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.
...
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, Funny) by danomac on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:15PM
Apple eventually relented and repaired all the overheating GPUs (I believe) after lots of complaining. I was recently repairing a Macbook Pro (about 1-2 years old) that was starting to show signs of running hot. Maybe instead of obsessing over thinness they could engineer proper cooling for their Macs?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:40PM
This was with the first-gen early 2006 MacBook Pro - MacBookPro1,1 with a 32 bit Core Duo on a 64-Bit Core 2 Duo.
The dealer told me they would replace it for free if I gave him my torched MagSafe. I kept it for use as evidence then paid $80.00 for the replacement. I had to wait about a week for it to be ordered from the distributor as I lived in The Great White North at the time.
I filed a bug with Radar [apple.com] in which I advised Apple to recall, redesign and replace all the MagSafes before they got someone killed. I also pointed out that if they were unconcerned with taking human lives they for sure would be concerned about lawsuits.
Apple's response?
They supplied a link to a page that explains Apple's policy regarding unsolicited product ideas. They don't accept them. I see the point of it if I told them to rename the "Trash Can" to "Bit Bucket", then I might claim a share of increased product sales.
A few years later after a huge public outcry - I expect a lawsuit but I was not following the issue - Apple did indeed recall, redesign and replace all the magsafe.
The Early 2013 MacBook Pro I have now (MacBook10,1) failed to power back on after I closed then reopened the lid. It was just barely out of AppleCare coverage.
I am never, ever going to purchase an Apple product again as long as I live.
There are many other reasons, I will go into them later, but mostly it has to do with the way Apple has always screwed the third-party developers that give people reasons to purchase Apple products.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by danomac on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:47PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @08:56AM
That wasn't Apple specific, it was an Nvidia manufacturing screw-up. [cnet.com] Dell and HP also offered out-of-warranty replacements/repairs for affected systems, along with BIOS updates to enable GPU fans all the time and run them faster and louder, notably reducing the battery life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday July 13 2015, @12:02AM
page that explains Apple's policy regarding unsolicited product ideas
That they specifically have a "Fuck you, we don't care about your ideas" page speaks volumes about the company as a whole, I think. Perhaps it's just patent lawyer-proofing, but it does seem quite in-line with their corporate attitude.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @08:59AM
Yeah, because Dell, HP, Lenovo et al just lurve listening to customers and running with their ideas. Biased much? Don't worry, it's not just you, the Apple Reality Distortion field appears to extend to anything written about Apple anywhere.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @12:47PM
There is no reality distortion field. Apple acts like it's a first rate hardware makers (and it pretty much is) but they treat their customers like they are a cut-rate vendor. They charge big bucks for premium hardware but they don't provide premium customer care. "Sorry about that manufacturing defect in your $2000 macbook. Pay us a third of its value and we will fix our fuck up". At that point they are no different than Acer or some other cut-rate notebook vendor who have no real obligation to help customers who bought their crap hardware to save a few hundred bucks.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday July 13 2015, @07:06PM
You know who *did* listen to exactly this kind of feedback? RadioShack. Two or three years ago I had a RS battery holder that melted, shorted out, and threw out a big plume of smoke before I got the thing all disconnected. It'd been in my bin a few years by that point, but I tossed a note onto the RadioShack Facebook page anyway since I didn't see any obvious damage to the thing before it caught fire. Didn't expect them to do much, but within a day or two they're asking for my email, asking where and when I bought it, if I still have the receipt, and if I can bring it to a nearby store for them to mail back to corporate...all over what was probably a $2 hunk of plastic. Hell, they cared more than I did!
But I guess that's why they went bankrupt and Apple's income rivals that of some nations -- it's a lot cheaper to tell people to go screw themselves...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @12:28AM
People like to point at MS as a scummy company (they can be). MS learned from the true masters of being bastards, Apple. MS was just better at it. Lost the best programming job I ever had because they decided to cut out the 3rd party hardware.
I am never, ever going to purchase an Apple product again as long as I live.
I came to that conclusion in 1997.
