A Design Flaw Behind MacBook Pro’s “Stage Light” Effect [video]
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Meanwhile the richest company in the world fails to acknowledge a significant design flaw in their expensive, "Pro" laptop. Really, they should be willing, if not eager to replace the screens in every affected laptop free of charge. A laptop that fails after opening and closing the lid for a year or two is defective. There is should be no doubt about that.
I don't know how the laws stand in the US (it probably varies state by state), but in the UK with the 2015 Consumer Rights Act, customers have potentially up to five or six years to make a claim irrespective of warranty: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-...
I'm in Canada :(
I guess Apple gives better service in countries where they dominate mindshare? They dominate the US market and presumably the UK market.
In Canada, they're still fairly strong... but I also see a ton of Surfaces everywhere.
I'm really wondering if my next machine is going to be a mac. I'm pretty sure I could be as productive with a beefy IBM Thinkpad or a Dell XPS running Ubuntu.
I could not imagine life without Photoshop but nowadays I much prefer process rather than Photoshop wizardry. Everyone mocks Gimp and Inkscape for not being professional, same with Open Office Calc. I think that in web developer world it is the other way around, these open source tools are far better if you are fundamentally dealing with data that you are going to be coding with. They also obfuscate, for instance with SVG graphics it is much better to do them with the open source tools for HTML elements such as logos and icons. You don't get to actually understand the principles with the Adobe product so that 'magnifying glass' icon is some path made of hundreds of points listed to nine decimal places instead of two lines - one for the circle and one for the handle.
Ubuntu is also a good idea, your webserver is running native and there doesn't have to be some waste of time building a 'vagrant box' or whatever. All the instructions work too, so if you want to get things done with some linux application you just install it as per online instructions rather than find a paid for tool/software as a service workaround.
There is a lot of FUD regarding what works for Ubuntu and who would spend $$$ not knowing if they have wifi? In reality it is fine on linux whatever box you get.
The consumer Lenovo devices are a better bet than the Thinkpads, you can do well with built in Intel graphics if you are a mere web developer and the screens on the Yoga things are gorgeous. If the keyboard suits you and has backlights then you should be fine. As for the Dell, go for the refurbished and save yourself the $$$. You won't regret the saving particularly if you can get th 4K display for the price of a non-touch lame-display.
Don't even bother with dual boot as Windows is a waste of space on a dual boot Ubuntu machine as you will never use it.
I will note that Windows 10 (Pro at least, not sure about Home) on laptops with appropriate virtualization capabilities can do a heck of a job of running Linux VMs with basically trivial setup. At a quick glance, the Microsoft Store (for installing software in Windows) includes VMs for Ubuntu, Ubuntu LTS, Debian, SUSE Enterprise, openSUSE and Kali.
One downside, I'm not sure how it is for spinning up multiple instances.
Rather than run Windows native you can download and run the Virtualbox version Microsoft offer for free just for web developers to test browser compatibility with.
With Windows the file system is nowhere near as fast as Linux due to design considerations made in the MS-DOS and Windows NT days. If your code base has thousands of files then reading them across the file systems is a pain meaning that everything runs slow in Windows, the VM or both, particularly with Vagrant type setups. Native Ubuntu is like a breath of fresh air if you have had to work with compromised development arrangements where company policy dictates a slow Windows machine.
If filesystem differences are making a significant difference, it's time for someone to suck it up and spend a few hundred dollars on SSDs for the developers (and not the cheapest ones available, which frequently lack DRAM and can have their own speed issues).
And if something breaks you can easily replace everything with a screwdriver and cheap replacement parts.
Either way, it's insanely easy.
I'm absolutely disgusted by how anyone can delete forum posts that have not violated forum rules simply for exposing the company's design fault. Why have an open forum in the first place then?
I can't believe what the morale amongst the Apple employees running these forums must be whose day job is to shut the voices of these customers on no valid basis. They probably got their orders higher up in their chain.
Absolutely appalling. I will NEVER recommend Apple products to anyone around me although I'm already invested with almost all of their computer products.
This seems to work well for them, people keep clamouring for more overpriced apple hardware and are happy to run on Apple 's treadmill to buy the new iteration every year or two, while running the risk of getting a lemon yet again. So I'm guessing that's a valid strategic decision for Apple and that's why it continues unabated.
They offered an extended warranty and fixed the core issue in a subsequent design.
The problem in the 2016/2017 models was that you couldn't fix the issue because the dust etc was firmly embedded.
