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Apple Replaces Some 15" PowerBook Displays
boredMDer writes "Apple up until now has been replacing G4 15" PowerBook displays on a case-by-case basis, but has now implemented a worldwide repair program to machines that exhibit these white spots. Affected machines are 867 MHz or 1 GHz TiBooks, and the 1 or 1.25 GHz 15" AlBooks. Serial numbers are QT331xxxxxx to QT339xxxxxx and V7334xxxxxx to V7345xxxxxx."
Too easy.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
There has been a fix under warranty repqir for quite some time, but I find it very unbelievable and frustrating that it took them this long to publically announce the problem.
I have a 15" AlBook that suffered from this problem. Trust me, they lost money on mine. I went through 3 different PowerBooks, hoping to get one that didn't have the spots, no luck there.
Then the first time I tried to get the spots repaired, they did not have any screens in stock (even though they told me they were in stock), and I needed the machine for school (it is my only computer that has a physical console). A week later, two missed deadlines, and many angry phone calls (they had botched sending the unit back to me too).
I then sent it in over xmas break, and got it repaired (again there was a small hitch since it got scheduled to be sent to me on a Friday, and I was at work, and there was NO way I was about to leave my $2.6k PB sitting at a shipping deopt).
No further problems with the machine. I see a few faint weak pixels, but I never notice them while using the machine.
Now, I understand that there will always be the possibility of defects in manufacturing. But I'm beginning to wonder if getting an Apple power book (in the next week) is such a smart idea. Beyond the whole Mac vs. PC flame-war, I'm now a bit worried about the QA on Apple's laptops. Major recalls on virtually all of the iBooks, and battery and screen issues with the 15" AlBooks. Can Apple still make the clams of superior quality hardware for its laptops when it seems to be having some major issues with their quality.
Or do they basically set up this kind of thing where if they see enough returns for the same problem, they just fix it for free and assume they gaffed? Or are they just trying to avoid another iBook Logic board-like PR disaster? If it's the former, then the decision to get an Apple is a no brainer. If it's the latter, then maybe I should really think about dropping 1800 on a Powerbook.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
Will they replace the display on my P-p-p-powerbook? I think it's broken...
It's probably safe to get a PowerBook now. Might not be upgrade-safe, since the new one came out a while back, but I'd say they identified all the problems and have fixed them. I got mine in June, which apparently was the best time, since I avoided the battery issue as well.
Apple puts the latest and greatest out as soon as they can make enough of them. This is obviously problematic since the product hasn't gone through as much Q&A as something that you test for a couple months before sending off to the assembly line. The pressure points on the AlBook are a symptom of this, as they only show up after extended use. I think it would be safe to say when they see a critical mass of returns/complains on a common problem, they admit their messup, like you said. They're cool like that.
Note the date ranges of the books in question. The books outside of the range don't have this problem. That's probably because somebody noticed a potential problem and when the line went under review, retooled it to fix a potential problem before it got out of hand.
Now, you're probably thinking "well why didn't they recall them right then and there." That's because it doesn't make any business sense to make a recall on something you *think* is a problem. Once the returns (most of which were under warranty, since the latest date is July 03) start to build up, then it's time to get a replacement operation into gear. Otherwise, it could have been an isolated incident that an engineer observed and would have been a waste to automatically do a recall.
Some will say that the time to do a recall is far overdue. This is debatable, since if you claimed it under warranty, only people who exhibited the problem in the last 3 months were out of luck. Yes, that's still a quite a bit of time. But they still fixed it, no? I'd say, from the number of recalls that Apple does do, that they're committed to solving the major problems with their products, even the ones out of warranty (iBook especially).
Speaking of the iBook, the problems with the logic board were bizarre and hard to replicate. It could be perfectly fine for an entire year and then screw up tomorrow. Two friends of mine with iBooks spontaneously developed distinctly different problems that were due to the logic board. Because of that, tracking down the problem probably took more time, and the problem propagated to more than one revision of the iBook. But hey, Apple finally found it and replaced everybody's board, even the ones out of warranty. They even *expanded* it after they discovered problems outside the date range. They're doing the same thing for this AlBook recall. How can that be poor commitment to quality?
Compare this to other manufacturers.... does anybody else get screen time as much as Apple for recalls? No. Why is this? Maybe because people expect PCs to screw up? Blame HW problems on Windows? Companies never admit failure and quietly replace anything under warranty? Sony wouldn't even admit that there could possibly be a problem with the fans on a Vaio I was working on for work. The fans just stopped coming on, overheating the laptop (Pentium 4 heatmonger!), and crashing the computer. Their solution? After returning it to Circuit City and waiting a month, they bypassed the heat sensing circuitry and wired the fans to go full-blast all the time. Oh yeah, that's quality....
Apple recalls get headlines *because* they have a commitment to quality. Don't let them dissuade you.
That doesn't always work :(
My powerbook had it's motherboard replaced at one point (the video display was dead, both on the inbuilt display plus the video outs) - and when it came back, whatever stores the serial number wasn't updated with the powerbook's serial number - it just displays as blank (from memory) in the System Profiler.
The serial number is normally somewhere printed on the powerbook (on a label/sticker) - on mine, it's inside the battery compartment - not exactly convenient, but it is there.
My guess is that Apple has finally gone out and publicly offered this extension program since the initial onslaught of "white spots" complaints has finally ended (I only just got mine back a week ago), since they can finally keep up with production. It took them a week and a half to get the part.
Silent treatment? They posted a kbase article on this, including the serial number ranges, on 12/05/03, about two months after the aluminum PowerBooks came out. As someone else mentioned, the only reason they are making any announcement now, is because just now are people who own these coming up to the end of their 1 year warranty. There was no reason to have a repair extension program, when all of the computers were covered under warranty (and would be fixed, since it was a known issue).