Hacker News Reader

Comment by thewizardofaus | Hacker News Reader

My MacBook Pro late 2011 model suffered from the GPU flaw less than a week after Apple's "free repair" window ended. This repair window only existed because apple failed to recognise it and a class action lawsuit resulted.

Even after a repair it's never truly fault free, due to refurbed motherboards being used.

That was the end of my relationship with apple.

View on HN

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.

> You'll mail the product in I'd imagine, and weeks later, maybe, you'll get one back?

I took my MacBook Pro 2017 in for a keyboard replacement. The AASP had to mail it in to Apple. It's now on it's second week in Apple's custody.

> 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

The low, flat fee only applies to cracked screens. I have a cracked camera lens on my iPhone X (a $7 part), and Apple wants $500 for a whole device replacement.

Not that this will make you feel better but the camera module (unless you’re suggesting they disassemble it, replace the glass, and glue it back together) has a raw part cost of $35. [1] Factoring in R&D, etc, a reasonable retail price would be closer to $70 than $7. Labor would easily be another $100-150. A “fair” price for this repair would be $200. I’m not defending Apple I’m just pointing out it’s not nearly as hyperbolic as you’re suggesting.

Sounds like the iPhone damage was accidental? Accidental damage can be covered by your rental or homeowners policy, and sometimes even your credit card for the first 90 days.

Yes, sometimes they have to send the laptops out and that is frustrating.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/iphone-...

Just the glass is cracked, accidental damage. I had a guy in a stall in Hong Kong fix it. Took 30 minutes, cost $35

Definitely possible, however I don't think most people would accept that level of fix from Apple.

Which is why it would be nice if Apple could supply third party repair centers with official schematics, parts, etc...

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.

Beside some softwares only exists on macOS, Dell and Lenovo (if not concerned about its Chinese background) makes good ultrabooks which is on-par with Macbook Pro these days.

Plus, repairability & without keyboard which would break on particle ingress.

In Apple's defense, the newest keyboards no longer suffer from the particle ingress issue, and they're genuinely more pleasant to type on.

Try Lenovo's service on Thinkpad sometime - its surprisingly good.

Ever look at Dell XPS 13 ?

Up until the very latest generation of Macs, Apple was behind every other manufacturer when it came to 8th gen Intel chips.

Dave2D has several videos before the most recent line-up telling people not to buy Apple laptops unless they needed specific Apple software as all the high end Dell, HP, Asus and MSI offerings had better hardware for more reasonable prices.

Even now, you can find a lot of gaming and content creator laptops that are just as good, and sometimes even cheaper than the current Apple laptops. For an i9, it doesn't matter who you pick, they're all throttled.

If you're getting an i9, you should really get a gaming laptop instead. There are several that are built with very good thermals and won't throttle (although you'll have to dig through Linus/Dave2D reviews to find the specific models) and that are great for video editing and rendering as well.

Usually when people talk about the very high quality of apple hardware they are rarely talking about the specs. But instead about build quality, software, integration, usability, etc.

As a practical example: I have been using a Macbooks for years and whenever I use something else I get disappointed by the small and terrible touchpads.

The XPS 15 has the first non-Apple touchpad to impress me in 12 years. Tap heuristics aren't as nice as Apple, but definitely more than workable

Reply on news.ycombinator.com