I Took Apple To Court And Won, Twice
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It took three weeks, but in the end I basically had a new laptop, except the screen.
I could find ways to do most things. Nowadays it's a lot easier.
Musicians make music, so they have to rely on other people making tools for them, whereas toolmakers can just make better tools for themselves.
That is, if you can avoid reinventing the wheel, which we aren't great at.
This isn't any kind of attack on them, it's just that when I was searching for a laptop they seemed to be having some issues and even the warranty replacements had issues. Which really sucks because the XPS lineup do look enticing for me.
Usually the answer is that they can't be without it at all.
So I never recommend Apple laptops for business owners unless they have a spare... a spare "anything" will possibly suffice especially if everything they do is online.
I only tend to buy Dell business laptops: great build quality and a 3-year next business day onsite warranty are worth every penny imo: Not as flashy and fancy as the XPS stuff but they have/had quality issues (as the commenter below mentioned).
Not sure if there's a precision model for the xps13.
Also, I could not imagine our business having spare computers.We have 600 employees maybe now, and we need more and more computers as more users need to perform work on a computer these days.
How many of your about 600 PCs die every year? The spares you need are much less than that number, as you can buy (or recover from repair hell) new computers over the course of a few days to recover your reserves.
I tend to upgrade every five years: my current laptop (MacBook Pro) is from 2016 and I see no reason to upgrade anytime soon. My 2011 laptop (MacBook Air) is still running fine. I could even work on it still, but it would not be a pleasant experience.
Apple is not so great in other parts of the world.
That may be the reason. I live in the Netherlands and I have had consistent terrible experience with Apple store repair service.
> It took three weeks, but in the end I basically had a new laptop, except the screen.
For professional use, that is just unacceptable. If you rely on your computer for income, you can't wait that long.
That is the reason why any Apple product will never be 'pro'. Regardless of how nice the hardware is, if it breaks I need a repair or replacement device immediately. IFAIK Apple does not offer such service (unless you have >50 devices).
Other brands (HP, Dell, Lenovo) offer on-site same day repair service. They send someone to your location and if they can't fix it on site, they'll give you a replacement/loaner. For me, that service is well worth the cost. If only Apple would offer that.
Asked them to replace the battery on my MBP (out of warranty), got it back with non-functioning USB ports. Had to return it 3 times, every time I got it back I tested the USB ports inside the store only to demonstrate that the problem still wasn't fixed. Eventually they even tried to convince me that this was a software bug.
After 6 weeks without working USB ports I got really angry and they finally agreed to replace the broken motherboard. When I got it back my laptop worked but it had a different keyboard installed (Dutch, instead of US intl). I complained about that and they told me that I was lying (even though a had the purchase receipt with the US keyboard option).
After that I gave up and bought a Lenovo, haven't looked back since.
The service in Amsterdam may be better, but traveling to the city center of Amsterdam twice just to get my laptop repaired is not acceptable.
Do you mean "immediately"? I'm having trouble understanding that word in this context.
This may be an unpopular opinion, and I don't mean to sound dismissive or suggest that waiting 3 weeks is normal, but I do think it is incredibly unprofessional to rely on a single device like that for work. If it's truly an indispensable part of your job, you should have a backup--that goes for anything, not just computers. It could be a 10-year-old hand-me-down or a cheapo Chromebook, but you should have a backup plan.
> Other brands (HP, Dell, Lenovo) offer on-site same day repair service. They send someone to your location and if they can't fix it on site, they'll give you a replacement/loaner. For me, that service is well worth the cost. If only Apple would offer that.
When I was first getting started as a programmer, I made most of my income by doing tech support, rather than actual programming. A large percentage of the cases were people hiring me to deal with the likes of HP, Dell, and Lenovo because their "on-site same day repair services" were absolute garbage about 50% of the time. You could get a laptop with a DoA hard drive, but they'd refuse to replace it unless it failed their specific check, which was always inadequate. It was normal to argue with them for 6+ hours about it. You could put a fresh drive in to demonstrate that the issue was gone, but they'd still refuse to do anything. It wouldn't matter if it BSODed consistently with a fresh installation on their drive but not on the drive I was using for testing, or if the SMART results were the worst I'd ever seen--no test fail, no replacement.
> IFAIK Apple does not offer such service (unless you have >50 devices).
