
A Design Flaw Behind MacBook Pro’s “Stage Light” Effect [video] - dsego
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLALpD004Gk
======
consto
Meanwhile the hinge in my £600 Lenovo ideapad broke after 4 years of carrying
it to university pretty much everyday. After a quick phone call they agreed to
fix it free of charge (including return postage to Germany). This was because
Lenovo had independently determined that my laptop model suffered from weak
hinges. A year on, I am typing on that very same laptop. It is starting to
show its age and its price. And you know what? When I do finally replace it,
it is probably going to be another Lenovo. That is great customer service.

Meanwhile the richest company in the world fails to acknowledge a significant
design flaw in their expensive, "Pro" laptop. Really, they should be willing,
if not eager to replace the screens in every affected laptop free of charge. A
laptop that fails after opening and closing the lid for a year or two is
defective. There is should be no doubt about that.

I don't know how the laws stand in the US (it probably varies state by state),
but in the UK with the 2015 Consumer Rights Act, customers have potentially up
to five or six years to make a claim irrespective of warranty:
[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-
rights/regulation/consumer-...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-
rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act)

~~~
zcid
I'll add that I have 3 T-series laptops. All are over 6 years old and still in
great shape. The worst I've ever dealt with was a lose monitor cable after a
drop. Build quality is only one of the reasons that I continue to recommend
them over any other laptop.

~~~
gst
And even if the keyboard breaks at some point on a Thinkpad it's easy to
replace it. A new replacement keyboard for the T480s currently costs $50 on
eBay and it doesn't take longer than a few minutes to install it.

~~~
dethac
I had a tech come over and install and he was done in like 3 minutes. I asked
him how he did it and he lead me through it... so I guess now I can do it
myself?

Either way, it's insanely easy.

~~~
gst
Lenovo even has official videos on YouTube that describe how to do this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7FI_y4FXdA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7FI_y4FXdA)

------
neya
Everybody makes mistakes, and that's fine. The issue itself can be forgiven
for a technical design flaw. BUT, what is NOT fine is trying to censor
customers who have paid a lot of money for these products, trying to voice
their concerns. There is simply NO excuse for doing that.

I'm absolutely disgusted by how anyone can delete forum posts that have not
violated forum rules simply for exposing the company's design fault. Why have
an open forum in the first place then?

I can't believe what the morale amongst the Apple employees running these
forums must be whose day job is to shut the voices of these customers on no
valid basis. They probably got their orders higher up in their chain.

Absolutely appalling. I will NEVER recommend Apple products to anyone around
me although I'm already invested with almost all of their computer products.

~~~
adetrest
This has been going on with Apple for as far as I can remember. Apple puts out
a new product, a significant number of people are affected by what seems to be
a manufacturing defect, Apple suppresses mentions of it as much as they can,
and a year or two later, they offer some kind of a remedy (usually free
repairs) to whoever didn't rage sell or return their defective product. And
because their machines are barely repairable, users can rarely fix the issue
themselves.

This seems to work well for them, people keep clamouring for more overpriced
apple hardware and are happy to run on Apple 's treadmill to buy the new
iteration every year or two, while running the risk of getting a lemon yet
again. So I'm guessing that's a valid strategic decision for Apple and that's
why it continues unabated.

------
netsharc
Man, how is it defensible that they delete forum posts talking about the
issue? Same with denying keyboardgate, this firmly puts their products in my
do-not-buy list, because they'll even deny being terrible product engineers
when their products break and turn your money to paperweight.

~~~
threeseed
Apple never denied the keyboard issues.

They offered an extended warranty and fixed the core issue in a subsequent
design.

~~~
mehrdada
"Never" is the wrong word here. They offer "quality program" long after the
issue was discovered like:

\- MacBook Air 2008 broken hinge issues

\- image retention issues with Retina 2012 model

\- GPU issues with NVIDIA GPU in Retina 2012 model

only to name a few that I personally faced that they later admitted to only
after you likely fixed it out of pocket yourself (or sold the device) and with
threats of lawsuit.

