Allegations of overpriced repair charges at Apple Store [video]

> To take the car analogy from the video a bit further, how many car owners stick to using the dealer to service their vehicles for the entire life of the car?

Most of them, I assumed. Is that not the case?

Specifically, they occur only at 100 percent humidity causing condensation.

That could happen if you take the laptop from a cold air conditioned room to outside. The warm wet outside air touches the cold laptop and condenses.

This type of condensation is pretty bad for electrical devices too though.

Ideally the device would be gas and liquid sealed, and this wouldn't be an issue.

I've worked at an AASP and managed Apple Self Service programs at two companies so I have a bit more information to what you posted.

Apple is very strict when it comes to service repairs because the supply chain and processes for receiving parts is essentially the same between AASP repairs and those done at stores and at depot centers. Nowadays, AASP repairs represent a tiny fraction of all repairs and Apple grandfathering old AASPs and allowing companies to participate in Self Service repairs is more of a courtesy than anything else.

- AASPs can order spare parts under an "exchange" option or as "new". New parts are typically ordered when a customer has lost an item (keycap, charger, apple remote). Everything else usually gets processed as an exchange repair. Apple learns a lot from the defective parts it receives during a repair. They also don't want defective/broken parts floating around eBay so it provides AASPs a monetary incentive to send back KBBs. - AASPs can keep parts on-hand. These parts can be purchased on a credit line and the AASP will receive a refund on the cost of these parts after the repair is done and the KBB (known bad board/part) is sent to Apple. Plus they will receive compensation if the product is under warranty in the amount of 75-100 bucks for doing the repair right. - I would agree that not everything in GSX should be kept highly confidential. Apple's takeapart guides are really awesome and I wish they were published freely. Within GSX is the coveted VIG (visual inspection guides) which determine which classes of repairs on an iPhone or iPad are covered under warranty. For example, a scratched camera lens on an iPhone 4S warranted a whole unit replacement back then even though no formal repair extension program was announced to customers. Maybe this was a serious problem or maybe Apple was giving customers a courtesy repair on this type of issue. But surely publishing this document would cause some people with 4Ss to intentionally scratch their camera lens to get a free replacement device. - And of course, if you aren't certified on a product line Apple doesn't want you opening repairs or ordering parts for that line. In my experience, you can't even open repairs on certain products unless you've passed an online qualification exam (for $100). I think this is pretty reasonable. I've never received parts only to be later charged for not being certified on the defective product.

I spilt a glass of water on an old Lenovo laptop I had (while it was running), the keyboard had a tray under it which drained outside of the laptop. [0] But if i had damaged it, every single part was removable, orderable and replaceable.

[0] http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/avoiding-water-on-the-brain

How long did he take to repair it? I’m amazed he isn’t backed up for months. Hell, my local cobbler is really good, and it takes a fortnight to re-heel a boot. I couldn’t be without my laptop for that long.

Yes, but that is not really the issue here. To take your analogy, you have the RIGHT to go to a local mechanic who can get parts for your car. Apple is trying as hard as they can to kill the 3rd party repair shops and make there life difficult. This behavior should be illegal since they provide a valuable service as your local mechanic does.

> The same thing happens with cars, the dealership will only do repairs with OEM parts and won’t attempt to weld anything back together instead option to replace it.

No, but they might be willing to rotate your tires without requiring you get a new transmission, even if they really recommend it. Now, if the dealership was also the manufacturer, and had a way to prevent repair materials from reaching the public, then perhaps they would be a but more strict about requiring all-or-nothing repairs...

I could see how that was their policy, however, they could have explained to the customer their options. Either have it repaired here and Apple will guarantee it, or take it to an independent repair shop and potentially get it fixed for much cheaper. I realize they're not obligated to do that, but I certainly would think a lot more highly of Apple if they did that.

That does appear to be where some of their more outlandish pricing comes from. They'll either do a repair that brings the machine up to snuff (bar normal wear), or they won't.

So that bent pin is now a substandard, weakened part. If that pin's in a socket, the socket oughta be replaced. But Apple don't expect local techs to be soldering things, so the socket doesn't get replaced, the whole subassembly does. Next thing you know, you're getting a whole motherboard for that bent pin. And they were stupidly expensive even before they started soldering ram (& storage?) to them.

If that wasn't expensive enough, the liquid indicators play hell with this, for exactly the same reason. If they actually believe there's liquid damage, the list of subassemblies that need to be replaced to bring the machine up to par, gets very spendy very quickly.

I don't know if there's really an easy way to change this. The more you try to standardise the operation, the less flexible it gets. Overkill is great when it's on Apple's dime, and shocking when it isn't.

Rossman does depot-level repairs. They don't need 10,000 depots. They need a few. They could potentially have someone like him video or phone-linked to stores to answer tough questions (and very well may). They then need good policies and training for the frontline staff to sort out when something can be sent for repair and when it can't. It would also help if they revived SOS-APPL and started making parts easily available.