It varies widely depending on location. If you go to a large, busy Apple store, they tend to have a lot more parts on-hand; it doesn't need to be in Silicon Valley as long as it's big. If they need to order parts, they'll give you the option to hold onto your device until the parts arrive. I've gotten apologies when a repair took longer than 24 hours. I tend to prefer the Microsoft store method, though: when I've had issues with Surface-series devices, they've never attempted to repair it there; they just hand me a new one. It's hard to beat that. (I guess Apple's approach is better if you need to recover your data, but I never save anything valuable on a single device.)
But if you're a professional and depend on one being available at all times, it's part of the cost of doing business.
What if your machine was not faulty and repairable, but stolen, broken because you've dropped it, etc? There would be no warranty/repair at play there, and no replacement unit.
So, a professional should always account for a backup machine as a, well, backup as part of the cost of doing business.
If they can't afford a second machine, they can ask themselves if they can afford weeks without a machine and customers waiting for work to be completed, more...
I think the point you're missing is that it needn't be a requirement of doing business, unless you insist on using Apple products. And, even if I have a full closet of old computers (I do) that doesn't mean I find it enjoyable to switch back to old hardware for a week or more, when the alternative is somebody coming to me within a day to fix it on site. If I enjoyed using that old hardware, I probably wouldn't have the new hardware would I? Surely any typical Apple user prefers using their brand new $2000 computer over their old computer that would struggle to get a tenth of that on ebay.
I don't think I'm missing any point.
Comparably spec'ed laptops from PC vendors are of similar price. And even a desktop tower-style PC soon goes to more than $2K with good enough components (if you're a video or audio pro, for example -- a sysadmin could get away with a $300 PC barely able to run SSH). At best you save the Apple premium (let's say 20%), but there's still a cost for a second unit, and you should consider it part of the cost of doing business.
>And, even if I have a full closet of old computers (I do) that doesn't mean I find it enjoyable to switch back to old hardware for a week or more, when the alternative is somebody coming to me within a day to fix it on site
Who said anything about "old hardware"? Your backup should just as well be a twin machine to your main driver, that you buy in pairs as backup.
This all is common (and obvious) practice for businesses -- who buy spare PCs, or lease their equipment and can have new ones on demand. It should also be common practice for an individual developer/designer/pro computer user working in an one-man-shop.
But let's pretend good support contracts don't exist because if it's not Apple it must not be real... If I'm going to pay the full price for duplicate hardware, I may as well wait until the day it breaks then walk into an Apple store and buy whatever they have in stock at the moment. I'll be walking down to the Apple store to get the broken one fixed anyway, won't I? And on the off chance that the computer never breaks I've just saved myself $2k that I can use to buy a bunch of cocaine and throw a party to celebrate reliable consumer hardware. That sounds like a lot more fun than owning twinned computers, no? You're invited.
If I lost my laptop, then yes, I would bite the bullet and buy a new one.
If I need some trivial issue to be fixed by replacing part of the panel, I shouldn't have to go buy a new one to use for one week.
Has HN forgotten that some folks don't have the resources we do (now).
When I first got in the game, I had only one machine for like three years. I was super happy Dell came onsite to swap the laptop main board (c2001). I couldn't afford a second box and for sure couldn't afford a three week delay.
Apple, with all that cash, should be able to deliver a similar experience.
Not many tasks require high end hardware
I have a service contract on my car, if it breaks the dealer will supply me with a loaner while my car is being repaired. I don't want to buy a second car just because my primary car may or may not break.
The same goes for my laptop. I always pay for a service contract so I don't have to buy an extra laptop that I may never need. I don't like over-consuming.
I guess my frustration is that I bought a $3000 'pro' grade laptop, and paid an additional ~$300 for the 'care' package and still got the same service level as their consumer customers get. I would have happily paid even more to get a solid service contract, but Apple just doesn't offer that (at least not in my country).
1. A backup laptop is cheaper than a backup car.
2. You don't need your car for work; you can take Uber/Lyft or a taxi if need be.
3. If you do need your car for work, you've accepted loss of your car of extended periods of time as a risk and have probably gotten insurance for that. I hope.
4. If you're a big company for which cars are an integral part of your business, you have backups.
I don't take my car to dealers to get it repaired. The ones around here do a terrible job, and when I take it back, it's not unusual for the mechanics to sabotage various components (e.g., deliberately point both headlights as far down as they'll go). I'd rather forego the loaner and take my car to a reputable independent mechanic.
Additionally, the dealers around here usually don't offer a loaner anyway without an extra fee, except under certain circumstances (e.g., the repair takes longer than they expected because they broke my windshield and had to order a replacement--yes, that happened).