The 2018 model has a membrane underneath so you should be able to fix the keys with compressed air.
It's only when keyboards become thin and delicate that durability becomes a problem.
Two of those I used hard enough that keys fell off.
This latest is the only one which has had issues with the keys not working. Even the ones missing keys, there was a small nub left that still worked.
The main key failure has been the left Command key, which is an utter disaster. I’m furious about it.
Not quite furious enough to give up 15 years of the Mac. But close.
My work 2018 mpb showed a stuck key after 2 weeks (no food near it), and it obviously is not bad luck on my part.
I now use a thinkpad.
Only '16 and on model Macbooks seem to require a cleanroom for the keyboard.
It took them almost two years after the first faulty laptop shipped for those steps to be taken. Let's not re-write history here.
- MacBook Air 2008 broken hinge issues
- image retention issues with Retina 2012 model
- GPU issues with NVIDIA GPU in Retina 2012 model
only to name a few that I personally faced that they later admitted to only after you likely fixed it out of pocket yourself (or sold the device) and with threats of lawsuit.
Also the 2008 era white plastic MacBooks whose shells cracked and flaked off into sharp edges.
Don't forget the infamous 2011 model! And it's less publicized but a similar GPU issue affected the 2010 models as well.
- The 2016-2017 keyboard issue on all MacBooks of that generation I had (5-6 devices).
- The MacBook Air 2008 "core shutdown" issue that the machine thermally throttled itself to a grind and shut down all but a single core.
- Most recently, I faced a water damage issue with iPhone XS Max (the device is advertised as water resistant). Class action lawsuit, anyone?
My face gets grim when I have to admit that I am still a customer, even an advocate, because all the competitors produce mostly crap, insecure, poorly-made and/or invade your privacy. I have, however, started to break the ecosystem chain.
There's been obviously plenty more. Especially on the GPU side it was super annoying. Most of these things will break even after they "fix" it under their quality programs.
Not true. There is hardware that is better made and more reliable than Apple (e.g. ThinkPad) and operating systems that are far more secure (e.g. Qubes).
They sent a tech to my house to fix one device that was delivered with a badly fitted bottom cover, even though I had a return to depot warranty. I had a keyboard that died, I asked to replace the part myself and they happily posted it out. When one of the rubber feet came off another laptop they couriered me a brand new battery overnight (the foot is glued to the battery).
And, if I want more memory or disk, I can do that myself no trouble. No seals, no glue, no warranty stickers.
One credit to Apple, I had an imac that lasted forever. I loved that machine. But finally the disk died and I had to take the whole thing apart and the screen out just to replace the disk. That was the last Apple in my life. Good riddance! :)
But you can spend your money as foolishly or thoughtfully as you want. That's your call. Just try not to be suckered into thinking there aren't alternatives.
I see no evidence that anyone at Apple cares.
While they did change the keyboard design in 2018, there are still reports that the "improved" keyboard is failing as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/9w6vk3/macbook_p... https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/9w6vk3/macbook_p... https://twitter.com/kapeli/status/1090640259921166336
Maybe this is all great business sense, but it really makes me consider if buying another apple laptop is a good idea.
It's just a shame that good business sense isn't exactly good for the user.
I think about that comment every month or so when another MBP article pops up here. I'd be grateful for a link if anyone knows the HN comment I'm thinking of.
As a shareholder, I entirely support exercising this type of control of the message (on their own website). It is the right thing to do. Nobody has any right to have their words hosted on apple.com except Apple, and I would prefer that anyone with a sample size of less than ten not post negative things about their products on a site potential customers visit.
You may not agree with it, but this is a legitimate defense of what they are doing.
My top of the line MBP 2011 died in 2013, 2.5 years after buying it. At that point Apple denied any problems.
Over a year later, with a couple of class action lawsuits on its back, Apple started a repair program. Of course I had already bought another machine to be able to work, so after repairing the 2011 I found myself with a very expensive MBP that was about 4 years old at this point. I didn't have a use for it and of course nobody wanted to buy it at a decent price because of its infamous problems. The expensive investment I made in 2011 went down the drain.
The repair program was just a dick move to avoid legal problems.
If Apple had wanted a fair compensation to their customers they would have taken those machines back and given 60% of the price paid in credit for buying Apple products, which is what a 3-4 year old Mac sells for.
After that I lost all faith in Apple and am much more careful with what I buy from them.
