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Thousands of Apple Macbook owners are campaigning for action over reported issues with the laptop's retina screen. They are reporting "horrific stains" spreading across screens, in the forms of spots and patches.
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A website called "Staingate" has been set up by a group unhappy with Apple's response.Some of them say they have been told they will have to pay $800 (£519) for repair work, the Staingate website states.
A Facebook group formed by people experiencing problems with their Macbook screens has 1,752 members, and Staingate claims to have been contacted by more than 2,500 people so far. US legal firm Whitfield Bryson & Mason has contacted the Facebook group offering to investigate.
Its 2013 models seem to be worst affected, but there are online forums discussing the problem dating back to 2009.
People do pay a premium for Apple hardware, perceiving them as higher-end. Take a look at the images of screen damage—is their anger justified?
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @02:07AM
The two real issues at play here: 1) laptop design is by far the most complicated of all the devices we use on day-to-day basis. 2) People like to hate Apple.
I've worked as a Mac support engineer for 6 years now across several companies with literally thousands of Mac laptops between them. I've seen a grand total of two original design Magsafe connectors that frayed (both the same guy), one 2011 Macbook Pro with an overheating graphics card, two iBooks with failed power distribution boards and two 2008 (IIRC) iMacs with faulty capacitors. All those "widespread" issues that are unique to Apple simply aren't widespread, they're merely high-profile. Why? Apple make laptops just like all the other PC laptop manufacturers, but they get held to a double-standard by both the laptop press and their customers.
Apple products have pretty much the same reliability and design issue record as any other manufacturer in that price/quality bracket, yet when they do have problems they stick out in our memories because no-one else makes Macs and we practically expect PC laptops to have issues. You remember Acer recalling 22,000 laptops earlier this year because they started bursting into flames? That was only months ago and few people remember it now, yet Nvidia sell a bunch of overheating graphics chipsets to a whole load of manufacturers seven years ago and everyone remembers it as "that Apple GPU issue". What about Sony recalling half a million spontaneously combustible laptops from around the world in 2010? Anyone remember that? HP recalling 6million power cables last year not jogging any memories? Of course not.
I have an Acer ultraportable with screen damage - not enough clearance between the panel and the keyboard when the lid's shut - well, there is, but not when it gets stuffed into my bag with my books and headphones and water bottle and wallet and keys and power bank and lunch and everything else, pressing on it, deforming the case and jiggling it about juuuust enough for the edges of the keys around the centre to scrape on the screen. Don't hear anyone moaning about that, least of all me (because I know I'm mistreating it), but hey - don't seem to remember hearing about anyone putting together a headline-grabbing, head-turning, tech-gossip class-action lawsuit about that 'major' design issue...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @10:02AM
Oh yeah and I have an HP and when I hit it with hammer sparks fly all over!
... so apple is not to be blamed for their faulty hardware!
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday July 13 2015, @07:07PM
Poor argument. The issue here is that thousands of people are reporting a defect in manufacturing and Apple is ignoring their plea for a recall and warranty repairs. Your anecdotes of Acer, Sony and HP recalls backs up nothing because they admitted they sold defective equipment and covered repairs/replacement on their dime. They didn't ask the customer to pay for repairs or replacement.
And your Acer story isn't typical so it's pointless to list. You admitted you are beating it up. Most people I know have dedicated laptop bags or briefcases and don't carry 10 tons of books (what is this, grade school?). Should pressure on the lid cause it to buckle? No, but then again, its an Acer. So no surprise that you can't abuse a three hundred something dollar piece of crap like a higher quality system.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @08:52PM
You misunderstand - I'm not citing those incidents as examples of company practice or product quality, only as examples of bias against Apple in the press, media and people's expectations. My Acer story is entirely relevant - it's arguable that the keyboard touching the screen shows that chassis flex wasn't taking into account when the unit was designed, but I'm aware I'm pushing it rather further than I ought to be so I'm not going barking mad over it. No-one's figured out what's causing the current Apple screen issues, but I'd bet money that it's to do with the Macbook Pro's in question being regularly moved between extremes of temperature it wasn't designed to handle: [apple.com]
Operating temperature: 10° to 35° C (50° to 95° F)
Storage temperature: –25° to 45° C (–13° to 113° F)