There's a difference between backups and failover.
It's unprofessional to not have backups, yes.
Expecting every working person to own 2 expensive laptops 'just in case' a faulty keyboard design requires 1 week of downtime? Makes no sense.
A cheap Chromebook or 10 year laptop is almost certainly not going to be usable as a replacement so it will have to be a larger investment than that.
I can do everything I need to do from that Chromebook, and I have a very hard time seeing how others couldn't do the same. I can use Chrome Remote Desktop to connect to my desktop or a cloud-based workstation as long as I have an internet connection--and my two phones have two distinct carriers, so that's rarely an issue.
Really down on my luck? I've got a few Raspberry Pis on which I can use vim. They're slow, but they work.
They do offer this in the US. Not sure about globally. Can use it for one device, and they have loaners if a repair will take more than 24h.
https://www.apple.com/retail/business/jointventure/terms.htm...
I have a 2012 Dell Inspiron sitting next to me as a server. It was a pretty good machine, though never my daily driver. Main complaint is that replacing anything (in my case the hard drive) requires removing everything out of the plastic shell, there is no drive bay door like on my similar vintage HP.
Meanwhile the next year's group got about 10 Dell inspiron laptops of the new 2013ish redesign, and I've never seen a lower quality laptop. Each and every one needed to be completely replaced at least once. Screws were just falling out of the case because the build quality was so bad.
For reference, the warranty on these laptops was so good (at about a 200-300 dollar price tag) that the Dell representatives told us the day before it expired we should throw our computers down a flight of stairs to get new ones
That is also how they keep repair costs low.
I always think they are better designed than Apple computers and today they even look nice.
The typical cost for this to corporations (maintaining their own service desks or going via contractors dedicated to their company) is extremely high. Are you saying that HP and Dell offer this level of support to individual consumers through vendors for a nominal fee? $300 wouldn't even cover a keyboard replacement in terms of the hourly rate, so I'm not sure how you could expect to have that level of service by paying for Apple Care. A full replacement laptop would likely cost LESS than subscribing to that level of service, but might be an opportunity for a third party company if there's enough volume in it I suppose.
I can answer this for Dell (Alienware).
Yes. At a price comparable to Apple Care (Around $300 at the time, it was 5 years ago). This was for my Alienware device. The power supply died because I was dumb and had plugged the computer directly into the wall, and there was a power surge. Replacement wasn't literally the next day as I'd called in the evening after the cutoff time. But still, it was one day after that. When I got home, it was fixed. No fuss, no muss. Online support had me go through a few things before they'd send out a repair guy, but it wasn't anything unreasonable. It was the only time I needed a repair.
The price I paid covered 3 years of that level of service, the same as Apple Care.
Edit: Because I saw you ask in other locations: this was just me personally buying through Dell's website.
Right now a base warranty for an XPS includes on site repair during business hours after a remote diagnosis for one year. Getting three years of that is $160. One year of the more advanced "ProSupport" is $50 more than the base price, and three years of that is $280 more. The non-linearity between those two figures is perhaps indicative of the failure rates Dell is expecting.
I couldn't say if Dell is losing their ass with these service contracts or not, but from what I've seen it works pretty well for the consumers.
Edit: And beyond baseline reliability, the particular design of a computer can determine whether a particular failure is cheap or expensive to fix. If the Foo widget requires replacing the Bar board, that's going to be a more expensive design to fix than a computer in which the Foo widget and the Bar board aren't soldered together. This matter crops up in things like "flexgate" for Apple, where faulty cables necessitate replacing the entire screen. What could have been a very cheap repair suddenly becomes a very expensive repair. I can't claim to be familiar with the insides of a modern XPS, but I wager they tend to be cheaper to repair than modern MBPs.
I looked up my purchase, $2639 for the laptop, $311.75 for 5 years of next day onsite repair service and $169.25 for 5 years of accidental damage protection.
Previous to converting to Lenovo I had two Macbooks. The first Intel white Macbook lasted about a year and a half before dying. I didn't have apple care but when I replaced that with a Macbook Pro I got apple care. That laptop was repaired 8 times, the 9th time it needed to be repaired Apple told me it would cost $800 to replace the motherboard because I had upgraded the hard drive.
Needless to say I swore off Apple's crappy HW and purchased my first Lenovo. That x230 never needed any service. My current X1 only broke because I plugged in a 10 year old $15 off brand external cdrom that fried and pumped 12v from the power adapter into the USB port.
