Apple and Defects
I purchased the very first MacBook Air, the very first week it was out. I had been waiting for Apple to make something smaller with their Unixy OS, and when they did, I jumped on it - despite the price.
But it was a totally new product, and not without its teething problems. Simply playing a YouTube video could bring it to a crawl. Still, it was small, portable, and for the most part, fast. The battery lasted pretty long, the screen was pretty good, and the keyboard was decent - and backlit. Eventually Apple released firmware upgrades that mostly fixed the YouTube issue as well.
But then the hinge broke. And when I say the hinge broke, let's be clear, when the hinge broke, it managed to destroy the motherboard and several other components as well. (Apparently the cables from the display that connect to the motherboard ripped out or something).
The cool thing was that since it happened to a lot of people, Apple acknowledged it as a design flaw and fixed it for free, even though the machine was out of warranty. The hard drive also started failing, and that caused all sorts of problems (it ran hot, and the machine would randomly crash. Running Disk utility would fix it, only for it to act up again randomly later). Since I was in school and I needed the machine, I kept everything in DropBox for a while, so that then it died every few weeks, I could just reinstall the OS and copy everything back.
Eventually I had time to get the hard drive repaired, and by that time I had already had the machine for several years, and the battery started to go. I had to get that replaced too. In fact, about the only thing I didn't replace were the keyboard and screen. I later gave the laptop to my brother after purchasing an 11 inch 2011 MacBook Air. He promptly broke the screen.
Aside from entertainment, the point here is that the display hinge was destined to fail because of a design issue. Apple recognized this, and decided to make it right by fixing the issue. If someone cracks the screen, they were probably too violent. If the hard drive or battery fails after a few years - well that's what batteries and hard drives do. Wear and tear is only covered by the warranty for a year, and that seems fair enough. The hinge problem was a design problem from the outset, and a flaw that existed when the machine was sold even if it didn't show up until later - so it makes sense that Apple should fix it for free. To put it another way - hinges in other laptops rarely fail within a year or so - and rarely destroy the motherboard when they do.
Interestingly enough, Apple's stance on the 2011 MacBook Pro has been somewhat different. For those not in the know, the 2011 MBP will eventually die a strange death due to issues with the graphics chip. Apparently the fault of lead free solder combined with heating cycles, the chip partially separates from the board and the havoc begins, eventually resulting in a garbled display and a slow, unstable system.
I experimented with mine, and found that even trying to use it over remote desktop (with a virtual screen, not the console desktop) was excruciatingly slow. Booting up in single user text mode was fast, but the display was still garbled. The only way to really use the machine was to use VMWare ESXi and install OS X inside that and then access it from another machine. Granted that worked well, that's hardly the usage scenario one has in mind when one buys a laptop.
I took it to the Apple store a few years ago and was told that the repair would be a swapped out logic board, which would cost 40,000 JPY. From the stories I had heard online, the swapped out boards also fail eventually, so I told them I would pass.
Recently, though Apple started a repair program which involves free repair with (supposedly) an updated logic board.
Whether the repair will be truly permanent or not I don't know, but at a cost of 0 JPY it seemed worth while to try. I booked an appointment at the Omotesando Apple store and took my Macbook Pro down there today. They booted it up off the network, and ran a video test which immediately failed. The gentleman disappeared for a short while, and then returned to explain that the laptop would indeed be covered by the free repair program, and it should take about one week.
They seemed unconcerned that I had swapped out the CD ROM for an additional SSD and upgraded the RAM to 16GB.
While I suppose the story has a happy ending because Apple is again doing the right thing, this time it took them four years, a lot of complaints, and some class action lawsuits to get moving. Four years is a long time in the computer world, and a long time to be without a laptop if you need it for work. I don't believe that Apple's computers are overpriced (Try building a Dell with the same specs some time), but they aren't exactly cheap either. I think when a defect is discovered, they should proactively fix it, and do the post mortem later.
But it was a totally new product, and not without its teething problems. Simply playing a YouTube video could bring it to a crawl. Still, it was small, portable, and for the most part, fast. The battery lasted pretty long, the screen was pretty good, and the keyboard was decent - and backlit. Eventually Apple released firmware upgrades that mostly fixed the YouTube issue as well.
But then the hinge broke. And when I say the hinge broke, let's be clear, when the hinge broke, it managed to destroy the motherboard and several other components as well. (Apparently the cables from the display that connect to the motherboard ripped out or something).
The cool thing was that since it happened to a lot of people, Apple acknowledged it as a design flaw and fixed it for free, even though the machine was out of warranty. The hard drive also started failing, and that caused all sorts of problems (it ran hot, and the machine would randomly crash. Running Disk utility would fix it, only for it to act up again randomly later). Since I was in school and I needed the machine, I kept everything in DropBox for a while, so that then it died every few weeks, I could just reinstall the OS and copy everything back.
Eventually I had time to get the hard drive repaired, and by that time I had already had the machine for several years, and the battery started to go. I had to get that replaced too. In fact, about the only thing I didn't replace were the keyboard and screen. I later gave the laptop to my brother after purchasing an 11 inch 2011 MacBook Air. He promptly broke the screen.
Aside from entertainment, the point here is that the display hinge was destined to fail because of a design issue. Apple recognized this, and decided to make it right by fixing the issue. If someone cracks the screen, they were probably too violent. If the hard drive or battery fails after a few years - well that's what batteries and hard drives do. Wear and tear is only covered by the warranty for a year, and that seems fair enough. The hinge problem was a design problem from the outset, and a flaw that existed when the machine was sold even if it didn't show up until later - so it makes sense that Apple should fix it for free. To put it another way - hinges in other laptops rarely fail within a year or so - and rarely destroy the motherboard when they do.
Interestingly enough, Apple's stance on the 2011 MacBook Pro has been somewhat different. For those not in the know, the 2011 MBP will eventually die a strange death due to issues with the graphics chip. Apparently the fault of lead free solder combined with heating cycles, the chip partially separates from the board and the havoc begins, eventually resulting in a garbled display and a slow, unstable system.
I experimented with mine, and found that even trying to use it over remote desktop (with a virtual screen, not the console desktop) was excruciatingly slow. Booting up in single user text mode was fast, but the display was still garbled. The only way to really use the machine was to use VMWare ESXi and install OS X inside that and then access it from another machine. Granted that worked well, that's hardly the usage scenario one has in mind when one buys a laptop.
I took it to the Apple store a few years ago and was told that the repair would be a swapped out logic board, which would cost 40,000 JPY. From the stories I had heard online, the swapped out boards also fail eventually, so I told them I would pass.
Recently, though Apple started a repair program which involves free repair with (supposedly) an updated logic board.
Whether the repair will be truly permanent or not I don't know, but at a cost of 0 JPY it seemed worth while to try. I booked an appointment at the Omotesando Apple store and took my Macbook Pro down there today. They booted it up off the network, and ran a video test which immediately failed. The gentleman disappeared for a short while, and then returned to explain that the laptop would indeed be covered by the free repair program, and it should take about one week.
They seemed unconcerned that I had swapped out the CD ROM for an additional SSD and upgraded the RAM to 16GB.
While I suppose the story has a happy ending because Apple is again doing the right thing, this time it took them four years, a lot of complaints, and some class action lawsuits to get moving. Four years is a long time in the computer world, and a long time to be without a laptop if you need it for work. I don't believe that Apple's computers are overpriced (Try building a Dell with the same specs some time), but they aren't exactly cheap either. I think when a defect is discovered, they should proactively fix it, and do the post mortem later.
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