They systematically take your value. The value proposition on making apple applications is awful unless you get a home run. Think about this for every dollar you earn you give to Apple at 30%. Then you owe uncle sam ~30% and your overhead out of the remainder. So your profit is maybe 5-10 cents on the dollar if your lucky.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday July 13 2015, @01:18AM
Thanks a lot for your totally unbiased opinion. If it makes you feel any better, Apple has nowhere else to go but down from here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:19PM
I can not see the value prop on developing for Apple anymore. They now give the tools away at least. But they now take even *more* money on the backend. Instead of it taking 20k or so to setup a dev, it now costs pretty much hardware. But they then want to take it all on the backend with their store which you pretty much have to use to make anything. They have over and over screwed their 3rd party hardware guys and in turn the software guys. They have done so since the early 80s. MS is just as bad. But at least I have a chance of making some cash off clueless enterprise. Linux is where it is at these days though. They may have their glorious in the open fights but it is usually OK and there is a chance to make a living. Android is a wasteland of 'fremium'.
Two things I have learned over the years. Do not work for companies whose main product is hardware and do not work on anything with Apple.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 13 2015, @09:24PM
>The value proposition on making apple applications is awful unless you get a home run. Think about this for every dollar you earn you give to Apple at 30%. Then you owe uncle sam ~30% and your overhead out of the remainder. So your profit is maybe 5-10 cents on the dollar if your lucky.
What overhead? You may have up-front capital costs for the development, but by the time your app is in the store, there's not much ongoing expense (aka overhead) associated with it - Apple is the one with overhead (though probably only pennies per sale, if that). Unless you're making subscription-based software or something riddled with paid DLC - in which case %$#@! you.
As for taxes, if you're paying 30% tax on your app income, then clearly you already have at least a moderate hit on your hands, or you're a hobbyist whose has a substantial independent source of income. You have to be making more than $91k to hit the 28% incremental tax bracket in the US, $189k to make it into the next, 33%, incremental bracket - and that's an *incremental* tax bracket - you only pay that rate on the income made over the threshold amount, so to pay 30% on total income you probably have to be pushing a half-million dollars (not going to actually bother doing the math - it's simple but tedious.) And, even if you manage to get a 30% effective tax rate, that's still 49% of the sale price going into your pocket. (30% of 70% = 21% of the sticker price, to hit 30% of sticker price you'd need to hit a tax rate of 42%, and the top US tax rate is only 39.5% on income over $413k)
Besides, it's not like you can duck taxes by selling elsewhere, your only legal options are not making any money in the first place or employing a shady accountant.
I agree that Apple is... generous... in taking their cut, especially considering how little they actually contribute beyond a captive customer base. But then that's nothing new - most retailers traditionally angled for a 100% markup on the products they sold. AKA they took a 50% cut of the sale price. As did everyone else in the supply chain. Of course that was brick-and-mortar stores where rent, inventory management, etc. all imposed significant overhead, and before the internet amped up the mail-order competition. Not sure what a "typical" markup for physical goods is these days. But hell, I've heard that it's not uncommon for retailers to actually charge the product manufacturers for the privilege of having their goods on their shelves, how's *that* for messed up?
And hey, if we compare them to other traditional "virtual goods" publishers such as movie or music labels, Apple looks positively benevolent - after all they do actually pay you a percentage of your sales, while "Hollywood accounting"is notorious for "losing" money even on major blockbusters to avoid paying royalties, and it's not uncommon for music stars to actually end up deeply in debt to the labels they've enriched.
TLDR: Yes, Apple sucks. But so does pretty much everyone in the retail and publishing business. That doesn't excuse their behavior, but it at least makes it a little more understandable. Nobody wants to be the sucker who's only getting rich from other people's work when the competition is getting *obscenely* rich by totally shafting their golden geese.
(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)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Monday July 13 2015, @02:18AM
I can totally understand the feeling, but I have noticed that if one were to lifetime-boycott every brand of electronics maker that screws over customers or produces a very bad product, one will soon be boycotting every known brand. Pick any five-star rated product on Amazon and filter for one-star reviews. Doesn't matter what product it is, or what brand. You'll find plenty of horror stories of repeated device failure and horrible service within those one-star reviews.
