Apple Vision Pro users reporting cracked outer surfaces
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> The crack appears to be a sudden shear in the nose bridge, which would be the weakest part of the glass mold. Those with the issue speaking to Apple Support have been told to pay the AppleCare deductible of $300 for a repair.
> Without AppleCare a cover glass repair would cost $800.
Minimum "deductible" to the tune of several hundred dollars?! How is this obvious defect not covered in full by the device's basic 1-year limited warranty[2]?
If these claims are indeed true at face value, then I fully expect a massive class action lawsuit would be entirely in order.
[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/02/22/reports-are-sprea...
[2] https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/ios-warranty-d...
Guess how much a cover glass repair costs without AppleCare? To cite yourself... $800.
You literally save... nothing. It's like insurance that pays out your own deductible dollar-for-dollar. Maybe you save $1, depending on where you ask. You really only save money on the second accidental crack. But not the third, because AppleCare only covers 2 accidents.
This is different to the claim here AppleCare is profitable on every unit even if they do pay out.
It's clearly worth it if you have butterfingers and manage to break it twice.
2. all of the above analysis only covers glass breakage. More costly breakages also changes the equation.
The profit from insurance comes from investing the premiums before they get paid out as claims.
Warren Buffet explains it in a lot of his letters to investors, basically the consumer insurance game is about growing the pot by discounting as close to cost of claims (or below) so you can make investment gains on the money paid as premiums.
But remember AppleCare+ covers accidental damage. If the glass breaks due to manufacturer defect in the 1 year limited warranty period, you get a free replacement whether you have AC+ or not.
But it generally takes them a bit of time to confirm that it's actually a manufacturing or design defect rather than people who just dropped it on the floor, and then ensure they have non-defective parts available.
I've personally had one MacBook screen and two AirPods replaced completely for free because of manufacturing defects over the past ten years -- all of which were out of the warranty period.
Both failed Apple’s test in the store. There was a repair program for audio issues - but my pair was made supposedly 4 months after it was fixed, so I had to get a new set.
I also had a MacBook 2017 which clearly, obviously, developed the stage light backlight issue. Only to find out the repair program only covered 2016 models.
Thus, if I had a nickel for every time Apple had a repair program for the exact issue I was having, but only up to the model just before mine, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
Fill out form, print their shipping label, pop into box, Joy-cons are back 2 weeks later without paying a penny. They’ve also repaired things that clearly aren’t stick drift - like broken shoulder buttons, torn joystick caps, and one I sent in that was completely unresponsive.
Doesn't really matter to me though - because it's not exactly a secret that the "repair" pile, under times of stress, may turn into a LIFO queue. (I.e. take incoming repairs without question, mail out replacements from the previously repaired pile, have a separate team repairing what can be repaired and throwing out what can't.)
Apple used to be known for covering things, but that changed over the past 10 years.
I’m not saying Jobs was perfect, but I had a lot of experiences in the Apple Store where they would fix stuff they had the power to fix, because it shouldn’t happen. I had a spec of dust under my screen and they replaced the screen no questions ask, at no cost. I was having a logic board replaced in my MBP and they replaced the screen clutch, just because they noticed it felt loose (I didn’t even notice before they replaced it)… no deductibles or anything.
Modern Apple Care feels much more like health insurance than an extended warranty.
No, they aren't forgetting anything. The magnitude of the issue with the 4 was significantly worse than with other contemporary devices, to the point of rendering it incapable of making a call if you were a lefty with sweaty hands.
AnandTech did a reasonably scientific comparison of the 4 with a few other devices at the time, if you don't believe me.
Very wrong.
Mine gave out a year after this and I only found out about the repair after reading online. Apple knew this MacBook is under my Apple ID and could’ve let me know about the issue, but chose not to.
I go to the Apple Store and they recognize the issue. Except they tell me the laptop is “vintage” after 2-3 years and even though it has an inherent flaw, they would not service it.
Do you think they refunded the people that had to get their butterfly keyboard replaced or repaired?
If you think that's being unreasonable, just search 2012 Macbook Retina kernel panic and you'll see hundreds of threads from 2021 and onward about the issue. Those people paid for a product with a defect that manifested decades later and are now left to hang dry.