My point is, something that was clearly accident and not a result of their product being faulty, they fixed the device for me with no questions asked. For that, a tip of the beanie and a future customer. I wish more customer-company relationships were like this and I hope that Dell don't change.
On a different note, can we please pass laws globally that:
1. Allow for the right to self/3rd party repair - where you can't sign an agreement to waiver those rights
2. Replacement parts at a sane price (markup), especially if the part to be fixed is the result of an engineering design fault
3. Prevent device manufacturers from making the process of dismantling a device a destructive one, i.e using glue, welds, etc
4. Internally used service materials should be freely available with the device (even if proof of ownership is required to access them) in the language of the Country being sold to
5. Increase the warranty for parts that shouldn't break quickly (modern laptops should last for at least 5 years) - i.e. the difference between a battery (expected to wear faster) and a CPU (not expected to wear)
6. Damage markers are not to be used to void warranty (i.e. Apple's water damage markers that can even be triggered by humidity)
Laws have been really effective in the past at putting Apple's "heart" in the right place.
1. "Grant the right to self-repair": Maybe someone would want to have a product that doesn't allow 3rdparty repairs? I.e. user would want to be sure there were no unauthorized repairs when buying some used hardware because user would like to have confidence the last repair wasn't sloppy or the used product contains only original parts? Why would you want to deny that possibility? Medical equipment, weapons, devices used in expensive mass transit like planes, I'd say to leave repairs of those to the proper companies.
2. "Replacement parts at sane price": how would you want to control the price of a part that is actually expensive to manufacture? Should prices of other, cheaper parts be bigger so that the expensive part will be cheaper? In such case, if I never own the MacBook with a design fault, but I will need the cheaper part, why should I pay more so you can buy your expensive part cheaper?
3. "Prevent using glue, welds": Isn't it cheaper and produces devices that have less moving parts? It allows quicker assembly and allows automatization during production so again, cheaper devices. The adhesive used in the phones are not as bad as people think, I've replaced batteries and screens from multiple phones, it's a PITA but nothing that can't be done. Also Chinese kids are also doing it on the streets in few minutes.
4. "Service material should be distributed on the same market as the device": Again, more costs. The customer will pay for those costs, not the company. The devices will be more expensive.
5. "Increase the warranty for parts that shouldn't break". I have no idea how anyone would be able to pass the law that already knows what part will break in a new device in the day of bringing this device to the market.
6. "Damage markers are not to be used to void warranty". What about vehicle crash sensors? Hard disk sudden motion sensor?
The problem when a user tries to think of new laws is always the same, those laws only address user's problem and nothing more. Just please, leave the law alone, imagine it's kernel mode programming and you're a web designer.
Not complete, but I think they outline some general ideas that would be useful for most customers.
[1]
>Maybe someone would want to have a product that doesn't allow 3rdparty repairs?
Perhaps, but I don't see how you could ever possibly stop that from happening. Even with Apple's very tight control over the repair market, repairs are still made to their laptops, phones, etc. When you buy from the second hand market, all bets are off. If you own the device from new and it is from the manufacturer, you can guarantee that repairs are carried out how you want them.
>Medical equipment, weapons, devices used in expensive mass transit like planes, I'd say to leave repairs of those to the proper companies.
Again, if you want to make those guarantees, you would have "trusted" re-seller markets or purchase new. Hell, go a step further, have the devices pulled apart and manually checked for their fitness for purpose.
On the other hand, one only needs to look at an iron lung or an old military device needing restoration to realized why the right to repair is important even in those cases. Manufacturers can die, parts can go out of production and manufacturers may not always be incentivized to make the right repair (for example in cases where the right repair costs them money).
[2]
>In such case, if I never own the MacBook with a design fault, but I will need the cheaper part, why should I pay more so you can buy your expensive part cheaper?
The parts would be cheaper for everybody by forcibly locking in the cost of replacement parts. One would expect that the replacement parts in total not cost more than a multiplier of the original retail price of the device. For example, it shouldn't be more expensive to replace a part of a machine that to buy one new.
[3]
>Isn't it cheaper and produces devices that have less moving parts? It allows quicker assembly and allows automatization during production so again, cheaper devices.
Yes it is. So is making use-once e-cigarettes. Electronic waste is a massive problem and should not be encouraged at any level. Manufacturers of expensive devices should make said devices fixable. Most of Apple's competitors somehow manage to build devices with screws whilst delivering on a lower price, so I don't believe for a moment Apple is incapable of also doing so.
