3 ms·

>The Air can be bricked by a mere drop of liquid in the wrong spot (this actually happened to me. One drop. I'm not kidding.) I'd like to know more about this.

by neotek 14y ago

visarga 14y ago
I killed a slim keyboard the same way. Keys are non removable. There is no way to fix it.
beloch 14y ago
I was sitting at a table and a friend set his travel mug down too forcefully. You've probably seen this happen many times. Set a travel mug down the wrong way and liquid will slosh against the opening you drink through, causing a single drop to pop out. In this case a drop of coffee arc'd neatly across the table and landed right on the cracks of one key on the upper-right of the keyboard. The Air was still running, but I powered it off immediately and turned it upside down to try to get the liquid out. I thought nothing really got in and tried to power it up a minute later, but the Air was kaput. I doubt one drop would have shown up on the spill detection gizmos Apple uses, but I was honest about the incident. For my honesty, Apple declared it spill damage and offered to repair it for an exorbitant fee, which I declined. To add insult to injury, the geek I encountered was one of the most obnoxious tech-support people I've ever run across. Stereotypical fat, pimply teenage nerd. He actually joked, "Gee! That was an expensive cup of coffee! Hur hur hur hur.". This guy was worse than all the Microsoft fanboy stereotypes Apple ads have lampooned over the years. I swore off Apple products on the spot and have been free and clear ever since. It's actually kind of amazing, but an outsourced Indian call center or even a complete lack of customer service would have been better than the insensitive and offensive way that geek dealt with me.
- sbuk 14y ago
  At the risk of down votes, the Mac was "kaput" because of liquid ingress and it only takes a drop on any component to do the damage. The fault my friend lies with you. Honest question, do you think you'd have been treated any better elsewhere?
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    Unlike Apple (at least the last time my wife bought one), other PC vendors are happy to sell you accidental damage protection with a laptop. I'd say that is a pretty big difference.
    - sbuk 14y ago
      At the risk of sounding cynical, that's not for the benefit of the consumer. It doesn't mean much either as most manufacturers I've had experience with will try and wriggle out of honouring those agreements, HP especially. That said, Apple absolutely should offer this facility.
      - fpgeek 14y ago
        Agreed, the wriggling is an issue. I've always been able to deal with it, but it is frustrating (especially since I primarily run Linux - support is probably the top reason I dual-boot). I've found that I can minimize it by buying the "business-class" laptop and/or the "business-class" warranty, but that is still irritating and a trap for the unwary. In any case, even with all the wriggling, I've found ADP to be a pretty wonderful investment without even counting the increased peace-of-mind. I'm not sure if I'm just unusually hard on my laptops or if the gap between my repair cost and theirs is so large that it is easy to design a truly mutually beneficial warranty.
  - adlpz 14y ago
    Come on, if you really think that a drop of coffee will usually kill any electronics you must have never even handled a circuit board... Most laptops (including mi MBP!) will survive light spillage without problems.
    - sbuk 14y ago
      Depends on what the liquid came into contact with and whether or not it was live. I absolutely think that Apple, or in this case their 'genius' should have done more. With that in mind, the OP should have complained. EDIT: removed snark.
- beloch 14y ago
  @sbuk Yes. I have been treated better by practically every other manufacturer I've dealt with, including Dell (The M1330 I had prior to the Air actually survived several far worse spills because it had a removable battery). At the very least, no other manufacturer has made painfully bad jokes at my expense to my face.
  - sbuk 14y ago
    I'd hazard that because you didn't have the opportunity to speak to them face to face. If you were that aggrieved, you should have complained to the manager. I totally agree that the kid was out of line. My experience of Dell has been worse than yours. I won't have any of their products in my house. I have found their pre-sales support to be overly aggressive and patronising, post sales support to be lack lustre, verging on incompetent and a build quality that can only be described as inept. HP are not much better; I recently returned a HP Spectre XT that had a faulty power button. It took a written legal threat to get anything close to a resolution. These are all anecdotal, but very real incidents to counter your own. EDIT: spelling.
- katbyte 14y ago
  > but I was honest about the incident that was your mistake there, i always play ignorant and say it stopped working. So far I've had no problems even with things that were my fault. Dishonest? maybe, but apple can afford it. Why didn't you just say it stopped working and leave it at that?
  - whatusername 14y ago
    And people wonder why apple's are so expensive...
    - katbyte 14y ago
      well they had to charge enough to get that 100 billion in cash somehow!
    - 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
      I also play ignorant. But this is exactly what I am paying for. Make a booking online, turn up at a store, play ignorant. The last time I took advantage of the Apple Care warranty I had my claim completed with enough of my lunch break left to grab a quick lunch. I've never had a bad Apple Store experience. I am sure there are bad staff. But there are bad staff everywhere in every business. I find it really perplexing that based on a single experience people swear off a product. 1 bad experience is not representative of the millions of interactions that happen everyday.