Apple's behavior toward customers with repeated major hardware issues is always disturbing (and embarrassing if one happens to like Apple's products) but they are hardly the only company to behave this way. The real problem that allows all companies to behave so badly toward customers is a lack of effective consumer protection laws. Problems like this that any jury of reasonable people would agree are obviously caused by some manufacturing defect should be required to be repaired or replaced in a reasonable amount of time for no cost during the reasonable lifetime of the device. There should be no limit on how many times it is replaced if the replacements are also faulty (lots of companies pull that BS, replacing a faulty product with the same faulty product that just fails again). If it were easier to get relief under the law then we could get not just Apple but every other manufacturer to start behaving as if the customer and quality control really mattered. If you can't manufacture something with sufficient quality that you can afford to give out free replacements for failures, don't manufacture it. Simple concept.
Apple still has statistically equal or better quality than anybody you might compare them to. This does not absolve them of bad behavior, it's just a statement of fact to put things into context. I think lifetime boycotts should be reserved for particularly worthless companies that universally produce nothing but crap products with extremely high failure rates. Like Belkin.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 13 2015, @04:27AM
My most-serious gripe with Apple is that they have always screwed their developers, and in recent years they are not serving the interest of the general public.
I just got a new consulting gig, I'll be working on Linux. While I will have to buy a notebook computer, I understand I can get what I need for $250.00.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday July 13 2015, @08:59AM
I just got a new consulting gig, I'll be working on Linux. While I will have to buy a notebook computer, I understand I can get what I need for $250.00.
If you're working as a developer, the productivity gains from a laptop with a nice screen, a fast SSD, a decent i7, and a load of RAM make it worth spending money on a decent machine. Once you're in that price range, there's not a huge difference between Apple and the competition. If you're only spending $250 on a machine for work, then you and your employer must not value your time very highly.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @10:05AM
Depends quite alot how you work... a lot of serious work can be done on the oldest machine you can get your hands on.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:49AM
I agree. Just imagine what Kevin Mitnick could do with a 300 baud modem! (You get the gist of what I'm saying.)
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 13 2015, @11:32AM
Yet looking at it from a different perspective, in an industry with a "newness fetish" its incredibly politically incorrect to point out that the world of 2015 is not much different from the world of 2010, so a top of the line for 2010 laptop is going to be immeasurably different in productivity in 2015. Differences would show up in performance on video editing, minecraft, large DF mines, legacy FPS sequels, or just gaming in general, but outside unusual niches and gaming, nothing on an end user machines has altered productivity since 00 or so.
Also it depends on dev environment. My machines are basically emacs/sshfs/ssh terminals and nothing has happened in that environment in the last 10 or so years other than screen resolution, and I guess better font handling in emacs. So I have a '09 era desktop plugged into a really nice monitor at work. The giant multi-machine back end that I'm connecting to in another state for dev and production has, of course, changed considerably since 09. The importance of the local machine would be different if I was running an obese IDE and compiler locally.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:24PM
If you're only spending $250 on a machine for work, then you and your employer must not value your time very highly.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:06AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 13 2015, @05:48PM
I am self employed so I provide my own equipment.
I was quite productive on a mac IIci.
Using a low end box enables one to more readily observe performance problems in one's code. I once got a call at two in the morning from a desperate client whose sun ultrasparc server fell over the very first day he brought it online. I advised him to give his developers slow workstations, to use a load generator and a profiler.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:10AM
I am self employed so I provide my own equipment.
I was self employed for five years and also bought my own machines. They were a tax-deductable expense in this case and my rates reflected the fact that I was not wasting inordinate amounts of time waiting for things to compile - my clients were very happy to pay them. It only takes a couple of days of work to pay for a high-end machine that will happily last 3 years before being replaced by something much faster and relegated to being the spare.
advised him to give his developers slow workstations, to use a load generator and a profiler.
This is terrible advice. If devs are performance testing server code on their workstations, they're doing things badly wrong. They should have a test server that's set up in as close to the real configuration as possible, which runs a set of performance regression tests on each build. And they should have as fast machines as possible, so that they can push out test builds quickly and not wait for a load of changes to be finished before they realise that one in the middle caused a performance regression.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 15 2015, @05:16AM
... one year later.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2015, @06:12AM
I have my own mental filter for reviews. I mean, everyone knows that there are people who rave a product because there's soemthing in it for them. I've sometimes felt that rants against a product are made for similar reasons. Then, there are fanboys and haters who get nothing more than a feeling of satisfaction out of reviewing things they've never seen or owned. Depending on the review, I either dismiss it, or I might decide against a purchase, but each of those reviews has to pass through those mental filters.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedGreen on Monday July 13 2015, @02:18AM
"Maybe instead of obsessing over thinness they could engineer proper cooling for their Macs?"