[4]
>Again, more costs. The customer will pay for those costs, not the company. The devices will be more expensive.
A well known secret: The devices are priced to be a multiplier of the customers annual disposable income. Besides, devices being slightly more expensive but being more repairable is a good trade off.
[5]
>I have no idea how anyone would be able to pass the law that already knows what part will break in a new device in the day of bringing this device to the market.
Parts have an expected life time. Most vehicles have an expected life time of 10 years. Depressingly, mobile phones are ~1/2 years. Other than some agreed degradable parts, such as batteries which depend on charge habits, one wouldn't expect the processor to give out in less than 1/2 years with normal use. If it did, it would point towards a design flaw. Of course not all design flaws can be seen before production, but these can be reduced with better prior testing and more easily replaceable internals.
[6]
>What about vehicle crash sensors? Hard disk sudden motion sensor?
In both cases, there is either damage or there isn't. If a vehicle crashes and there is absolutely no damage at all - what's the difference? Of course this calls on better testing of devices being returned, but this should be the case anyway. It shouldn't be that difficult to build a bed of nails to send out to repair centers to test whether a motherboard is damaged.
--
>The problem when a user tries to think of new laws is always the same, those laws only address user's problem and nothing more. Just please, leave the law alone, imagine it's kernel mode programming and you're a web designer.
This is a very poor attitude to have. We should be having open discussions about everything - who knows where the next best idea will come from. Elitism usually turns out bad.
This, and the problem that users are being told that _they_ are the problem. Keyboard breaks? Stop getting dust on it. Light show on display? Stop opening and closing the lid. Signal cuts out? You're holding it wrong.
Capitalism only works with regulation - you can't have a completely free market devoid of strict regulation to uphold some kind of minimal standards.
There are hearings in three states on the topic this week: WA, SD, and NH. Get involved! Repair.org has a simple tool to write your legislator.
Their designs since 2014 have been the least environmentally friendly out of any company; encouraging consumers to throw heavy metals into the ecosystem without the slightest hope of repair. The 2012 Mac Mini was the same chassis as the 2014 but the repairability level is next to nil. The same story is on the current line of MacBooks.
E-Waste is the largest and most harmful stream of consumer waste an Apple is leading the way. It doesn't matter how many of your data centers are running on solar panels if all of that energy is being used to destroy the environment.
It reminds me a bit about the whole "biodegradable" movement. Instead of making things that essentially destroy themselves after a short time, how about simply making things last longer and be more durable? Of course that would reduce their ability to keep selling you new products. It's quite a genius idea: making things that self-destruct but are "environmentally friendly" means they get both planned obolescence and to advertise the fact that they're "environmentally conscious"...
From what I understand they built special-purpose robots to disassemble the past several phone versions and recover most of the content. I imagine they can recover the glass and frame from laptops; not sure what happens to the microchips.
It would be interesting to see some data about how long a typical device from each manufacturer continues to see active use, and how often they get repaired. I am skeptical that e.g. the typical consumer-owned Dell/Asus/etc. laptop stays around any longer than typical Apple laptop. Anecdotally I know a bunch of people whose PC laptops were pieces of junk when they bought them, and didn’t last more than a couple years before they threw them out for a new model, and also some people who mostly buy used 3–4 year old Apple hardware.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recy...
Some EliteBook/ZBook models have 2 slots for hard disks plus a DVD tray, which can be replaced to 3rd HDD slot. They can be plugged to a docking station that give them plenty of ports, even old ones like LPT or PS/2 should anyone need them. I really see no benefit of using a MacBookPro with 2 multifunction ports that requires buying expensive cable converters.
Enterprise-graded laptops (like EliteBooks) often allow upgrading the graphics card inside the laptop, because they often use the MXM slot.
I won't even mention the fact that RAM is never soldered in and can be replaced / extended if needed.
Keyboard is changable, so if a key will be damaged, user can buy a replacement keyboard and switch it after unscrewing 3 or 4 screws. Bought a laptop from Scandinavia? You can change the keyboard to your local one after buying it for $25.
Apple products quality is good, but they're overpriced to a level of ridicule.
Examples:
Lenovo P52 hardware maintenance manual: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/tp_p52_hmm_en...
Dell XPS15 service manual: https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-15-9560-laptop_setup-gui...
HP ZBook 15 G2 maintenance and service guide: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04493862
They're well-written and easy to follow. It's great.
