I wrote this piece last year in May. (Too bad the blog is no longer available)
I went down to the Apple Support Centre today to collect my new battery for my MacBook Pro. I must say I am rather pleased with the job they have done on my laptop. The sunken in Power button was fixed, and the bottom case with some bulging part above the lid button was also fixed. Even my very dirty screen was wiped for me. All this for the excellent price of $0, even though my warranty’s expired, all thanks to the exception code given to me by the very friendly Apple Staff on the support hotline.
But I couldn’t help thinking: what if I don’t have the exception code? Well, from the price list displayed at the Support Centre: it would cost me S$100 just to send the machine in for diagnosis, and extra costs for my replacement parts (the battery costs about S$235, and I am told that to fix my sunken in Power button, it would cost another S$100 to S$200) and of course transportation fees for the parts to come in from the US. So of course the guy recommended me Applecare, which extends the warranty of the product to 3 years from the date of purchase. Of course I politely declined his offer, given that it costs S$629. (Can you believe it, Applecare for the Macbook Pro is more expensive than any other Mac line – even more expensive than Applecare for iMac or the Mac Pro!)
Now, as we all know, Apple has poor quality control, and the problems and defects for it’s various products are numerous, especially issues of swollen batteries and excessive thermal grease. A look at the MacBook Pro’s wiki page on the Apple Defects Site and one could probably guess why lots of people chose to buy Applecare. Is it possible that Apple is so evil so as to deliberately lower their quality control, in hope of increasing sales of their wildly expensive Applecare plan? (The Applecare plan for the Macbook Pro is 20% of the price of the base model). I mean it is possible right? It would seem like a great chance to profit. (I have never seen exactly what’s in the Applecare box, but I can’t believe people actually pay S$600+ for a paper box)
But of course, to quote my friend: “Big brain, evil heart; everything’s possible.”
Now I am thinking that the bolded paragraph might just be true.
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