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MacBook Pro Stage Light Fault: Apple's Design Turns $6 Fix Into a $600 Nightmare (9to5mac.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Some MacBook Pro owners have complained of a 'stage light' effect, where they see uneven backlighting at the bottom of the display. For some, the symptom is only the first stage, with the backlight failing altogether. iFixit says that it has identified the cause -- and the way in which Apple changed the design of the Touch Bar generation for the MacBook Pro turns what would otherwise be a $6 fix into a $600 nightmare. The problem, says the company, is caused by Apple using much thinner ribbon cables instead of the thicker wires used in previous generation MacBook Pro models.
The article says the problem is the cables, but due to the design the entire display unit needs to be thrown in a landfill and replaced with a new one. Yet I always see tech companies talk about being "green", but they have moved away from designs that minimize waste. And I don't buy that "our parts are recycled" garbage. It all just gets sent to China where a "recycler" dumps it somewhere.
Didn't the hinge cable issues get solved with the Powerbook 500 series?
Does anybody still work at Apple who has experience?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Typical Apple misdesign, or rather malicious design to prevent repair. This isn't new, though. Remember the old iBooks that were literally built around a 2.5" spinny hard drive? Or the newer iMacs where a fragile glass screen is GLUED over all of the replaceable parts. What about the last-generation Time Capsule, where replacing the hard drive would be child's play, except for a short cable routed below the drive with fragile connectors buried deep in the unit which are almost impossible to unplug without damage. If the cable were a few inches longer, it would be easy to replace the drive.
Apple are masters of malicious design to prevent repair and reuse. They pretend to be an environmentally responsible company, but they're really shits in this respect, since the best form of recycling is long-term use.
This is why I use a Thinkpad T4X0 series (T450, T460, T470, T480). If the keyboard breaks or gets too dirty, it's not a $600 and take it to the shop problem. It's a $50 problem easily solved by unscrewing two screws and popping in a new keyboard, which, for the record, is a lot easier to type on than these new "butterfly" keyboards (typing on those is like having sex with a condom--there is just no feeling when using them, and, of course, no MacBook has that nipple/clitoris knob to play with. Apologies to any #MeToo snowflakes who haven't realized the best way to stop objectification is by only having sex in a lifetime monogamous commitment). The screen can also be replaced without taking it to the shop (and I have a couple $50 spares on hand just in case I drop the computer or what not). The memory can be upgraded all the way up to 32gb after the fact for about $300 (I have done this), using readily available memory modules at Crucial or whoever. The SSD can be upgraded all the way up to 4tb (for well under $1000), or even 8tb using high-cost specialty parts.
The battery, which lasts 6-8 hours, can be easily popped out and replaced with a fresh one, even on a flight (now, whether the TSA allows me to carry a second battery in my carry-on is another matter).
I have had this Thinkpad for years, and see no reason to replace it any time soon. I wouldn't be able to say the same thing if I owned a MacBook pro.
Just Zip it OK... :| No every bit of it gets recycled damn it.
[($)]
this freakin stupid fad of thinner and lighter laptops passed the point of diminishing returns several years back. No, I want a laptop that lasts longer, not one that gets less batter life just so it can be .02mm thinner. All the stupid people going stupid over "it's thinner" are partly to blame.
I think this will be seen as a particularly dark time in Apple's laptop history. Between the butterfly keyboard and this, we're seeing problems that even long-time Apple fans won't stand for. I'm actually of the opinion that Apple can make a laptop as unrepairable as they like, as long as it doesn't break or they're willing to replace it without any fuss, but that's just not what we're seeing here.
Their nickle-and-diming is truly baffling. They used to pick the more expensive options (and charge for them) knowing that cheaping out would just cause trouble down the road. Buy it nice, or buy it twice, as they say.
I'm glad I don't need to have a laptop in my life. If I did, I would really be looking at buying something old and used. None of these new laptops looks like a good investment right now.
Because having to hand over your laptop to a "Genius Bar" for a week while they "wait for parts" is such a great option. And of course, you can't remove the SSD or HDD before doing so, because the fucking thing is part of the system board, so they may have access to your persona data.
That's what encryption is for.
>very bit of it gets recycled damn it.
No, just the more valuable 1s.
he 0s go to landfills.
hawk
FTFS :-
The problem ... is caused by Apple using much thinner ribbon cables instead of the thicker wires used in previous generation
But isn't it the thinner the better?
As with previous engineering and/or manufacturing defects (this seems like the former), Apple will no doubt adopt a policy of authorizing Warranty Repair no matter what on the MacBooks that exhibit these symptoms.
Now, if Apple then REFUSES to repair those units (even if out of Warranty, with or without AppleCare), THEN there's a story.
But at this point, this wouldn't even BE a story if it were Dell or Asus or Microsoft or HP or... ANYONE ELSE.
Typical Slashdot. Apple Hatred; nothing more.
Actually... I was just talking about this with someone the other day. Apple told them to just replace the laptop because it was unrepairable. They would not warranty repair it. The person took it to an unauthorized rep and found out that the pins for the backlight had bent away from the pad and the guy just resoldered the pins. Did it for free, too. He said that he couldn’t provide any sort of warranty as the pins appeared to receive so much stress that he felt that the cable would break eventually.
> as well as a generation of iPhones that wasn't a big enough improvement over the previous year models.
How could they be? Product features tend to follow a logarithmic curve that asymptotically approaches some steady value. At least in the perception of the consumer. So, for instance, in the early PC days people were likely to dump their current machine when a new architecture came out because it really was substantially faster. Now, Intel or AMD comes out with a faster proc and only a few people care.
OS has the same issue. Both Apple and M$ have struggled to differentiate their new OS from the previous version, sometimes going backwards in features, or making the interface clunkier, apparently because being different is better than being better. Neither company seems to understand that at some point osx, ios, Windows are good enough, and they should be concentrating on bug fixes and security fixes and just leave the GUI alone for awhile. (WinCE and Windows Mobile were never good enough, and I don't see how they could be fixed. It was just a poor concept.)
Inevitably, at some point, the iphone approaches Good Enough. There comes a point where making it thinner doesn't add value, it just increases the likelihood of damage and makes the device harder to hold. The rank and file are eventually coming to realize that having the "latest and greatest" isn't worth the money, and that a battery that will no longer take a charge is a poor reason to replace the entire phone. And this is entirely normal. Cell phones as a device have asymptotically approached the point where only minor bug and security fixes are necessary, until such time that the entire concept changes.
Wildly overcharging on storage, at a time when solid state storage has never been cheaper, isn't helping.
So it's not just that iphones weren't a big enough improvement, it's that making substantial improvements is becoming more and more difficult.
I just ordered a phone (my Note 3 is literally coming apart, being held together by scotch tape, and the GPS no longer works) and the new phone (not an iphone) has a quarter TERABYTE of internal storage. In a PHONE. For a total unlocked cost substantially less than $1k. That's equivalent to what's available in my laptop. I don't have a use case for that much storage, but that's what was available. Resources have expanded beyond what regular users can conveniently use.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.