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Comment by russtrotter | Hacker News Reader

I'm sitting here typing this response on a 2016 MBP (the first gen with the butterfly keyboard and touchbar). Due to some thermal issues, I unscrewed the cover to blow the dust out and discovered my batteries are all swelling. Yikes. I wonder if there's a follow-on recall in a year or so for this generation. I bought a battery replace kit from ifixit so I might kick the can down the road for a bit longer, time will tell.

More broadly thinking though, Unix/BSD underpinnings OS, driver support, and hardware that sacrificed thin/light for components that were reliable and some DIY capability? I kid can dream

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There's a recall on now according to Reuters.

Apple recalls certain older MacBook Pro units

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1TL2BW

The model is "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)"

and here is the link to check your serial number: https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

I have this model and my Macbooks serial number is not "eligible". Let's hope for the best... :'(

I've seen dozens of comments over the last 24 hours saying that people have swelling batteries but their serial number is not covered. I would hope for a more comprehensive recall soon since these issues just keep popping up.

I'm one of them, and I'm a 2018 model! My serial number is not covered. The best part is since I live in Central America there is no apple store here, and the official resellers told me I must take it to the USA where I bought it. The last apple product I will ever buy.

the official resellers told me I must take it to the USA where I bought it.

This is such a common policy that it's a surprise to me when it's not the case. There's even a term for it: a "grey market" product, meaning a product intended for sale in one region/country, but shipped to another. Warranties are often a dodgy proposition in these cases.

My advice to anyone buying a product in another country that may need warranty service: check the manufacturer's policies before buying. Can you use the regular service network(s) in your country, or will you need to ship the product for service? To where? Will you have warranty coverage at all? In some cases, as the parent noted, policy may depend on your regional distributor rather than the manufacturer.

My own claims to be eligible, so I guess I'll be sending it away to Apple camp for a couple weeks. Luckily I don't rely upon it for anything critical. I would imagine if yours says its not eligible that it probably isn't affected... or at least, it's affected but they don't yet fear the legal repercussions enough to offer free battery replacements for your model yet...

If you're in the EU you have quite a lot of rights when it comes to repair, it's worth looking into.

I think the swollen batteries are quite common in the MacBook Pros. Seems to be plenty of reports on the net. Typically people seem to notice this when the trackpad or keyboard starts acting funny.

Not sure if Apple even considers that as a defect or if it is just the way some of the batteries are expected to behave when they get old.

I think old battery packs (and new ones for larger laptops) were generally cylindrical cells, and the new ones are flat packs which do seem to have more issues with mechanical problems (like Samsung's phones a few years ago) which cause swelling.

I have a new-ish Dell laptop, and its battery spontaneously started bulging. It was right after I took it away from my desk after many weeks of sitting on the charging dock. First I thought I had accidentally cracked it open, pushed it back together, and a couple minutes later it cracked open again on its own.

Fortunately this was a "work" computer, the IT crew fixed it in a jiffy. But I wonder if it uses a similar type of battery, looked like a thin black pillow when the tech took it apart.

Which is really odd that I have never experienced or seen it in the older laptops. Perhaps it's a fairly new thing in the increasingly common thin form factor (Apple or otherwise but I haven't heard much of others).

Older laptops left space for the batteries so they could swell slightly without damaging the laptop. Apple's design leaves no such space.

Are Apple using cylindrical cells or pouches? Cylindrical cells doesn't swell in the same way and have pressure cap before they crack the shell. Pouches probably has to swell abit before their cap pop.

Happened to my 2013 one this year with half the trackpad not clicking and the fans spinning crazy loud. I ended up paying apple $300 to fix it which at the time annoyed me but they ended up replacing the battery, fans, trackpad, case, keyboard, and potentially even the monitor so it felt brand new when I got it back which was nice.

Everything but the logic board, I guess? That's pretty nice

They told us that it’s caused by running it off of the charger exclusively 24/7 instead of using it like a loptop with full drain and charge cycles. 4 of our 2015 models swelled out of 4

Yep, I have 3 older models with swollen batteries.

I do think it's interesting that the quality of the MBP have fallen so much. Obviously, they have improved specs, but my 2013 MBP is still going strong.

I am kinda nervous about the battery swelling; maybe I should open it up and take a look.

I also have a 2013 MBP that I use all the time, and it's slowly starting to show its age. I want to upgrade it, but I'm honestly lost as to what model to update it with. I've heard all sorts of bad things about the new MBPs. Does anyone know what Mac laptop I should buy?

I have a mid-2015 Retina MBP I'd be willing to part with... i7 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Fair warning... there's apparently a battery recall active for this model. It is, however, commonly referred to as "the last good one", just prior to the touchbar and butterfly switch keys.

To be fair, my 2011 MPB’s battery swelled. I think the securing screws were stripped during installation, and I couldn’t even replace the battery myself.

I think this just happens sometimes. I have a 2008 Macbook Pro (first 15" "unibody" model) and its user-replaceable battery pack started swelling after it got pretty old. I took it to the Apple Store and they said it's not uncommon for old batteries. I bought a new one, handed them the old one, and was on my way.

Watch Louis Rossman on YT, he pokes his finger in Apple's eye constantly.

What's most unfortunate is that millions of professionals want and need solid computers to do their work on. This is why we went to Apple from the horrible PC experience. Both Windows and the laptops from Dell and IBM weren't holding up because "made in China." Now Apple has chintzed out in a big way.

I'm typing this from a 2018MBP. The keyboard sucks, I barely use it. My company has hundreds of these in service and the failure rate of keyboards is quite high. One of my colleagues is on his 3rd unit in just under a year and we quip that he should torture test these things for Apple. Have seen numerous motherboard failures, odd issues with the screens, and a couple of bricked units. The battery thing has not happened to anyone I know personally.

I have had zero problems with this current one, but a 2016 model I had in 2017 had to be repaired, it just completely died.

The dongles are a plague. I have one attached to the back of my screen with velcro so that when I go to meetings I can hook up to the A/V equipment without having to run back across the building to get the damn part that should just be part of the whole computer.

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