If a product that most probably most people use for 4-8 years develops a problem 9 years later, then as long as it wasn't an intentional defect, I think you just have to chalk that up to bad luck.
I mean, what would the compensation even be? In theory, it would be capped at the resale value of a 9-year-old MacBook. Which is essentially nothing. Apple products hold their resale value far better than other electronics brands, but that's really talking about devices 2-5 years old.
At some point you just have to say you got your money's worth out of the product in the time you used it. Nothing lasts forever, and in laptop terms, 9 years is pretty close to forever.
(Obviously it depends on the product category -- things like washing machines are meant to last far longer, and come with things like 10 year guarantees on their motors.)
Popped into my local Apple Store and they were more than happy to connect it to their WiFi where they had access to all the old OS versions and let me sit there whilst it restored.
That experience was to their benefit - 12 months later with a nice bonus from work I went back their and ordered 10 grands worth of stuff when my wife and I decided to move completely over to their ecosystem. Had nothing but great experiences in both support and usability/reliability since.
The "vintage" designation is more about not being able to repair/replace hardware, because they simply don't make/stock the replacment parts/models anymore.
Same for non-direct purchases, but for non-direct it's the retailer's problem.
(Well, actually, they were pretty slow to comply with faulty charging cables and home buttons on a iPod Touch a decade ago too)
0: https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/consumer...
https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1awr2di/comment/...
Guess we'll see whether it's a fixed-for-free thing or takes a class action to get to that point.
Also, same videos with the normal Youtube controls (s/shorts/v/):
Oh my goodness ….
The sad part is Apple's paranoia of (bad) reviews getting out ahead of time probably kept them from any real-world testing to see what actually happens, much unlike the glassholes walking down the street in them, driving around, or worse. Imagine what happens when the folks are trying to figure out how to make pr0n with it.
Now the real beta testing begins!
If that's the case I'm not surprised! The glass may look nice and help everyone see your creepy eyes but plastic is much more practical.
The ifixit article said the glass weighed 38 grams. The lighter it is, the more fragile it is...
Also, saving money and time by epoxying the hinges into other Macbooks, instead of using fasteners.
However, the devices that have followed have not succumb to as much boneheaded engineering.
It doesn't surprise me that they would use Glass as most mobile phones and watches are using a form of Glass that undergoes a greater amount of wear and tear than Vision Pro does.
There was a variety of Acer laptops where the plastic hinge guard would catch and snap off when closing the lid of the screen
A variety of HP laptops where the plastic around the screen would break apart due to the hinges being too strong for the glue that would eventually soften due to heat
A variety of HP laptops where you could undo the bottom plate and random screws would simply fall out
Samsung mobile phones used plastic screens before adopting Glass many years after the iPhone, displays would scratch like crazy
But seriously, I hope that there will be a repair program for this issue. Right now it's hard for me to be upset at Apple since there are inevitably things you only discover when you have shipped a sufficient number of devices into the real world. They're a big ship to steer, and it's been 2 days since this was first reported. They can't not be aware of it now that it's in the news, but even if they make zero effort to push back or stall, it's going to take a little while just to formulate a response, get all the signoffs, and implement it.
Best case, we'll see a repair program shortly and it will be zero trouble to exchange it for free if this happens. Worst case, it'll be another situation that is only resolved after years of complaints and a class action lawsuit. But I can't in fairness, even wearing my "Apple only cares about money" hat, reasonably argue that are delinquent for not doing that all in under 48 hours.
More constructively, Meta exclusively mines our attention and their pivot to the metaverse has been a joke. At least Cook has the decency to sell me wireless headphones that work in between ruining Safari and cracking ski goggles nobody is interested in.
Why?
Apple's aversion to plastic for products where weight is a major factor shows their insistence on "luxury feeling" devices that make too many trade offs for practicality. Should an iPhone be plastic? No, because a metal housing doesn't affect the user experience as much via weight gain. But headphones and particularly VR goggles should be plastic since it causes significant weight reduction.
Also: plastic in headphone housing is pretty industry standard. My Sennheiser HD 600s, made of plastic, are built better than my Audeze LCD 2s, made with wood and metal. My Airpods Max have this delicate knit headband, just waiting to be torn, just so Apple could use their precious aluminum housing.
/s