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I actually had a similar interaction with Apple on a smaller scale. I had just ordered a magic mouse for my sister's fiancee for Christmas. I talked to my siste

I actually had a similar interaction with Apple on a smaller scale. I had just ordered a magic mouse for my sister's fiancee for Christmas. I talked to my sister after purchasing it online and she told me that they were in an Apple store the day before and he had mentioned that he wanted a magic pad. Shit. So I called up Apple asking if I could return the magic mouse that I ordered online for the trackpad in a store because there wouldn't be enough time with Christmas fast approaching. The customer support guy put me on hold for a minute and then told me that in light of the Holiday Spirit they would send out a trackpad with express shipping free of charge. I could return the magic mouse if I wanted or keep both. Fed Ex ended up dropping the ball on the express shipping, but still Apple stepped up and made my day! I ended up giving him the magic mouse for Christmas and then the trackpad a month later for his birthday.

potatolicious 16y ago
Apple's service is, bar none, the best I've ever received from any technology company. A couple of years ago my MacBook Pro was conking out - graphics tearing probably caused by bad VRAM. I called them up, and having had a DVD drive and a latch fixed in the past, they informed me (voluntarily! without me asking for it!) that given the number of repairs done on this machine they'll just send me a new one instead of going through another round of repairs. This is also with ~2 minutes on hold, and talking directly to a human instead of navigating the touch-tone gauntlet. They sent me a return shipment label to start the process - I told them that I really can't be without a machine for a whole week while they sent out the replacement. They didn't argue or be difficult, they just decided right then to ship me my new machine and I can ship back my old one at my leisure. Did I mention I got a unibody MacBook Pro out of the deal despite being 2-3 generations out of date at that point? They replaced the MBP with the latest and greatest instead of sticking me with an old-gen refurb as is standard for hardware replacements. That singular experience has made me an Apple laptop customer ever since. The best part? My roommate at the time was dealing with a conked out Dell laptop, so were on the phone with our respective support lines simultaneously. Between dialing the number and finalizing the shipment details of the new laptop I took about 25 minutes end to end. He spent the next 7 hours arguing with Dell. On the other hand, after those 7 hours of pure customer service pain, they sent someone out that fixed the machine same-day... so his resolution was faster, but considerably more painful.
- meinhimmel 16y ago
  Are you signed up for Apple Care? My bluetooth adapter doesn't work, and I can't send in my laptop till this summer since I do iPhone development for my school. By then though, I'll be pushing it really close to the end of my 1 year warranty.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    I was on AppleCare. The only time extended warranty has ever been worth it. I've been religious about AppleCare on laptops ever since.
    - wtn 16y ago
      There were known NVidia graphics hardware defect issues with MBPs of roughly that vintage, so if that was the problem, you should have received similar service even if you were not covered by the AppleCare extended warranty.
      - potatolicious 16y ago
        Mine was a ATI chip unfortunately. The problems were all in the end related to a broken latch - broken latch interfered with sleep mode, which meant that occasionally the laptop would spend a few hours in a laptop sleeve, fans going full blast, failing to go to sleep. I'm pretty that cooked the VRAM and DVD drive. The non-unibody MBPs had a lot of functionality tied to the ridiculously complex lid latch. If the latch broke the laptop was SOL.
        wtn 16y ago
        Oops, I was mistaken—it was the ATI Radeon X1600 that had problems in early MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo machines.
- ijuhytgfhyjuik 16y ago
  That's what I miss about Dell. I bought a 800 UKP laptop with 3year onsite warranty. After 6months the touchpad went wrong. They sent out 12 on site repair visits replacing the touchpad (including 2 trips with the wrong part and 2 to replace bits of the case the previous guy broke) before deciding it was the motherboard that was faulty. The onsite repair is done by a 3rd party who bill Dell 250 UKP for each visit. They spent almost 4x the cost of the machine repairing it - but Dell company policy is not to replace machines more than 30days old. Funnily enough that was the last Dell laptop I bought and last place I ordered Dell servers for.

potatolicious 16y ago

Apple's service is, bar none, the best I've ever received from any technology company. A couple of years ago my MacBook Pro was conking out - graphics tearing probably caused by bad VRAM. I called them up, and having had a DVD drive and a latch fixed in the past, they informed me (voluntarily! without me asking for it!) that given the number of repairs done on this machine they'll just send me a new one instead of going through another round of repairs. This is also with ~2 minutes on hold, and talking directly to a human instead of navigating the touch-tone gauntlet. They sent me a return shipment label to start the process - I told them that I really can't be without a machine for a whole week while they sent out the replacement. They didn't argue or be difficult, they just decided right then to ship me my new machine and I can ship back my old one at my leisure. Did I mention I got a unibody MacBook Pro out of the deal despite being 2-3 generations out of date at that point? They replaced the MBP with the latest and greatest instead of sticking me with an old-gen refurb as is standard for hardware replacements. That singular experience has made me an Apple laptop customer ever since. The best part? My roommate at the time was dealing with a conked out Dell laptop, so were on the phone with our respective support lines simultaneously. Between dialing the number and finalizing the shipment details of the new laptop I took about 25 minutes end to end. He spent the next 7 hours arguing with Dell. On the other hand, after those 7 hours of pure customer service pain, they sent someone out that fixed the machine same-day... so his resolution was faster, but considerably more painful.

meinhimmel 16y ago
Are you signed up for Apple Care? My bluetooth adapter doesn't work, and I can't send in my laptop till this summer since I do iPhone development for my school. By then though, I'll be pushing it really close to the end of my 1 year warranty.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  I was on AppleCare. The only time extended warranty has ever been worth it. I've been religious about AppleCare on laptops ever since.
  - wtn 16y ago
    There were known NVidia graphics hardware defect issues with MBPs of roughly that vintage, so if that was the problem, you should have received similar service even if you were not covered by the AppleCare extended warranty.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      Mine was a ATI chip unfortunately. The problems were all in the end related to a broken latch - broken latch interfered with sleep mode, which meant that occasionally the laptop would spend a few hours in a laptop sleeve, fans going full blast, failing to go to sleep. I'm pretty that cooked the VRAM and DVD drive. The non-unibody MBPs had a lot of functionality tied to the ridiculously complex lid latch. If the latch broke the laptop was SOL.
      - wtn 16y ago
        Oops, I was mistaken—it was the ATI Radeon X1600 that had problems in early MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo machines.
ijuhytgfhyjuik 16y ago
That's what I miss about Dell. I bought a 800 UKP laptop with 3year onsite warranty. After 6months the touchpad went wrong. They sent out 12 on site repair visits replacing the touchpad (including 2 trips with the wrong part and 2 to replace bits of the case the previous guy broke) before deciding it was the motherboard that was faulty. The onsite repair is done by a 3rd party who bill Dell 250 UKP for each visit. They spent almost 4x the cost of the machine repairing it - but Dell company policy is not to replace machines more than 30days old. Funnily enough that was the last Dell laptop I bought and last place I ordered Dell servers for.