~~~
krackers
>2012 model

Don't forget the infamous 2011 model! And it's less publicized but a similar
GPU issue affected the 2010 models as well.

~~~
mehrdada
I was personally affected by all those three I had listed, among other things.
To add, I also personally faced:

\- The 2016-2017 keyboard issue on _all_ MacBooks of that generation I had
(5-6 devices).

\- The MacBook Air 2008 "core shutdown" issue that the machine thermally
throttled itself to a grind and shut down all but a single core.

\- Most recently, I faced a water damage issue with iPhone XS Max (the device
is advertised as water resistant). Class action lawsuit, anyone?

My face gets grim when I have to admit that I am still a customer, even an
advocate, because all the competitors produce mostly crap, insecure, poorly-
made and/or invade your privacy. I have, however, started to break the
ecosystem chain.

There's been obviously plenty more. Especially on the GPU side it was super
annoying. Most of these things will break even after they "fix" it under their
quality programs.

~~~
willtim
> I am still a customer, even an advocate, because all the competitors produce
> mostly crap, insecure, poorly-made and/or invade your privacy

Not true. There is hardware that is better made and more reliable than Apple
(e.g. ThinkPad) and operating systems that are far more secure (e.g. Qubes).

~~~
thomasfedb
Love the build on my ThinkPad laptops, and the customer service I've received
when I've had minor issues has been amazing.

They sent a tech to my house to fix one device that was delivered with a badly
fitted bottom cover, even though I had a return to depot warranty. I had a
keyboard that died, I asked to replace the part myself and they happily posted
it out. When one of the rubber feet came off another laptop they couriered me
a brand new battery overnight (the foot is glued to the battery).

And, if I want more memory or disk, I can do that myself no trouble. No seals,
no glue, no warranty stickers.

~~~
mehrdada
Lenovo is a manufacturer that shipped spyware to the users. No thanks, I’d
rather do business with Apple. To be fair to Apple, when their devices work,
they usually work fine. The issues that they don’t resolve are engineering
defects that are present across the entire fleet. One-off issues they are
mostly good with and the warranty experience overall is better than any other
brand I worked with. That said, I believe Apple Retail leadership is bankrupt
and the Apple Store experience has gone to shit. It feels like Nordstrom not
Apple.

~~~
thomasfedb
The first thing I do with any computer I receive is to install Fedora. I
suppose BIOS/EFI is still scary though.

------
bArray
This is just awful. I would like to throw my hat into the ring with an
anecdotal story that Dell was good to me in the past. It was a few days before
the warranty gave out and a printer shorted the USB to 240V, a bang, flash of
light and the magic smoke was gone. I contacted them asking whether the USB
bus had poly fuses and they told me I had warranty (this was a second hand
laptop and I wasn't aware of this). I sent it away, one week later a large
number of components (motherboard, USB buses, sound board, webcam, etc) were
replaced, as well as the keyboard that I hinted was unreliable.

My point is, something that was clearly accident and not a result of their
product being faulty, they fixed the device for me with no questions asked.
For that, a tip of the beanie and a future customer. I wish more customer-
company relationships were like this and I hope that Dell don't change.

On a different note, can we please pass laws globally that:

1\. Allow for the right to self/3rd party repair - where you can't sign an
agreement to waiver those rights

2\. Replacement parts at a sane price (markup), especially if the part to be
fixed is the result of an engineering design fault

3\. Prevent device manufacturers from making the process of dismantling a
device a destructive one, i.e using glue, welds, etc

4\. Internally used service materials should be freely available with the
device (even if proof of ownership is required to access them) in the language
of the Country being sold to

5\. Increase the warranty for parts that shouldn't break quickly (modern
laptops should last for at least 5 years) - i.e. the difference between a
battery (expected to wear faster) and a CPU (not expected to wear)

6\. Damage markers are not to be used to void warranty (i.e. Apple's water
damage markers that can even be triggered by humidity)

~~~
self_awareness
Maybe instead of trying to develop some laws that may or may not help to solve
the issue, we will simply stop buying Apple products?

~~~
blub
I think OP was trying to come up with realistic solutions, not platitudes like
"vote with your feet".

Laws have been really effective in the past at putting Apple's "heart" in the
right place.