Three weeks ago my Macbook Pro's keyboard (with the butterfly design) became completely unusable after 6 months of being mostly unusable.
Not only did the authorized service provider (Apple doesn't have its own presence where I live) take more than a week to get it replaced, they refused to do it under warranty because there were some scratch marks on the side of the laptop.
They told me to contact Apple Support if I wanted to dispute that.
After spending 6 days haggling with Apple Support and being bounced from agent to agent, I was finally told that they cannot replace under the existing Apple Care warranty because of the scratches on the side.
I then asked them to give me, in writing, a note explaining that they were denying me service under warranty for the keyboard issue.
That seems to have done the trick. Two days later she called back and said they re-reviewed my case and were going to fix it under warranty.
I spent almost 2 weeks without the laptop while fighting with Apple over a pre-existing design flaw in a laptop that had extended Apple Care.
If you can't live without your computer, you should have a backup waiting and ready to go in case your primary fails. If you're going to lose $500/day from not doing your work, doesn't it make sense to spend $500-1000 on a backup system?
I had some lady tell me she was losing $3000/day and needed her computer fixed urgently. Her work didn't involve any intense computational work, so I pointed her to a $500 machine that would do the same work. She got so offended that she could have saved $8500 by having a backup machine, but she opted to go without her computer instead for 3 days. I put her right at the back of the queue like everybody else.
I once had a screen issue, I took the laptop in and they replaced the screen with no questions asked and at no charge. However it took a week and I couldn’t go a week without my computer.
The Apple store rep pointed me at their return policy on laptops, specifically no questions asked 30-day returns, and told me that while he couldn’t rent me a computer that I could buy a backup and get 100% refund if I brought it back in 30 days.
So that’s what I did: “purchased” an alternate with a credit card, used it for 8 days, brought it back when my laptop was fixed, and they refunded the charge. I was never out any money.
Psychologically, I’d like it better if they offered that more readily and with a lower deposit to put down - so I’m not trying to argue that this policy is just great and has no issues.
But, if you ever find yourself in that situation and can’t go without a computer, maybe that option will help you get by.
I wonder if these out of country operations are being denied the cash required to the repairs or if they just have problems getting parts so they end up being much more stingy about replacement?
Well sure, it was a recall.
>In the process, they broke the power unit, so they replaced that and my six year old battery, both at no charge. They also replaced the top case at no charge while doing the second repair because they said they damaged it during repair.
>It took three weeks...
So... they busted up your machine while performing the repair, extending the time to 3 WEEKS. not sure how this is an endorsement of Apple's repair services.
This is absolutely the case. I've been in Apple services both in US and in many other countries in Europe and Eastern Europe. The farther from US, the worse.
They replaced your defective design motherboard(whether it was Nvidia GPU or C9560) with ... another defective design motherboard, plus some shoe rubber to prop badly soldered parts(dead serious, Apple refurb outfit glues rubber to bga chips in order to wedge them against outer case because its easier/faster/cheaper than replacing bad solder).
>in the end I basically had a new laptop
build using same factory defective parts, with life expectancy of at most couple years IF they actually replaced GPU with new one, there were plenty cases of Apple refurb motherboard dying almost instantly leading even Apple technicians to suspect foul play http://advancedreworks.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-2692.ht...
Whomever is in charge seems not to have learned from this as well.
Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy.
... And suing customers like crazy to support a less repairable product strategy.
When apple starts making a show of actually putting up not-intentionally-cryptic schematics and supplying the market with the parts necessary to repair their dying machines (batteries would be a good start) I might loosen my tinfoil hat, but you'll have to forgive me for the time being...
It's the same reason most companies try to prevent third parties from repairing their products. 100% "I don't want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job".
I'm just saying that if a company _does_ make it hard to repair their products, and you sat in on the meeting where that decision was made, you're going to hear "I'm tired of people trying to repair our products and screwing it up".
MBP with water damage to the battery charging circuitry. Battery is fine. Laptop is fine on AC power.
Let's see how much it'll cost... maybe $300ish? Labor, parts?
Nope. "That will be $899. Maybe we should talk about getting you into a new MBP instead?"
Let's suppose that the UK repair operation is manage separately. Let's call that exec Joe. And suppose further that the person in charge measured by metrics like "doesn't spend any more on repairs per sale than the US operation does", implying that spending less is better.
Joe making a rule something like "refuse any warranty repairs if a moisture sensor trips, even if the damage is unrelated" is a pretty easy way to keep repairs down. Some people may sue, sure, but probably not many.