>The Air can be bricked by a mere drop of liquid in the wrong spot (this actually happened to me. One drop. I'm not kidding.) I'd like to know more about this.

by neotek 14y ago

>The Air can be bricked by a mere drop of liquid in the wrong spot (this actually happened to me. One drop. I'm not kidding.) I'd like to know more about this.

visarga 14y ago

I killed a slim keyboard the same way. Keys are non removable. There is no way to fix it.

beloch 14y ago

I was sitting at a table and a friend set his travel mug down too forcefully. You've probably seen this happen many times. Set a travel mug down the wrong way and liquid will slosh against the opening you drink through, causing a single drop to pop out. In this case a drop of coffee arc'd neatly across the table and landed right on the cracks of one key on the upper-right of the keyboard. The Air was still running, but I powered it off immediately and turned it upside down to try to get the liquid out. I thought nothing really got in and tried to power it up a minute later, but the Air was kaput. I doubt one drop would have shown up on the spill detection gizmos Apple uses, but I was honest about the incident. For my honesty, Apple declared it spill damage and offered to repair it for an exorbitant fee, which I declined. To add insult to injury, the geek I encountered was one of the most obnoxious tech-support people I've ever run across. Stereotypical fat, pimply teenage nerd. He actually joked, "Gee! That was an expensive cup of coffee! Hur hur hur hur.". This guy was worse than all the Microsoft fanboy stereotypes Apple ads have lampooned over the years. I swore off Apple products on the spot and have been free and clear ever since. It's actually kind of amazing, but an outsourced Indian call center or even a complete lack of customer service would have been better than the insensitive and offensive way that geek dealt with me.

sbuk 14y ago
At the risk of down votes, the Mac was "kaput" because of liquid ingress and it only takes a drop on any component to do the damage. The fault my friend lies with you. Honest question, do you think you'd have been treated any better elsewhere?
- fpgeek 14y ago
  Unlike Apple (at least the last time my wife bought one), other PC vendors are happy to sell you accidental damage protection with a laptop. I'd say that is a pretty big difference.
  - sbuk 14y ago
    At the risk of sounding cynical, that's not for the benefit of the consumer. It doesn't mean much either as most manufacturers I've had experience with will try and wriggle out of honouring those agreements, HP especially. That said, Apple absolutely should offer this facility.
    - fpgeek 14y ago
      Agreed, the wriggling is an issue. I've always been able to deal with it, but it is frustrating (especially since I primarily run Linux - support is probably the top reason I dual-boot). I've found that I can minimize it by buying the "business-class" laptop and/or the "business-class" warranty, but that is still irritating and a trap for the unwary. In any case, even with all the wriggling, I've found ADP to be a pretty wonderful investment without even counting the increased peace-of-mind. I'm not sure if I'm just unusually hard on my laptops or if the gap between my repair cost and theirs is so large that it is easy to design a truly mutually beneficial warranty.
- adlpz 14y ago
  Come on, if you really think that a drop of coffee will usually kill any electronics you must have never even handled a circuit board... Most laptops (including mi MBP!) will survive light spillage without problems.
  - sbuk 14y ago
    Depends on what the liquid came into contact with and whether or not it was live. I absolutely think that Apple, or in this case their 'genius' should have done more. With that in mind, the OP should have complained. EDIT: removed snark.
beloch 14y ago
@sbuk Yes. I have been treated better by practically every other manufacturer I've dealt with, including Dell (The M1330 I had prior to the Air actually survived several far worse spills because it had a removable battery). At the very least, no other manufacturer has made painfully bad jokes at my expense to my face.
- sbuk 14y ago
  I'd hazard that because you didn't have the opportunity to speak to them face to face. If you were that aggrieved, you should have complained to the manager. I totally agree that the kid was out of line. My experience of Dell has been worse than yours. I won't have any of their products in my house. I have found their pre-sales support to be overly aggressive and patronising, post sales support to be lack lustre, verging on incompetent and a build quality that can only be described as inept. HP are not much better; I recently returned a HP Spectre XT that had a faulty power button. It took a written legal threat to get anything close to a resolution. These are all anecdotal, but very real incidents to counter your own. EDIT: spelling.
katbyte 14y ago
> but I was honest about the incident that was your mistake there, i always play ignorant and say it stopped working. So far I've had no problems even with things that were my fault. Dishonest? maybe, but apple can afford it. Why didn't you just say it stopped working and leave it at that?
- whatusername 14y ago
  And people wonder why apple's are so expensive...
  - katbyte 14y ago
    well they had to charge enough to get that 100 billion in cash somehow!
  - 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
    I also play ignorant. But this is exactly what I am paying for. Make a booking online, turn up at a store, play ignorant. The last time I took advantage of the Apple Care warranty I had my claim completed with enough of my lunch break left to grab a quick lunch. I've never had a bad Apple Store experience. I am sure there are bad staff. But there are bad staff everywhere in every business. I find it really perplexing that based on a single experience people swear off a product. 1 bad experience is not representative of the millions of interactions that happen everyday.