($50 or so on the cheaper hardware) and almost always have a "Back to School" promotion in which they also throw in some sort of accessory for free. For the last two years (at least), the "Back to School" promotion launched in the middle of July and offered a free set of Beats headphones, which had a retail price of $200-300.
- dpkonofa 7y agoSure, and that's a valid reason to wait. Waiting on rumor and conjecture, though, is almost always a bad idea.
- bradknowles 7y agoYup. Most predictions in this business don't hold a lot of water, especially when it comes to anything that Apple hasn't already publicly committed to and just hasn't announced a shipping date.
- panzagl 7y agoThanks, if there's an official announcement of the announcement in the next couple weeks we may wait, but I'm not going to stand in the way of checking another box on the go-to-college-checklist otherwise...
- X-Istence 7y agoApple doesn't typically have an arrangement with a university. Apple does allow you to send the device in/get it shipped back to you though if there is an issue. There may also be a certified Apple repair store near your daughters university.
- panzagl 7y agoThere are a couple right off campus, thanks.
- bradknowles 7y agoDepends on the University. UT Austin does have such an official relationship with Apple -- I knew the guy who did all that work, and he had 30 years worth of certification on various hardware and software from Apple. He was also the guy who was certified and licensed to do all that same kind of work on Dell. He spent > 90% of his time working on Dell stuff, and was very happy when he got a call to come work on Apple stuff. Yup, one guy for the entire campus of 50,000+ students, and 20,000+ faculty and staff. It amazed me, too.
- dpkonofa 7y agoDepending on where she goes to uni, they may have an authorized repair facility on site. I was just able to use the on-site facility at Berkley and have used the one at ASU in the past when appointments at the local Apple stores are all filled. You can also mail in items for repair which, in my experience, has been just fine except that you need to get a suitably padded box to send it to and from. Apple will typically ship it once you do it the first time and then you can just keep that one and re-use the last one they send you if you need to send it in multiple times.
- panzagl 7y agoI think that this was mentioned during the tour last year, but holy hell is it hard to find this info from Apple- they want symptoms and an AppleId...
- dpkonofa 7y agoJust do a search on the Apple website. She'll have to have an Apple ID to make any kind of service reservation so that's expected. Google also has a pretty thorough list of most of the Apple Authorized service centers in any area.
- panzagl 7y agoYeah, Google listed them, but all I could find from Apple themselves was non-US locations since I don't have an AppleID. Seems weird to me.