~~~
self_awareness
Sorry but I don't think they are realistic at all. OP writes about _global_
rights that:

1\. "Grant the right to self-repair": Maybe someone would _want_ to have a
product that _doesn 't_ allow 3rdparty repairs? I.e. user would _want_ to be
sure there were no unauthorized repairs when buying some used hardware because
user would like to have confidence the last repair wasn't sloppy or the used
product contains only original parts? Why would you want to deny that
possibility? Medical equipment, weapons, devices used in expensive mass
transit like planes, I'd say to leave repairs of those to the proper
companies.

2\. "Replacement parts at sane price": how would you want to control the price
of a part that is actually expensive to manufacture? Should prices of other,
cheaper parts be bigger so that the expensive part will be cheaper? In such
case, if I never own the MacBook with a design fault, but I will need the
cheaper part, why should I pay more so you can buy your expensive part
cheaper?

3\. "Prevent using glue, welds": Isn't it cheaper and produces devices that
have less moving parts? It allows quicker assembly and allows automatization
during production so again, cheaper devices. The adhesive used in the phones
are not as bad as people think, I've replaced batteries and screens from
multiple phones, it's a PITA but nothing that can't be done. Also Chinese kids
are also doing it on the streets in few minutes.

4\. "Service material should be distributed on the same market as the device":
Again, more costs. The customer will pay for those costs, not the company. The
devices will be more expensive.

5\. "Increase the warranty for parts that shouldn't break". I have no idea how
anyone would be able to pass the law that already knows what part will break
in a new device in the day of bringing this device to the market.

6\. "Damage markers are not to be used to void warranty". What about vehicle
crash sensors? Hard disk sudden motion sensor?