All of these are public and freely available on the website of the manufacturer. They're also in PDF format (or similar) and can be opened easily in full in a browser.
I have sent my Macbook Pro for repair three times now. Apple has replaced the board and display (as well as the keyboard for a different issue with the “E” key double-typing) and the issues are still present.
Apple told me to wait for a software update.
I bought a 2011 Macbook Air which I still use today. What are the odds that my 2018 laptop serves me until 2025?
Are the days of high resale values for Macs over?
After less than 2 years of usage, the keyboard has hardly any buttons left that I haven't had to take out and clean out, and as a result -- break the clippings that hold them together.
There are also strange cracks below the screen area which makes me think the fabric is much cheaper this time around. And this whole touch bar thing... what a waste of my time and money. Absolutely unnecessary and horrendous.
Older Macbook Pro were better but still have their issues. I have an A1278 MBP that sleeps spontaneously all the time because, in the palm rest by the HDD bracket, either the Hall effect sensor wore out or the bar above it (ferrous metal or magnet; magnets are around the screen) became too magnetized. Also, the screen hinges must be loosening or self-polishing, so the screen is getting floppier. I'll try tightening the set screws and maybe even Loctite them. https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
Also the A1278 is at best a 6 year old machine. I would imagine it's pretty normal for there to be some wear/tear issues.
A friend's MacBook (the plastic ones of the time) started cracking its case within a year, and shortly after that the HDD failed.
Apple has always presented their products as being premium, and their aesthetic isn't bad, but IMHO they're not really as well-built as they claim to be. They are better built than the cheap HPs and Toshibas, however.
Slow as heck though.
Yep, what I've learnt is that quality is less about brand, and more about whether you buy a premium or a cheap range.
Most of the market isn't upgrading ram. They aren't upgrading SSDs or batteries. They want their apple care to do it for them. I mean how many of these threads that self-select people with problems with their macs do we need? What are the real numbers?
It's not like Apple has a monopoly on laptops. There are plenty of other options. The competition is there. Yet Macbooks seem to be doing quite alright?
Cisco has a monopoly on networking gear that runs IOS.
LG has a monopoly on TVs that run WebOS.
The world is full of devices that are not open platforms for alternative operating systems. And the world is full of operating systems that are not open to commodity hardware. If you don't like Apple's choice in focusing on their particular solution which involves intimate software-hardware integration, the answer is to buy from a competitor that focuses on commodity products.
Personally I'm pleased that Apple is making their operating system the way they do. If Apple changed to suit your priorities, that would come at the expense of my priorities.
I can afford them, they're extremely reliable, high quality and most of the issues people complain about are overblown (I don't mind the Touch Bar at all, and the keyboard is just fine - you get used to it).
If it's soldered on instead of simply connected, that means repairing it requires much more skill, and can easily result in damage to other parts. What it means really is that fixing a broken macbook costs way more then it should if they just used a normal connector.
In the case of this specific example, the fact that the display cables are part of display itself means that "a 5$ repair by replacing a cable turns into a 500$ replacement of the display". Which basically equates to a 500$ yearly subscription on a 2000$ machine.
Ok, this is what I'm looking for. What statistics back this up in any way?
I have a 2010 macbook pro that is still kicking quite well. No issues at all. I'm sure you have some anecdote about some Dell too. But you say on average, in a few years, all laptops will break. Where is the evidence for this?
Are these points of failure really any more common on Apple devices than their competitors? Are other major manufacturers' products substantively better in any of these regards? Has he ever spoken to anyone who actually designs laptop circuit boards?
One of the interesting things I've noticed is that Apple product owners have a near-universal expectation of long life and durability, whereas owners of PC laptops are more likely to treat them as unfixable and/or disposable. I think this unspoken bias is playing deeply into the Rossmann perspective.
Now I don't doubt that a lot of what Louis says is technically correct, and if everyone in the independent repair industry was as competent as Louis is in 2019, he would probably have a point. But they're not, so he doesn't. Given the shoddy low standards that dominate the independent Apple device repair industry, it's unsurprising that Apple doesn't do anything to help them.
Apple got sued by several governments for trying to get out of their obligations under this warranty and instead manipulating customers into buying AppleCare.