Never going to happen from the Mac Pro's I have owned to the Mini still left they all run/ran hot. Apple does it on purpose they would rather it run hot than have fan noise IMHO or at least that has been my experience with them. That said the damn things just keep on going for the most part I have never had component fail earliest being a Mac Pro 3,1 which my nephew just inherited from me still ticking along all these years later even the 8800gt that is in it just keeps going, when many others (8800gt) have failed including the one I had in my PC hackintosh... That is the direction I have went in now hackintosh land best of both worlds expandability of your machine and rock solid operating system works for me anyways some other perhaps not.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:24PM
...Apple-related Macular Degeneration?
(I though Apple was using Intel).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:59AM
No, it isn't.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @12:35AM
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/nightmareonelmstreet/images/4/41/Zsa_Zsa_Gabor_Cameo.png/revision/latest?cb=20140124212926 [nocookie.net]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 13 2015, @12:36AM
Overheat melting the glue hold screen layers together is my guess.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday July 13 2015, @07:31AM
Apple like using cheap screens. They used cheaper 6 bit panels in some models for a while, until threatened with a lawsuit over claims that they could display "millions of colours". It wouldn't surprise me if they took the budget option again and get sub-standard glue.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @09:06AM
I'd suggest it's something else at work if it's 2,500 reports since the "worst affect" 2013 model came out, probably a combination of rare issues, one of which is the user doing something stupid with their machine. If it was a simple overheat issue, there'd be queues outside Apple stores a mile long with folks replacing their laptops.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Monday July 13 2015, @11:35AM
well, OBVIOUSLY the glue is 'holding it wrong'.
duh!
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 13 2015, @04:42PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Monday July 13 2015, @01:30AM
Nothing new. I keep a Titanium G4 Powerbook to test certain legacy issues for a customer and these had awfully flawed screen hinges. By now, they must have broken on virtually every of these. Mine (i keep a spare) have a broken hinges, too.
That caused some unrest back in the day because Apple said, "well if you violently break the metal of your computer, it's not covered by our warranty". There's a story online where they wanted someone to pay like 1200 USD for a replacement screen (because they're glued in).
Did anyone ever get to make replacements for those? I'd like to have some, but haven't found any so far. And I don't want to spend three times the value of the computer for a second hand one that has been butchered out of a trashed machine (which I have seen being offered).
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday July 13 2015, @09:02AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:45AM
Kids these days aren't even old enough to remember what the Watergate scandal even was.
Stop using -gate to name your pathetic little problems, whiny assholes.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:00AM
Stop using -gate to refer to any scandal, in fact. It is stupid and it makes you sound stupid when you do it.
Hell, I am a gamergater, and I think the term is dumb.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:07AM
Technically Watergate was a pathetic little problem too. Aside from the B&E, everything else from that event has become legal and happens daily.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @08:07AM
It's a meme. It won't go away. Complaining about it won't help.
Now let me get off our lawn.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 13 2015, @11:36AM
Note that the kids you refer to are anyone younger than boomers, this is before the even horizon of 40-something gen-x-ers.
I always kind of laugh when I see a -gate, I don't even have to look to tell you the guy who set it up is a 50-something boomer.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:42PM
Saying gate at the end of something instantly identifies what was said as a scandal. Like it or not 'gate' actually caries meaning far beyond its first usage (which wasn't even usage it was just part of the name of the building). It's become a nickname handle applied to anything controversial (not it's starting to become one, it already is and has been for decades not just online but in the news media. What rock did you crawl out from under?). Oh and quit whining that people born after you are using references to things that happened before you. Time moves on and everyone you ever cared about is going to die. Sick of people slightly older than me acting like shit that happened to them at age 12 was so precious the human race will never see or feel the likes of it again and we are all asshole wannabees for trying to live our lives with some connection to the past.