The problem when a user tries to think of new laws is always the same, those
laws only address user's problem and nothing more. Just please, leave the law
alone, imagine it's kernel mode programming and you're a web designer.

~~~
bArray
>Sorry but I don't think they are realistic at all.

Not complete, but I think they outline some general ideas that would be useful
for most customers.

[1]

>Maybe someone would want to have a product that doesn't allow 3rdparty
repairs?

Perhaps, but I don't see how you could ever possibly stop that from happening.
Even with Apple's very tight control over the repair market, repairs are still
made to their laptops, phones, etc. When you buy from the second hand market,
all bets are off. If you own the device from new and it is from the
manufacturer, you can guarantee that repairs are carried out how you want
them.

>Medical equipment, weapons, devices used in expensive mass transit like
planes, I'd say to leave repairs of those to the proper companies.

Again, if you want to make those guarantees, you would have "trusted" re-
seller markets or purchase new. Hell, go a step further, have the devices
pulled apart and manually checked for their fitness for purpose.

On the other hand, one only needs to look at an iron lung or an old military
device needing restoration to realized why the right to repair is important
even in those cases. Manufacturers can die, parts can go out of production and
manufacturers may not always be incentivized to make the right repair (for
example in cases where the right repair costs them money).

[2]

>In such case, if I never own the MacBook with a design fault, but I will need
the cheaper part, why should I pay more so you can buy your expensive part
cheaper?

The parts would be cheaper for everybody by forcibly locking in the cost of
replacement parts. One would expect that the replacement parts in total not
cost more than a multiplier of the original retail price of the device. For
example, it shouldn't be more expensive to replace a part of a machine that to
buy one new.

[3]

>Isn't it cheaper and produces devices that have less moving parts? It allows
quicker assembly and allows automatization during production so again, cheaper
devices.

Yes it is. So is making use-once e-cigarettes. Electronic waste is a massive
problem and should not be encouraged at any level. Manufacturers of expensive
devices should make said devices fixable. Most of Apple's competitors somehow
manage to build devices with screws whilst delivering on a lower price, so I
don't believe for a moment Apple is incapable of also doing so.

[4]

>Again, more costs. The customer will pay for those costs, not the company.
The devices will be more expensive.

A well known secret: The devices are priced to be a multiplier of the
customers annual disposable income. Besides, devices being slightly more
expensive but being more repairable is a good trade off.

[5]

>I have no idea how anyone would be able to pass the law that already knows
what part will break in a new device in the day of bringing this device to the
market.

Parts have an expected life time. Most vehicles have an expected life time of
10 years. Depressingly, mobile phones are ~1/2 years. Other than some agreed
degradable parts, such as batteries which depend on charge habits, one
wouldn't expect the processor to give out in less than 1/2 years with normal
use. If it did, it would point towards a design flaw. Of course not all design
flaws can be seen before production, but these can be reduced with better
prior testing and more easily replaceable internals.

[6]

>What about vehicle crash sensors? Hard disk sudden motion sensor?

In both cases, there is either damage or there isn't. If a vehicle crashes and
there is absolutely no damage at all - what's the difference? Of course this
calls on better testing of devices being returned, but this should be the case
anyway. It shouldn't be that difficult to build a bed of nails to send out to
repair centers to test whether a motherboard is damaged.

\--

>The problem when a user tries to think of new laws is always the same, those
laws only address user's problem and nothing more. Just please, leave the law
alone, imagine it's kernel mode programming and you're a web designer.

This is a very poor attitude to have. We should be having open discussions
about everything - who knows where the next best idea will come from. Elitism
usually turns out bad.

------
exabrial
What bothers me about Apple [since 2013] is the showboating about
environmentalism in their corporate marketing, but the complete disregard for
such things in their designs.

Their designs since 2014 have been the least environmentally friendly out of
any company; encouraging consumers to throw heavy metals into the ecosystem
without the slightest hope of repair. The 2012 Mac Mini was the same chassis
as the 2014 but the repairability level is next to nil. The same story is on
the current line of MacBooks.

E-Waste is the largest and most harmful stream of consumer waste an Apple is
leading the way. It doesn't matter how many of your data centers are running
on solar panels if all of that energy is being used to destroy the
environment.

~~~
jacobolus
Apple will collect any of their devices for recycling in most countries,
[https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/](https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/)

From what I understand they built special-purpose robots to disassemble the
past several phone versions and recover most of the content. I imagine they
can recover the glass and frame from laptops; not sure what happens to the
microchips.

It would be interesting to see some data about how long a typical device from
each manufacturer continues to see active use, and how often they get
repaired. I am skeptical that e.g. the typical consumer-owned Dell/Asus/etc.
laptop stays around any longer than typical Apple laptop. Anecdotally I know a
bunch of people whose PC laptops were pieces of junk when they bought them,
and didn’t last more than a couple years before they threw them out for a new
model, and also some people who mostly buy used 3–4 year old Apple hardware.

~~~
miles
_Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and MacBooks_

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-
recy...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-
iphones-macbooks)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14175771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14175771)

~~~
jacobolus
Interesting. 60% of the recycling collected by Apple in Illinois in 2013 was
televisions? [https://video-
images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1492713617275-S...](https://video-
images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1492713617275-Screen-
Shot-2017-04-19-at-84948-PM.png)

------
self_awareness
There are lots of laptops which have better price/quality ratio than MacBooks.
HP ZBook is one example, there are of course more. I've bought my previous HP
EliteBook 6 years ago which was already in _used condition_ , had better
performance than MacBooks for fraction of their price. I had to switch to a
newer HP model only because I've needed more than 8GB of RAM.

Some EliteBook/ZBook models have 2 slots for hard disks plus a DVD tray, which
can be replaced to 3rd HDD slot. They can be plugged to a docking station that
give them plenty of ports, even old ones like LPT or PS/2 should anyone need
them. I really see no benefit of using a MacBookPro with 2 multifunction ports
that requires buying expensive cable converters.

