The Macbook Pro RETURNS…but does it work? UPDATE: The Answer is NO!!!!


macbookpro.jpg

So, those of you interested in the ongoing Macbook Pro repair saga will be happy to know that DHL just knocked on the door and dropped it off. The real question will be…does it work?

For those coming in late, Apple already dropped it off once, and all they had done was pop out some “3rd party memory”. That wasn’t the issue at all, and didn’t fix anything. So it had to be returned again.

This time, the online tracking system told me they received it and had it fixed and ready to ship in under an hour.

That seems kind of fast to me, so I have my fingers crossed. The system is restoring now. We’ll see what happens.

UPDATE: After two separate trips to Apple this Macbook Pro STILL does not work properly. Simply amazing. I’m on the phone with Apple support now.

UPDATE 2: I’m heading to the Apple Store in Austin so they can see the problem hands on. We’ll see how it goes. You can follow along on Twitter, and I’ll be posting about it here on the blog when its all said and done.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

8 Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Huhh… “Here in the EU” – Apple is officially present only in 15 out of 27 EU member states… That’s pathetic – there is NO EXCUSE for something like that. Forget the support, we don’t even have such a trivial thing as iTunes (HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO LAUNCH EU WIDE iTUNES STORE???). This means we even can’t legally get iPod Touch update, let alone songs or dreams about movie rentals. :((((((((((((

  2. The whole “popping out 3rd party memory” thing is getting kinda old with Apple. I worked at an Apple Specialist and while 95% of machines were fixed in store, a few had to be sent to Apple by the customer as they were special cases (usually multiple fixes, or Apple customer service approved repairs beyond what we could offer). If the customer sent the machine in with any third party memory, regardless of the issue, Apple would pop the memory out and blame the problem on that. This is solely why and keep a few sticks of memory around that came with my Macs so I can swap it in if I ever need to have them serviced.

    About a year ago, a friend tested if Apple was doing this arbitrarily. He sent in a Mini with a bad optical drive and third party memory. It wouldn’t read DVDs. Apple promptly returned it, and stated the issue was caused by third party memory. They hadn’t even tested the optical drive, as it was apparent that was the issue, and the RAM had absolutely nothing to do with it.

    Apart from that, I rarely have had any issues with Apple service, though it seems you certainly are.

  3. Your story sounds similar to some of those horror stories you read on Apple forums (especially MacRumors).

    As far as the memory thing goes – yeah that’s Apple. It seems like someone was trying to sue them over it a few years back for being anti-competitive. It’s not worth suing over, but it’s ridiculous nonetheless.

    My only experience with Apple tech support was OK I guess – I basically forced the poor guy over the phone to set up and appointment for me at the local Apple store. Not a big fan of wasting my time with tech support guys. As soon as he started going through the whole run down of questions I just said “look, My hard drive isn’t spinning up, the computer boots via firewire and the install DVD fine, I know for a fact the hard drive is dead so just replace it, alright?”

    Felt kinda bad, but I was angry it died plus why make one of my favorite companies needlessly waste extra money on a phone call when it isn’t needed?

  4. That would be the smart thing to do…

    Did Apple hardware have this many problems with PowerPC chips running in them?