+5 Insightful? hardly unless the insight is in to how ignorant the poster is
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:55AM
Shut up and keep your rabid fanboy attitude!
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @02:16AM
I got two culprits for that. 1) Pressure damage to the anti-reflective coating. 2) Exposure to rapidly varying temperatures de-laminating the layers of the screen.
Also, quote from the BBC website: "One Macbook repair specialist indicated that this was not a common problem."
Diagnosis: A rare, semi-abusive usage pattern combined with double standards in laptop fault reporting and OMGZ!!1! mah Appl3 ain't indestructiblz! RIP0FFREFUNDCLASSACTIONARGHH!!!1!!! equals yet another storm in a tea-cup. Nothing to see here, move along.... wipe the rapid foam from the carpet before it stains, bunch of animals in this town.
(Score: 2) by snick on Monday July 13 2015, @02:13PM
Blame the users? You must work for Apple.
U R HOLDING IT RONG!
That said. It could be abuse. it could be overheating. It could be defects with the glue. It could be contamination during manufacture...
And yeah, I _do_ expect more from my MacBook than I would from a sub $400 laptop. Is this surprising?
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @04:51PM
I work cross platform support - Windows, Linux AND Mac. The iPhone antennae issue is actually one of the very few occasions when Apple have really designed their hardware with a major flaw in it. I've never owned an iPhone because I found the iPhone 4's sharp edges uncomfortable to hold against my head, quickly getting sweaty in extended phone calls. However, when 2,500 cases pop up across 16.3million Macs sold in 2013 [macworld.com], the apparent "worst-affected year", what kind of person would think a failure rate of 0.015% was a systemic issue with the manufacture or a design fault and try and make a big thing of it? We're looking at ignorance, self-entitlement, some kind of feedback amplification caused by these extremely isolated people getting together online... or someone trying to make some money out of the coverage about "APPLE SCREWS UP AGAIN!!!11!! ARGHH!! BIGTIME!!!!!1*£(!! honist"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:18AM
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of self-entitled pricks suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened to their screens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:35AM
I'd avoid getting into a hissy fit just because this is Apple. Product quality has gone down across the board. The only problem with Apple is that you pay a higher price for the same crap electronics that they shove into all the laptops. I'm a somewhat happy customer of Apple, but I was hit by the GPU overheating issue. While I like OS X, I'm not against using Linux.
Has anyone had a better experience with Dell, Lenovo, or some other manufacturer? I'd like to hear recommendations on what laptop to buy next.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday July 13 2015, @03:13AM
Funny. I've never bought an Apple product in all my forty years, and I never seem to have problems like this.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @08:40AM
I doubt that's anything to do with not buying Apple products. From the article, 2013 models are worst affected and there are 2,500 cases reported. Apple sold 16.3million Macs in 2013 [macworld.com] - that's a "failure" rate of 0.015%. TFA holds the clue to what's going on - "Phi Chong, a software engineer, told the BBC he has had to replace his screen twice in the last two years .... One Macbook repair specialist indicated that this was not a common problem." What stupid thing are these people doing to their laptops that no-one else does? Steam cleaning them? Using them in saunas? Wiping them down with caustic soda?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 13 2015, @11:40AM
Don't all products come from the same factory in China from the same corporation, and some get an apple case and sticker and some get a (fill in the blank) sticker?
It would be like if some kids toy like an inflatable pool leaked but the PR was it only leaked if you bought it at Walgreens. Yeah right whatever same thing sold as walmart, target, cvs, whatever but you're only talking one marketing badge despite it being a commodity sold under a zillion badges.
So ... where's the HP reports or whatever?
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday July 13 2015, @04:48PM
Don't all products come from the same factory in China from the same corporation, and some get an apple case and sticker and some get a (fill in the blank) sticker?
1) Obviously Macbooks are not available from Dell with dell sticker. So no.
2) Even if you argue the screen component itself is all from one LG factory or something; and should be failing in all laptops... depends on whether the screen is failing because its inherently flawed. Or if its failing in reaction to the unique environment of being inside a macbook. For example, a screen that is being damaged by the heat from a cpu that runs hot, won't fail in a noisier laptop that has better cooling, or one that simply has better insulation between screen and cpu, or one that only ships with low power cpus that can't get as hot, or one that ships with a bios that better regulates the cpu so it doesn't get as hot, etc, etc... leading to it fail only in on particular manufacturer/model product.