There are plenty of reasons that I love my 2017 MBP, but it most certainly isn't a 'Pro' piece of kit. It needs to be handled with kid gloves to avoid it damaging its own screen (which was replaced by Apple TWO DAYS before the warranty expired, thankfully) - if you close it without something between keyboard and screen, the glass gets damaged. I've had cheap laptops which have put up with years of abuse (including being thrown in the back of a rally car and doing an entire International event!) without this sort of damage. The lack of ports is a problem (I don't mind them being USB-C, but two isn't enough), lack of replaceability or upgradability, etc.
I didn't expect it to last forever, but I -did- expect it to last longer than any PC laptop I've bought in the past - the previous record was 5 years out of a fairly run-of-the-mill Acer which got used every day, sometimes for 8-10 hours, and not always by me. I was hoping for about 7 years out of it, which works out to about £250/year. I'll be -very- surprised if it makes it that far, alas.
I'd never buy another Apple device.
I don't want to be an Apple apologist -- their current laptops, one of which I purchased one week ago well into this stage light fiasco, are grossly overpriced (and AppleCare+ basically seems mandatory, so that was another $400 on my bill) and I wish they were more upgradable, but at the same time as much as we bemoan non-upgradability in practice extraordinarily few ever upgrade anything. At all. They just get their next laptop.
Poorly designed because there were large number of similar problems and they were not fixed in the 2017 and 2018 iteration. It is not subjective, but objective truth. And it isn't just about the hinge.
I'm saying that the evidence of this "flexgate" being a design flaw is incredibly suspect. And it's worth noting that soldered in memory, hard drives, and heavy integration likely improves the long term reliability of those connections, in the same way that a display-connected ribbon cable removes one more point of potential issues (yet another connector interface).
Having said that, I absolutely think that Apple should offer a three year manufacturing defects warranty to all purchases, and their one year warranty (geared to push AppleCare+ which is priced primarily to cover the accidental damage coverage) is ridiculous for a high-end piece of hardware.
I use macbooks. The display is great and I do like that macos typically just works. No futzing. I'm on iOS because I trust Android less.
It's the lesser of two evils, unfortunately.
On my Linux laptop I can always run the latest software. On my Macbook Apple will stop to provide software updates at some point, but in practice the hardware is probably going to die before that anyway. On a Chromebook parts of the software stack are never going to be updated. And while most of the users probably don't care about the kernel version itself, a lot of Chrome OS features are dependent on the kernel version: with an older version you're going to miss some features (such as being able to run Linux apps), although the hardware itself would be capable of supporting them.
I don’t understand this argument.
On Chromebooks the kernel version doesn't matter if you only use basic features. But for more advanced features the kernel version determines which features are available. For example, Linux app support for Chrome OS isn't available on kernel 3.14 and older.
Chrome OS devices usually ship with a certain kernel version which isn't updated later on. So you could have a device where the hardware would be perfectly capable to support a given feature, just to not be able to use it because the vendor refuses to update one of the core components of your system.
I'm not sure what the material is, but the black cables they use don't look like regular (Kapton) ribbon cable to me. Ironically, it might be better being thinner, as then it can handle the same bend radius with less strain.
Edit: replacing the cable in the top half is very difficult yet probably still possible, judging by what the various Chinese phone repair shops have been able to do with glued-together screens.
On a Lenovo you can easily replace the keyboard becuase it is not rivited into the main case. You could also replace the display without the entire case.
They also recalled some devices for a battery enclosure problem again in 2018. Same deal: no issues, but there was a manufacturing defect that could have resulted in an issue. It was a loose screw.
I‘ve had that problem on a lot of my MacBook; I’d say most of the models 2012-2015. (I haven’t upgraded since.) I’m happy to pay for repairs: I just did on my power cable, the second time for that model, roughly every two years. Most of the time, I notice the problem at the peak of Summer, when I’ve been working like crazy, and internal temperature is likely far from bounds.
My biggest issue isn't design flaws (yes, you would expect fewer for a machine at that price) but findability. There is a ton of help online but it’s useless if I don’t know how to describe it in a search engine. I can’t take a screen capture; photos don’t show it well. Given the patterned look of the problem, the fact that I had it on several machines, I knew it was something explainable. I simply could not. Because it’s intermittent, bringing it to the Genius Bar is unhelpful.
If relevant posts are being deleted, that’s horrible. If Apple wants the problem (and the independent repairmen) to go away, offer a high-production description of the problem on your Help page; if you really feel the need to add some scaremongering that it’s too high-tech for independent shops to deal with it, but give that symptom a name.