And let's assume further, as is common, that Apple's lawyers are all on staff and under their General Counsel. That means they're a fixed cost, and not directly on the budget of the repair operation. That is not one of the metrics Joe is evaluated by. Maybe they won't need to add any new lawyers to handle the extra load; maybe they will. Further, any relationship between repair rules and legal costs will be hard to spot, given that it's delayed by time and filtered through many people.
So at worst, Joe might down the road have to face some sort of complicated analysis from the head of legal complaining about increased costs. But he can point to repair cost savings, so it'll be difficult to say whether on net he's making or costing Apple money.
I would guess the bigger risk for Joe is not legal expenses but the PR problem from writeups like this or an eventual decline in something like a Net Promoter Score metric as more people feel put off by Apple. Those, however, are also pretty long feedback loops. So Joe gets an immediate reduction in repair costs versus the possibility of a problem a year or three down the road. Many ambitious execs are perfectly fine with that; they're hoping to be in a new position anyway in a couple of years, so it may be the next guy's problem.
And really, Joe may not have a problem at all; as this article makes clear, having to sue the company wasn't enough to keep the guy from buying another Apple laptop. That's not a great incentive for anybody to change behavior.
“Customer hostile” seems to be a perfectly “good” way to run a business if you goal is raw profit. Doubly so in the US with essentially non-existent consumer protection law.
In the US, people generally have at most a couple of ISP choices, and the general pattern of duopolies is to offer basically the same thing with minor differentiators (e.g., one will be 10% cheaper and 10% worse). Many airline routes are minimally competitive.
This is not getting better with ecosystem lock-in effects. As TFA mentions, this guy had such a bad experience that he sued Apple, and he still bought another laptop from them. That's because Apple intentionally killed off the companies that built MacOS compatible hardware, and never allowed anybody else to build IOS phones or tablets.
Most people have very limited choices, and all those choices engage in essentially the same user-hostile practices anyway. The only “choice” is to leave it altogether, which is visibly happening now there is an alternative to cable TV, but not having an internet connection isn't an option for most people.
It's also often a profitable way to run a company. Take a look at the Net Promoter Score for the Fortune 500: https://customer.guru/net-promoter-score/fortune-500
The number in theory ranges from 100 (everybody would enthusiastically promote to friends) to -100 (the opposite). Some well-liked companies include Apple at 47, Starbucks at 77, and Costco at 79. In contrast, Comcast is -3, Time Warner is -5, United is -8. There are definitely some places loved by customers in the Fortune 500, but as you look down the list it's far from universal.
Comcast's profit was something like $11 billion last year. Are they customer hostile? Notoriously. Do they care? Not really!
Routine cases like these will be managed with boilerplate briefs and filings, standard arguments, and form letters.
Claims may be checked very briefly to make sure there's nothing unusual or legally dangerous about them. If there isn't, the process will likely be handled by standard templated paperwork, and might as well be automated.
Nominal numbers = bad KPI
Ratios = good KPI
"Repair spend / (lost) court filings" is a way better ratio than plain "Repair spend".
But yes, it's perfectly possible that a company would use a bad nominal metric like "repair spend". It need not even be explicit. Typical budgeting processes encourage that sort of thing because it's seen as good to be under budget and bad to be over it.
Not when even the CEO lists repairs as one of bigger growth concern https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-invest...
They wouldn't replace a faulty magsafe charger that suddenly died and that was still under warranty. The "genius" (that term is so ridiculous) at the store claimed that accessories were not covered, which is very very wrong under European laws.
He then left me waiting and went asking his manager. This took a good 20 minutes and when he came back, the employee was adamant that the only way out of this was to pay 100€ for a new charger. I had to pull law excerpts, raised the tone of the conversation and started making a fuss.
Then the mood magically changed when the other customers started noticing the argument and I left with a brand new charger.
This was a terrible customer experience.
For example, a computer Apple said had "been in a bathtub" when it was really just a manufacturing defect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2r-g8EaTfY
FWIW, my experience with Dell has been the complete opposite. I complained about a couple issues with an Alienware laptop (processor whine, low battery life) and they had a tech at my house the next day with replacement parts. Probably the best service I've ever gotten on any type of product.
This goes to show how long consumers hold grudges when brands let them down. And those consumers eventually Jin corporate purchasing departments.
Had lots of trouble with Dell hardware - but excellent support in most cases.