So ... where's the HP reports or whatever?
A fair question. But the abscense of reports about HP don't necessarily add up to biased reporting. (Although it might.)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2015, @03:48AM
The cheapest with a proper CPU. A linux with LXDE will do wonders.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday July 13 2015, @05:15AM
I bought a MacBook Pro about 6 months ago (I spent weeks trying to find a non-Apple laptop with the same build quality in the price range) and haven't regretted it yet. I have linux/windows installed on it and it gets the job done. I'd have a thinkpad right now if they weren't pure ass anymore.
Maybe it's because it's the 2014 model and Apple quietly got their act together, but I don't have shit all over my screen. My screen still looks as good as it did when I got it. I'm kind of a slob about things, but I have enough sense to know that when I start projectile vomiting, I point my head in the opposite direction, or something. Seriously, Apple users, keep your goddamned Starbucks crepe stained fingers off your goddamned screens. It works for the rest of us quite nicely.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Informative) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @09:10AM
It bears repeating because so few people actually remember the GPU issue as it really went down, but that was a problem with Nvidia's manufacturing process. HP and Dell also did repair/replace programs for affected system - it wasn't an Apple-specific fault, yet that's how people remember it.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday July 13 2015, @04:06AM
I remember my non unibody Intel mbp. Skin oil caused the aluminum on the palm rest to corrode causing black spots. They covered the repair but it was still a silly mistake.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 13 2015, @04:16AM
I've got that happening on both sides of the cheap laptop I use to edit your stories. It is still quite usable, and I don't notice it much if I'm looking at the center of the screen.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2015, @06:20AM
Entropy happens, eh?
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 13 2015, @07:30AM
If a company fucks ME over? I no longer do business with that company, period the end. When Nvidia burned me with Bumpgate, guess what? No more Nvidia hardware was bought, same thing when MSI outright lied on their specs and said certain CPUs were compatible with their boards when they were not. Hell I will even boycott a company on general principle, such as I did when it came out Intel was bribing OEMs and rigging benchmarks (the latter of which they do to this very day) so they could push the shitastic P4s which i instantly shitcan the second one crosses my workbench.
So if you continue to buy the products even after the company screws you out of hundreds of dollars like in TFA? Then you sir/madam are an idiot that deserves to be fleeced! Voting with our dollars is the most powerful tool a consumer has and when you refuse to use that tool? You are making things worse for everybody, you suck please go away. For examples of how powerful that tool is just look at 2 recent MSFT products, Windows 8 and XB-One. In both cases they were trying to push changes that were good for their bottom line but which fucked the consumer, the consumers said " We won't take it, we'll go elsewhere" and when sales and pre-orders dried up and blew away like a fart in the breeze? The company changed direction. Now imagine how much worse things would be if instead those consumers showed iDrone loyalty and refused to stop buying no matter how badly MSFT fucked them...what do you think would have happened? Not only would MSFT have kept and even upped their douchebag behavior but companies like Sony and Google would have said "Hey people will take that shit and buy like good little sheep, we should get in on that" and you would have had the competition following MSFT's lead and computers and consoles would be nothing now but only usable when online DRM boxes!
If you don't stand up for yourself, refuse to take shitty corporate behavior and instead come crawling back for more? Then I'm sorry but I hope Apple fucks them out of every dime they can for their next iShiny fix, because they really are nothing but living examples of this oatmeal cartoon [theoatmeal.com].
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @09:16AM
Perfect example of Apple rage. Can't see past the fact that any tiny mistake Apple make gets them hauled over the coals in the press, yet every other laptop/phone/whatever manufacturer in the world has just as many problems (if not more) yet they rarely get taken to task like this latest storm-in-a-teacup. 2,500 reports and it makes the front page of every tech news site and blog on the 'net, yet Acer recalled 22,000 laptops in March and no-one gave a shit. Double standards much?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @10:17AM
More like double pricing. If your product costs more, it had better have less problems and better design.
