I'm annoyed with Apple's unwillingness to repair my PowerBook.

[randomness]

I have a PowerBook G4 whose AppleCare will be running out in a week. It suffers from a wonky screen. The bottom two-thirds of it goes haywire occasionally. Usually, when it warms up, it settles down and works again, but I've stopped taking it with me anywhere because of it.

When I took it in in August, it was much worse than it is now. The tech at the Genius Bar took a look at it, said, "Well, it's damaged, and we don't cover damage. That problem never happens unless there's been some trauma to the machine, and I see you have scratches on the case. It's a $700 repair."

Trouble is, the scratches on the case are sliding it into and out of my backpack, and didn't correlate to when the screen started misbehaving.

That's the last time I pay for AppleCare, and possibly the last time I buy Apple. I'm considering a Panasonic Toughbook.

Comments

[evilmagnus]

AppleCare is the one bit of the Apple experience I dislike. Dell's CompleteCare beats the snot out of it, especially with the screen rider. Have your laptop run over by a truck? They'll next day air you a replacement. An extreme example, but the next business day onsite repair service that includes accidental damage is what I'd *expect* a $300 policy to cover.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I have actually had a lot of success with AppleCare. I may just be lucky.

Have you thought of trying a different Genius Bar? You may get better results from a different Genius.

Alternatively, you could do what I do and put bumper stickers on your laptop. It would cover up any scratches. ;-)

[tcb.livejournal.com]

Ya, I've had mixed results with various Apple support experiences. Sometimes they've gone above and beyond, but sometimes, more often, they've given me an air of "you should be honored were even talking to you" arrogance and lack of support.

That said, they've pretty much hooked me with their hardware and OS design :/

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I don't go to Apple geniuses to get my work done -- I go to the Computer Loft in Allston. They are a certified Mac repair center, and are totally amazing to work with -- they just replaced a battery for me in a machine that doesn't even have a warranty just because they sold me the machine. If you are having problems, go to them.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, let's talk.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer! I'll give them a try.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I should point out that AppleCare has been good to me -- they replaced a motherboard for me in CHINA, without me having to ship it back to the States. I've had pretty good luck with AppleCare.

[irielle.livejournal.com]

As a former Apple developer, Anton's a total Mac geek, but he doesn't bother purchasing AppleCare. I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Ironically, Apple is the worst around at AppleCare fulfillment. Go to one of the non-Apple support sources that will make money when they fix something instead of when they blow you off. (Most universities do this in-house; I know mine does.)

[nathanjw]

I tend to think AppleCare is a scam, on the scale of other extended warranties. Over a lifetime of computers you pay more for the warranties than you'd actually pay for repairs, given the overall reliability of the products. The fact that Apple seems to be pretty stingy about what they claim it covers certainly doesn't help.

[drwex]

We've had mixed results with our AppleCare. I wouldn't buy it if it was just up to me, but Pygment finds it useful to get jumped to the head of the line and to get various bits of hand-holding when she wants them.

[sea-bound.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

I had a hard drive crash on me for a "damage"-related reason and the logic board failed on me at around the same time. I took it to Tech Superpowers on Newbury St. (http://webdev.techsuperpowers.com/), who not only fixed all of the problems but they also didn't ask pesky questions that might have nixed my AppleCare warranty (and actually, I didn't even know about the logic board until they did a system check and found it on their own).

You might want to try there, too?

[obra.livejournal.com]

It depends entirely on which genius you get. And it's worth trying a couple times. Also, doing mail-in repair is more likely to get something questionable covered.

The last time I got "that'll be $700", I went back, saw another genius and got "Well, I don't believe you, but today's my last day. What other parts do you want replaced?"

Note that panasonic toughbook support SUCKS. I had a case-crack and was told "we don't cover plastics."

Lenovo has a huge sale through today and has accidental damage coverage ;)

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I've had good luck with getting things covered under AppleCare, even to the tune of them replacing a hard drive that went bad that I had put in the iBook the first day I got it. "Huh, this iBook of yours seems to have a 40GB HD in it, not the 10GB one we sold it to you with." "Weird, don't know anything about that. Can you replace the drive, it's bad." "Sure, but only with a 10GB one." "Well, that's what I bought, I'd not expect anything else." And so they did.

But I'd certainly try going in to a different place if you're unhappy with how you're currently being treated.