(I think 25% of our Dell motherboards broke in the spring of 2006 because of a batch of bad capacitors, and I think I heard rumours that more broke after I left that place, but service was always great until recently, and I'm now so far away from hardware I don't know if it is Dells fault or the sysadmins fault in a recent case I think of.)
The capacitor plague. Pretty much everybody in the industry was hit by that to at least some extent:
> "Major vendors of motherboards such as Abit,[9] IBM,[1] Dell,[10] Apple, HP, and Intel[11] were affected by capacitors with faulty electrolytes. In 2005, Dell spent some US$420 million replacing motherboards outright and on the logistics of determining whether a system was in need of replacement.[12][13] Many other equipment manufacturers unknowingly assembled and sold boards with faulty capacitors, and as a result the effect of the capacitor plague could be seen in all kinds of devices worldwide. "
Beyond that, there is something entitled about earning your entire income repairing another company’s devices while also demanding they make proprietary parts and knowledge available to you.
I wish there were a critic of Apple’s repair policies that had less of an agenda than Rossman.
Can you provide examples?
2. In 2016, Rossman claimed that Apple had a 4 Gigabyte memory chip buffer on their webcams. He speculates that this is due to a nefarious intent on Apple's part. In actuality, it is a 4 Gigabit (512 MB) chip that acts as a buffer. [1]
3. In 2018, Rossman claimed that Apple had contacted Customs and Border Protection to have his import shipment of Apple batteries seized. He claimed that they were genuine OEM batteries, maybe scavenged from old devices. [2] In actuality, the devices really were counterfeit. Rossman had contracted an OEM manufacturer to build batteries to Apple's original spec, which bore Apple's logo, most likely without Apple's knowledge. [3]
[0] - https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/12677-free-speech-un...
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3-j_RaX74
[2] - https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw
[3] - https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...
No.2 dude messed up. No disagreement there. But you are spinning his confusion into: "due to a nefarious intent on Apple's part." That wasn't the tone of the video at all.
No.3 you say, and cite, that what he claimed was true (that a shipment of Apple compatible batteries he had imported was seized). In the original video he said quite clearly they weren't OEM because Apple no longer supplies these "vintage" batteries to even authorized repair centers. Here's the YT transcript (as is):
> the Apple store and I say I would like to buy this battery can i buy this battery please they say no if I become an Apple authorized service provider and I wish to obtain parts to a machine that has been considered vintage Apple will say no if I talk to somebody in China who says hey these are not those knockoff batteries where we take you know where we just like put apple logos on a bunch of crappy cells and send it to you these are the good batteries these are the batteries that are responsible for us being 4.9 out of five
But you said: "He claimed that they were genuine OEM batteries" the transcript above from the video you linked paints a very different picture.
Your original claim was:
> deep a history of twisting facts to make Apple look bad.
But you haven't made that case here.
Your position on the guy feels a little "cart before the horse." You dislike what the guy believes/stands for/his criticism, and then went out looking for reasons to justify that belief.
Your post essentially implies he's a criminal for using "stolen" schematics to repair customer's own equipment and making compatible batteries (which, I'll fully admit, shouldn't have had the Apple logo on them: not cool).
Sounds a lot like Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
1. Rossmann claims that Apple is suing him, that his entire channel is going to be shut down, and that his business might disappear. Later, Rossmann clarifies that Apple just wanted him to take down, or edit out a single video that showed their IP.
3. Rossman claims that Apple contacted CBP to have his shipment of batteries seized in retaliation for a story he did with the CBC. Rossman states they are "good" batteries, that they could be refurbished or scavenged from old machines. He claims that they are not counterfeit. Later, Rossman admits that they are not refurbished or scavenged, but are newly manufactured, but not authorized by Apple, even though they bear Apple's logo. That is literally a counterfeit.
I'm not trying to cast Rossmann in a bad light, I was asked to provide examples of how Rossmann twists facts to make Apple seem more nefarious than they are. That list is why I take everything Rossmann says with a large grain of salt.
It is not the case that one side is right, and the other is wrong. I am not attempting to make the case that Apple should be uncriticized.
I read what you linked. Your links don't support your claims.
> I think a clear pattern of "twisting facts" emerges when you look at Rossmann's original claims, and then see how those claims are walked back or "clarified" by further statements.
You haven't given an example of that. In examples you did give you mischaracterized his original statements several times. You can still watch the original videos as you linked as evidence of that (and or read the transcripts, like the excerpt I provided above).