Which is not happening with apple, hence the complaints. Is it really so complicated?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 13 2015, @11:30AM
I hesitated to submit the story because anything about Apple tends to stir up a storm, but the screen damage that was pictured really would affect my productivity if I had that machine, which is quite different from the people who complain about wear patterns on the keyboard because they type on it or something.
Apple products do also tend to cost more than PCs (if we're talking about computers) or Android (if we're talking phones or tablets). People pay more attention to their missteps accordingly. Sure that may annoy owners of Apple products because they have invested more money and emotion into those objects than people who buy cheaper analogs as commodities. But I suspect that part of them also craves the attention, even when it's negative.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @02:10PM
I'm not denying it's a problem, but the scale of the problem simply doesn't justify the amount of coverage or animosity this "story" is getting. Also, the "Apple is more expensive" line is just ridiculous. Many PC laptop manufacturers make machines that are just as expensive with the same quality expectations and same kind of problems - if not worse. Lenovo's Thinkpad X1 Carbon is a decidedly bad deal against the Macbook Pro Retina, yet without an Insert key on it's keyboard, it intentionally renders quite the list of software unusable [digitaltrends.com], not to mention QC issues with the basic assembly. Then there's the Alienware 15 - nice powerful system, base spec for the same-ish price as the mid-build Macbook Pro Retina, doesn't come with an SSD as standard, yet users who have issues with loose internal wiring and screws rattling around inside after poor assembly workmanship [reddit.com] just shrug it off and don't start class-action lawsuits just so they can grab the headlines that they're sueing Apple.
tl;dr - article is feeding troll-bait lawsuit wherever it appears, not just here
(Score: 1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 13 2015, @08:32PM
Oh quit making fucking excuses for douchebag corporate behavior! If 5% of the computers I sell have a flaw that renders them unusable and I don't make it right? Then I AM FUCKING THE CONSUMERS who got stuck with the bad units and DESERVE to be bombed in the press and have my business trashed!
The facts are simple and they are 1.- A percentage of their screens has a flaw that makes them crap out, 2.- They are not making it right and sticking their customers with THEIR shitty parts. I'm sorry but its THEIR problem NOT the consumers and they should have to pay every red cent of repair! Do you honestly see any other company pulling this kind of obvious douchey behavior? Know why Apple does it? Because they know their iDrones will buy no matter how badly they fuck them over! When you refuse to use the power of voting with your wallet the company takes you for granted...and why shouldn't they? You'll take what you are given, make excuses when they fuck you over, and happily line up like a good iDrone for their latest kit because you "think different". Say what you want about MSFT and Google but I've never seen any other corp so blatantly fuck customers over with high dollar junk like Apple does, not even close.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday July 13 2015, @08:54PM
5%? More like 0.015%. And no, the cause of the issue hasn't be established by anyone yet. Whatever, you're clearly beyond reason on this issue. Jump to your biased bullshit conclusions and rant quietly in the corner where you won't bother the adults please.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:43AM
I don't give a rat's ass if its 0.00015%, a corp the size of Apple making such huge profits per unit should be making that shit right, NOT fucking over their customers! Do you think if even 1% of the PCs I sold had an obvious hardware flaw like that I'd go "Oh well sucks to be you"? Not a chance in hell because its my reputation on the line and I stand behind the units I sell! I'm damned proud of the fact I have units pushing the decade mark still in service because I choose quality parts when I build a system so that they last!
And again can you show me ANY other company that tried this douchebag shit that didn't get roasted for it? Did you see anybody defending HP when their "fix" for the bumpgate laptops was turn the fans to 100% to try to get them to last just past the warranty? I'm sorry but iDrones deserve everything they get because they refuse to use the power of voting with their wallet. Need I remind you of "you're holding it wrong" or all the cartoons of early iPhone 5 users tethered to outlets because the batteries were shit? Apple has fucked their customers several times in the past without penalty because they know iDrones won't leave because its like Air Jordans, its strictly a status object, and ever since Steve died their service? Been going to shit too, just ask those that have a first gen MacBook Air that have tried getting them serviced. I ended up having to find a guy halfway across the state that does nothing but strip old MacBooks to salvage parts to get one of my doctor clients Air serviced because despite the thing costing over $3K guess what?Apple doesn't service them anymore, they tell you "Sorry we don't fix them, want to buy a new one?".
