From the beginning, the relationship with my darling black macbook has been “love/hate.” I bought it days after the release and thanked the gods above when error reports started rolling in that didn’t manifest themselves on “Krycek.” Being a seasoned apple buyer, I assumed that the staggered release of macbook pro and macbook meant the latter was essentially a Rev. 2. Study the pro market, fix the processor and motherboard glitches, and then hit the educational market. During the 90 day “gauranteed return period,” I owned a dream machine. It started up in under 14 seconds (with quicksilver and growl running), and the battery lasted for hours. No mooing, no random shut downs, NOTHING. And then it began.
First, I began to notice a slight popping sound coming from the screen enclosure. Nothing big, just a loose clip or something. Then the trackpad button (mouse button?) began making the slightest clicking sound if exhaled in its general direction.
I’m anal, but I can rationalize that since I didn’t have the yellowing case and other cripling defects of the white macbook that I could over look these issues. THEN the airport card went screwy. If I tried to connect to an unknown network it would take a solid 45 seconds to return an error. That’s pretty damn annoying when you are at a coffeeshop hoping to check your stats and you have to sift through a list of 25 “available” networks. Then one day while I was working on a site design, I noticed a strange hissing sound in the room. I lifted the macbook to my ear but heard nothing. I looked around for snakes and rabid animals: nothing. Thats when I realized that the a/c adapter was actually growling at me. The sounds eminating from that innocent white plastic box sounded like the emergency steam release from a nuclear reactor. Not good.
Let me set the scene for you. I am in Post-Katrina New Orleans. I and my business partner have been flown down to teach under priviledged kids how to utilize digital media and leverage it to further their goals. So basically, I was evangalizing Apple. We appear on the scene with a 17″ intel iMac, and my black macbook. In the middle of my lecture on how Apple “just works,” mine.stopped.working.” Oh yea, it’s mooing now too.
Hey, I follow the forums and fan sites. I know what this is. I have a lemon. My screen enclosure is defective, my wireless card is defective, my power brick is defective, and now my logic board is showing signs of duress. What tops it off? I’m 2 days beyond my no questions asked return warranty. BUMMER.
See, I bought the macbook in-store at Philadelphia’s closest Apple Store in Ardmore along with a 23″ cinema display and an iSight. My previous exhorbitant spending history had been entirely online, but STILL.. you’d think there would have been some sort of customer appreciation between the two parties. Apple Care agrees to send me a box and ship it to the depot. Apple Store says they’ll do the same thing, and charge me some extra cash if I want my data backed up. So who did I give my computer to? Neither.
I’m not a sucker. There is no Rev. 2 macbook out. All that they are going to do is putty knife the case open, possibly give me a new board, replace the adapter, and send it home. The best case scenario is that I get a slightly less screwed up computer that is eventually going to need to be fixed again because I just got an updated round of the same parts. A genius I know loves to say that “if you can live with it, odds are you better off than having it sent to the depot.”
So here we are today. I’m “living with it.” Or at least I was until I tried to unplug my laptop to move it to another room and it shut off. Somewhere between last night and today, it decided it doesn’t have a battery. I powercycled the PRAM and the PMU. I took it out and put it back in. No new software has been installed because, well, there really isn’t all that much software available for my macintel (I’m talking about you, Adobe!). Apple is sending me a new battery in the mail and asking for this one back so they can study it, but C’MON GUYS! I don’t want a frankenmac! I want my gorgeous, reliable, mobile apple computer I’ve come to love and promote.
What did I do so wrong??
Steve? Anybody?
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