> 1. Rossmann claims that Apple is suing him, that his entire channel is going to be shut down, and that his business might disappear. Later, Rossmann clarifies that Apple just wanted him to take down, or edit out a single video that showed their IP.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Apple made a threat (i.e. lawsuit, take-down on his channel) and then "settled" for him just removing certain content they found objectionable.
It is great that Apple's legal threats didn't come to full fruition, but they existed. This just isn't a strong example of what you're claiming, there was nothing mislead about saying an actual legal threat with actual legal consequences was received relating to his work with "right to repair."
> Later, Rossman admits that they are not refurbished or scavenged, but are newly manufactured, but not authorized by Apple, even though they bear Apple's logo.
He said that in the original video about the incident you yourself linked. I provided the transcript above.
It was really relaxing and interesting to watch, but now that he's complaining about Apple half the time, it's significantly less enjoyable for me to watch.
Apple won't let third parties produce Apple compatible parts (or sell parts sold to Apple also to non-Apple repair centers). Even if Apple just got out of the way, and offered no help/supply chain, it would be a stark improvement.
But instead they've been using hardware DRM to effectively make third party repairs impossible. If you replace a part with an identical part, you need Apple's software to authorize the change otherwise it won't boot.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/30/apple-right-to-repair-c...
Rossman has it right. You're paying thousands of dollars for what amounts to an utter POS laptop. The earlier models were technical marvels and then Apple bean counters took over. But Apple needs to get on the same page with all the professionals who use their products and rely on them to make a living. How could they lose touch so badly?
> they're superior to the more common "asshole NYer"
West Coasters don't see the distinction. California culture (and many other cultures, I'm sure) believes that making people feel bad is the ultimate social sin and should be avoided at all costs. In their eyes, "telling it like it is" makes you an asshole.
But as a consumer, chances are that you won't be home when the repair technician arrive, because it happens during work hours and you are at work. It means that going to the Apple store may be the easier option.
A few months ago I spilled about 300ml of water on top of my MacBook Pro. It's one of the newer models with the touchbar and the terrible butterfly keyboard (otherwise it's a fantastic machine though). The spillage happened just as I was about to finish work for the day. There was a lot of water there on top of the keyboard. It took me 5 or 6 large napkins to dry it out, even after having drained it first by leaning it sideways. I closed the laptop, put it on its case and went home for the day.
Next morning I took it off the case at work and switched it on, just to find the display behaving oddly (weird colours and artefacts). After a few minutes, the display froze and I believe the whole computer did too. I force-rebooted it and the same thing happened, only this time a lot quicker. After a third time I decided to keep it shut down and head back home to get my backup computer.
I made an appointment at the Apple store and took it in. I described what happened precisely, didn't leave a single detail out. They took it in, found zero water damage but acknowledged the problems. I was told it could take up to 10 days as I use a US keyboard (this happened in London) and they might not have one in stock.
About 4 days later I got a call to pick it up. They had replaced the logic board and the display and cleaned up the keyboard, all free of charge. I do have Apple Care on it but if I recall correctly this was done under warranty and would have happened regardless.
About a year in left shift literally just stops working over the course of about a half hour. The button under the keycap is apparently just done. I use karabiner to remap (only when karabiner is running) left ctrl to left shift and caps lock to left ctrl (just using capslock as shift is painful). One OS update later I get an error message that the keyboard is unrecognized. When it finishes rebooting the remapping is now permanent for some reason and unalterable (I don't have any reason to want to though because it's the only way I can write capital letters without right shift).
A year and a half in, it's working one night, then the next morning I open it and it's showing rainbowy artifacts everywhere that only appear when the screen is past like a quarter way open.
I finally go to an Apple store, where they take it and basically say "yeah all of that is stuff that happens, we'll check what it is and let you know". I get notified that it will be 700$ to replace the display module which they say is at fault.
I just took it back and paid 50$ for the diagnostics and bought an XPS13. Life is good. My mbp works if attached to an external monitor or projector.
I also like Canon Professional Services. Annual fee but free maintenance on up to 10 camera bodies and lenses, 30% discount on any actual repair work, with free shipping both ways, and will begin NBD, _and_ they will overnight you a replacement to use while they repair it).
You blatantly admit that you spilled water on your laptop but none of the stickers changed color because that's not where the water landed? Congratulations, you're still in warranty.
One of the stickers got triggered by using the machine in a humid environment and your machine fails for a completely unrelated reason? Too bad, all repair will be refused unless you pay for a new logic board.