I suspect it wouldn't take much money at all for Apple to buy Rossman, drop him in a big NYC depot with a Jurassic Park-style viewing window for fanbois to watch things get fixed while he livestreams the repairs, and quickly turn this into a PR win. They could replicate that in several other large cities easily. Will they? Probably not.

Except that there was no actual water damage. I've bought some of that 3M material for some research experiments and it really shouldn't be used the way it is in electronics. It can turn red in humid environments. They're best used with things that are IPS rated like Pelican boxes, to assure rain isn't getting into them in an outdoor environment.

> The first thing about this video is that the laptop malfunction was at lest shady to me.

Some reporters, when trying to track down illegitimate fees for car repairs, purposefully perform a trivial forced issue, such as a bent sparkplug ground electrode. These sorts of things should be trivial to diagnose.

Even if the CBC did this, which I am skeptical given the lineage of the CBC, it would still be an entirely valid exercise.

All manufacturers are worser than Apple. I was trying to shop for an laptop/ultra book(who buys bulky products anymore) and was surprised at lack of competitive products to Apple's. Perhaps a decade back there were quality, high-end products from IBM and Sony which could rival Apple. Now you are stuck with low quality products with much lesser reliability than MacBook pros at a higher price point even for the same spec. Apple is sort of enjoying it. May be surface would make a difference.

I was with you right up until the end; the "I had one bad incident with company X so I'll never buy from them again" is a really tiring thing to hear. This is akin to "I had a bad flight on Delta so I'm never flying with them again" Ok, I get it, you had a bad experience. That doesn't mean your next flight on Delta will be bad, or your next experience with an Apple product. You should demand more of Apple, and get the compensation you deserve. Other companies aren't better, though. Apple's hardware, customer satisfaction and general end-to-end experience, on the whole, is the best in the industry. Tossing them aside because of one bad experience with a hardware product feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[edit] The repair process with Apple, in particular, is really spectacular. If you break your phone on vacation in Australia (like I did), you walk into an Apple store and 2 hours later you're off to the races. Try that with LG/Samsung/Huawei/HTC. Good luck even finding one of their stores. Do they have stores? You'll mail the product in I'd imagine, and weeks later, maybe, you'll get one back? Who pays for shipping again? If your laptop breaks, same deal. Anywhere in the world. Yes, it's not perfect. However, the idea that I can count on my Apple products no matter where I am or what I'm doing is worth the premium alone. Finally, for better or worse (or rather, for more expensive) Apple is pushing AppleCare+ to all laptops and phones, which means that accidental damage like this would be covered for a low, flat fee no matter what happened to your device.

I'm actually surprised you had issues with a refurb product. The thing about refurbs is, unlike new ones, they're individually tested.

I don't mind that they will only do complete repairs. What I do care about is them actively trying to hamper third-party repair shops and opposing right-to-repair legislation. That's not ok.

The full repair only policy is not really a problem. Apple wants to make sure they give you back a functioning device, so people aren't walking around saying they got their Apple repaired and it's still broken (or breaks quickly afterwards).

The full repair only policy while actively trying to prevent third party repair services is a problem, as then you are preventing people from being able to repair only actual problems just because Apple wants to control its image, and you run into situations like this. Who cares if water indicators are tripped? There should be an options for someone to repair what's needed, and deal with further problems later if they crop up. Apple doesn't want to allow this.

> He also did hint at other repair shops in the end by saying that there were no other options "in terms of fixing it in the store".

That's not hinting at other options, that's just not outright lying when asked a direct question, which ends up revealing another option. That's a low bar to hit (and thankfully he did).

You're arguing that it isn't "scammy" because the policy that Apple itself created sets a rigid structure that causes repairs to be more extensive and expensive? Essentially a policy replacing completely working components without testing them, because a 5c Liquid contact indicator said to.

This seems like a defense of the individual "Genius," since they can point at corporate/policy, rather than a defense of the policy itself which is what the video is about.

I’ve been told otherwise; Is this full repair policy a “by-country” thinng?

What “Touch Bar madness?” They put a Touch Bar. So what? Some of us actually love it. Some of us even use Vim and love it. Calling it “madness” is a bit hyperbolic. You certainly don’t have to like it, but people are acting like they removed the space bar.

One benefit of their “lame” repair policy is that it protects resell values because you can generally be assured some back-alley repair shop didn’t use an inferior part or fix something with shoddy workmarkship. With three year AppleCare and good resell values, Macs are great values. Ever tried to sell a 5 year old Dell? Pretty much paperweights after a few years in terms of resell value.

The water indicators are more like humidity indicators. In a lot of climates they're going to be red within a few months of normal use.

Convenient policy for humidity indicators.

Doesn't change the fact that they want to kill third party repairs and then also refuse first party repairs.

It's the CBC. Do your homework.

Why? What does “independently” mean? How is that relevant? Furthermore, the link in the title says “youtube.com” already.