I have ZERO sympathy for somebody that gets screwed by a corp and comes back for more, I hope every single person that gets burned by these shit screens dumps Apple and tells everyone that will listen how Apple fucked them over, only if enough people say "I won't accept this" will Apple change its ways, but sadly if there is one thing I've seen over the years living next to a hipster filled college its that like Air Jordans as long as Apple has celebs like Colbert plugging iPad [youtube.com] its never gonna change, the iDrones will lap it up and defend any bad behavior.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Tuesday July 14 2015, @11:57AM
Once again, you're proving the point I've been making all along while continuing to mis-understand the point.
Firstly, The iPhone 5 battery issues were, again, a very small percentage of units shipped and Apple covered repairs [apple.com] under the 3-year warranty. The "grip of death" resulted in Apple offering 25million customers free cases or vouchers if they'd already bought them. Hardly the act of a company "fucking it's customers over".
Secondly, other companies screw up like this all the time, but they DON'T get roasted for it. The only recent example of a company actually getting taken to task for messing up was Lenovo deliberately installing malware on all it's computers. However, at the same time, no-one picked up 'the big story' that they've been shipping laptops with defective keyboards for years. You see hateful idiots like you posting rants that "Lenovo customers are idiots and deserve everything they get when they let those pricks fuck them up the arse!", pushing some screwed up unrealistic zero fault tolerance double standard on to a company they just don't like for no good reason. Feeling good in your little cocoon of misplaced rage over there?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:39PM
Lenovo DID get roasted for it, with many sites recommending avoiding their products, and again you are ignoring the fact that Apple has refused to repair these units and therefor sticking their customers with several hundred in repair bills for something which is obviously a hardware issue!
But if you continue to buy from a company that screws you? You deserve what you get. I refuse to buy from companies that fuck me over and thanks to that bit of common sense I get to enjoy systems that last so long they end up being passed through so many hands I end up losing track. I found out recently my PC from 2003 was owned by the checkout girl of the local market, still running after a dozen years and who knows how many hands.
If you want to make excuses for bad corp behavior? Go right ahead, a fool and their money and all that.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday July 13 2015, @10:04PM
Oh quit making fucking excuses for douchebag corporate behavior! If 5% of the computers I sell have a flaw that renders them unusable and I don't make it right?
And if 100% of the computers going out of your shop have a fatal flaw, known as "Windows"? Hairy! You have no standing to critique the fanboyism of others!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 13 2015, @11:53AM
The standard SN car analogy is almost too easy.
"I bought me a new car, well, it was new a couple years of heavy use ago, and I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to inform you that its starting to rust"
You bought an incredibly delicate piece of disposable / "upgrade treadmill" portable consumer electronics, WTF you think is going to happen in a couple years?
Hey I got a new shocker for you all, I bought a Sony Walkman a LONG time ago (lets just say Ronnie, the actor, was prez?) and after a couple years the headphone jack was intermittent, I know I'll make a complaints website called "sony-gate" or "jack-gate". Because disposable consumer electronics should never ever break. These people do realize they're "supposed to" buy a new apple device every time one is released, so using something from 2013 is horribly politically incorrect and they can expect to be struck down by careful value engineering?
Another issue that is weird is the primary reason people pay $2500 for a $750 laptop to do $250 level-of-work is conspicuous consumption. So this should be like a rock star showing off his wealth by selling his Ferrari because the windshield is dirty and for $1M, windshields shouldn't be dirty. So if the only purpose of spending $2500 is to impress chicks at Starbucks with your "wealth" then the only thing that would impress the chicks more would be spending another $2500 on todays model. So .... what exactly is the problem? Hows this for a pickup line: "Hey baby, see my old $2500 laptop, the screen now has a spot, so I'm buying a replacement $2500 laptop. Wanna F?" I'm told this line actually works if you're wearing a hipster costume.
A final issue, is aren't these shitty gloss screens, making image quality crap under normal use anyway? Someone who suffered with a gloss screen for two years should be pretty used to seeing continuous distracting random moving stuff in the background 24x7 anyway, so whats the problem here?