On the other hand, the service I mentioned from Dell is part of their standard warranty, included with every new (and refurbished) computer.
> There's no need for LIQUID CONTACT, or WATER DAMAGE
> to trigger the 'sensor' but just humidity, caused
> for example, by taking the laptop from a well-heated
> room outside, in the winter.
Just yesterday I picked up my out-of-warranty MacBook Pro whose battery was starting to show problems after 3 years... turns out it was originally a faulty battery and they replaced it for free -- the whole top case including the keyboard.
Last year my out-of-warranty iPhone had battery swelling so it was unsafe to swap the battery, so for the $29 price of a battery replacement they gave me a brand-new iPhone.
Fraying cable on earphones? Replaced them for free as well a couple of years ago. Lost the rubber buds at another point? I stopped in, they just gave me an extra pair no charge.
Maybe being in NYC has something to do with it? But service at the Apple store has been so far above and beyond any other company I've ever dealt with, it's been a no-brainer to pay the "premium Apple tax" in the long run for me.
I wonder how much discretion managers in stores/countries have to be generous or stingy, though, or if they explicitly have different internal policies around these things.
Maybe the product doesn't break, and you save money, and don't have to deal with Apple.
Or the product breaks, and you get the latest and greatest instead of a year old referbished.
Their revenue is levelling off now as the markets they're in mature and they need to continue profit growth. They do this by raising prices (see the iPhone 6,7,8,X dance) and reduce their costs to expand their margin. Lowering repair costs is now a key part of their strategy in a way that it wasn't 10 years ago.
A more durable phone reduces the incentive to upgrade to a newer device every 18-24 months like was the case with iPhones from 10 years ago — like the iPhone 3GS — it offered a compelling reason to upgrade because it was released with much faster hardware specs than the iPhone 3G before it.
The pace of hardware improvements: 2G -> 3G -> 4G cellular speeds; camera pixel count increases; faster processors etc, has reduced considerably.
10 years ago, an 'Apple Genius' was a relatively skilled role, and was permitted decision making discretion.
In 2011 Apple Store employees went on a strike, and due to the skilled labor nature of the role, Apple was not able to quickly hire replacements. Apple had to cede to some labor demands.
Ever since 2011, Apple has been putting a TON of energy into removing the skill from the Genius position.
1- Removal of troubleshooting from the role. Almost ALL genius work is now following a flow chart on the iPad, without involvement of the brain. People that have been hired in the past few years have no understanding of what is going on beyond the iPad workflow.
2- Removal of discretion from the role. A genius's ability to help you is now based on advocacy. Meaning, if they feel sympathy for you, all they can do is ask their manager to make an exception.
3- reducing the scope of the role. Stores have been reconfigured in a way that makes figuring out whats going on more difficult, and reduces the ability to find a workspace or access tools.
4- probably incidental but the scope of repairs possible has decreased, too. When your choice is to replace the screen, top half, or bottom half of the laptop there isn't much to think about aside from where the screws are.
I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. Is your point that Apple's response to organized labor was to try to make sure that those employees are easily replaceable in the future? That sounds tremendously counterproductive. Though perhaps it's the exact sort of shortsightedness we should expect from large corporations today.
This is not unique to Apple by any means.
I'm especially enraged by 2: You visit the store with a broken machine costing upwards 3K (including the Apple Care plan) and you have to put up a little play to make yourself likeable to the genius. This is not serious customer service. I expect my case to be examined seriously, without prejudice and without me having to outguess how Apple works to get the service I've already paid for.
I'm also curious on whether Apple encourages geniuses to be unfriendly via incentives/counter-incentives. E.g. would the genius get a sale bonus if they get me to buy a new computer/tablet/phone after our consultation? Would a genius be penalized if they approve more free repairs than what some sort of AI algorithm predicted?
PS. If you have a source to cite (so I can share it elsewhere), that would be most welcome.
We saw this all the time: my phone never got wet. Crack it open with the ol’ spudger, find a blue-green mess.
Had one lady bring hers in smelly like pee: her cat.
Had another pull it out of her cleavage: full of salty crystals and moisture.
I never went off that stupid paper, since the moisture of the PacNW air during rainy season is enough to set them off.
But yeah people treat their expensive, sensitive gadgets like shit
But that experience leads me to believe those water indicators are considerably more sensitive than the electronics themselves. If I had gone in there complaining about some weird issue instead of simply wanting a new battery, would the lack of apparent corrosion on the board still lead that Apple employee to conclude that the board wasn't water damaged?