Now the hinge, or Flexcable.
Thunderbolt 3 / USB Port frying.
Just what more to come from these 2016+ MacBook Pro TouchBar.
I am typing this on a 2015 MacBook Pro with AppleCare running out next year. Not entirely sure what happens if this laptop have problem. I surely don't want any of the current MBP.
Another way of looking at the Touch Bar MacBook Pros is that the design of their moving parts is so flawed the entire product could probably be categorized as defective.
This is unacceptable and made even worse by their SOP of removing posts that expose them to liability.
Apple has not had hardware problems like this since the Sculley years and I'm very worried things will get worse for their general-purpose computing devices before they get better. (iPhones, for now, do not seem to have the same show-stopping usability issues.)
EDIT: add missing conjunction to first sentence. Replace closing parenthesis with square bracket.
You can essentially plug a desktop computer into whatever keyboard, mouse/trackpad and display that you want; or at the very least, you have a lot of options. Why, in modern laptops with some of the most advanced industrial designs ever, is the entire experience now a pain in the neck?
A significant number of annoyances with modern laptops are not in the computing itself but in the surrounding components that are just too damned unreliable. What’s worse, these surrounding components have an entirely different useful lifetime than the interior.
I want a Mac laptop but I want to be able to “slide in” $MODERN_MAC_MOTHERBOARD under an existing robust frame that has whatever keyboard/trackpad I want. This could well include a frame that isn’t broken yet from a previous generation, and would definitely exclude unwanted “innovations” like Touch Bars. I want to slide in new batteries. I want to unhook the entire top display and replace it with a new generation of display. And if repair is required, I want to be able to go into a store and borrow a temporary display module (say) that I can slide in to my own laptop, while mailing in the broken display only.
I have a really hard time believing that there are any technical reasons not to design laptops with this kind of flexibility.
The design, beautiful. Technology unmatched at the time, Magsafe was genius, Retina display and build quality fantastic.
I was soon to be an Apple fan boy and decided to buy the next model of MBP, hoping for just minor improvements on CPU RAM etc.
I stopped myself when I saw 2016 MBP. I take Apple negativity with a lot of salt but even for me, it seems Apple has compromised Mac's quality year on year in so many ways. I still await.
I actually want to like Linux by the way. The philosophy and the fact that you can use it on environmentally sound (and repairable) hardware is exactly what I want. Unfortunately ease of use is more important to me than that. Apple has that. Everything works out of the box, from the shared Callander, notes and reading iMessages across devices to plugging into a 4K monitor and having things just work.
I mean, even if you don’t care about the repairable hardware, the surface book is frankly a cooler piece of hardware than a MBP. Sure it’s more expensive and has no thunderbolt port, but it’s really damn sexy. Unfortunately it runs windows and that’s an even worse user experience than Linux.
So I buy Apple products, not because I really want to, but because they are the lesser evil when you want unix that just works.
Why even mention "environmentally sound" hardware if the only thing you care about is convenience? When it comes time to ask yourself why you didn't do the right thing you already have your excuse: it was just so convenient. No shit.
It’s sad but sometimes the non-repairable options are actually better for the environment, even if you have to replace them[0].
And this is assuming the repairable option will even last longer, which isn’t always the case. It’s anecdotal but when I bought my 2018 MacBook Pro last October it was to replace my old 2011 MacBook Pro. The old one still works by the way. In a shorter period of just five years I’ve gone through three dells at work. Despite the dells living mainly in docking stations and being repairable two of them are dead.
To me it’s a priority list, and you are certainly free to disagree with how I prioritise, but my point was that Apple fits my list better than the other options.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/greener-electronics-2...
I don't think they repair much, but they'll be certainly happy to sell you a whole new replacement.
The light doesn't permanently 'burn in' as you describe, but if there's sunlight shining directly on the back of the laptop I can see a (very faint and blurry) outline of the logo on the screen. Putting a sticker over the logo would fix it, I suppose, though it's rarely noticeable. (If the light's bright enough to shine through the screen, it's also bright enough that I'm squinting into the sun and wanting to sit somewhere else.)
> If you carry laptop around and it's squished between books or whatever, that's how you get that. My first unibody macbook developed this issue. Now I use a hard case.
> What I suspect happened here is you had laid something heavy on top of your air so the logo disk in the lid embossed the defuser sheets.
...etc.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/256877/Why+do+I+have+a+c... https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/7ph5bi/apple_logo_ligh...