Enterprise-graded laptops (like EliteBooks) often allow upgrading the graphics
card inside the laptop, because they often use the MXM slot.

I won't even mention the fact that RAM is never soldered in and can be
replaced / extended if needed.

Keyboard is changable, so if a key will be damaged, user can buy a replacement
keyboard and switch it after unscrewing 3 or 4 screws. Bought a laptop from
Scandinavia? You can change the keyboard to your local one after buying it for
$25.

Apple products quality is good, but they're overpriced to a level of ridicule.

~~~
zubiaur
Not to mention that the service manuals are public and very well written. The
laptops are made to be serviceable. Not that one may need to, as the standard
warranty is 3 years, on-site, worldwide. I was issued an elitebook at work.
Liked it so much I bought my own, got stolen, bought a zbook. I cannot
recomend them enough.

~~~
dethac
I love the service manuals from Dell/HP/Lenovo!

Examples:

Lenovo P52 hardware maintenance manual:
[https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/tp_p52_hmm_en...](https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/tp_p52_hmm_en.pdf)

Dell XPS15 service manual: [https://topics-
cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-15-9560-laptop_setup-gui...](https://topics-
cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-15-9560-laptop_setup-guide_en-us.pdf)

HP ZBook 15 G2 maintenance and service guide:
[http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04493862](http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04493862)

They're well-written and easy to follow. It's great.

All of these are public and freely available on the website of the
manufacturer. They're also in PDF format (or similar) and can be opened easily
in full in a browser.

------
cced
I am currently having issues with my 2018 Touchbar. The display has these
quick, thin lines which flicker and appear. The anomalies are lines and
checkered patterns composed of many different colours which appear for much
less than a second and disappear quickly thereafter. I should note that the
checkered patterns are across the whole display and uniform in colour,
typically a shade of white or grey.

I have sent my Macbook Pro for repair three times now. Apple has replaced the
board and display (as well as the keyboard for a different issue with the “E”
key double-typing) and the issues are still present.

Apple told me to wait for a software update.

I bought a 2011 Macbook Air which I still use today. What are the odds that my
2018 laptop serves me until 2025?

Are the days of high resale values for Macs over?

------
hypochondria
Previously (374 comments from 10 days ago):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18968940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18968940)

------
skilled
The Pro I'm using right now is the 15" 2016 model, bought it brand new off the
shelf, and had used several other models years prior to purchasing this one.

After less than 2 years of usage, the keyboard has hardly any buttons left
that I haven't had to take out and clean out, and as a result -- break the
clippings that hold them together.

There are also strange cracks below the screen area which makes me think the
fabric is much cheaper this time around. And this whole touch bar thing...
what a waste of my time and money. Absolutely unnecessary and horrendous.

------
heyjudy
If you watch Louis Rossmann's channel, who runs a component-level repair shop
in NYC and campaigns/ed for Right to Repair, you'd know modern MacBook Pro's
were poorly-designed, designed to wear out, and are expensive and
difficult/impossible to repair. Memory: soldered in, SSD: soldered in,
battery: glued-in in several pieces, board diagrams: proprietary, test tools
and utilities: proprietary, service knowledge-base and forums: exclusive,
genuine parts: exclusive.

Older Macbook Pro were better but still have their issues. I have an A1278 MBP
that sleeps spontaneously all the time because, in the palm rest by the HDD
bracket, either the Hall effect sensor wore out or the bar above it (ferrous
metal or magnet; magnets are around the screen) became too magnetized. Also,
the screen hinges must be loosening or self-polishing, so the screen is
getting floppier. I'll try tightening the set screws and maybe even Loctite
them.
[https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup](https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup)

~~~
sjwright
Louis Rossmann spends countless hours talking about what he perceives as
"design flaws" with Apple products but never offers anything resembling
context. He is looking with a microscope—both literally and metaphorically—at
tiny details on a circuit board which don't seem to be a problem for >99% of
Apple's customers.

Are these points of failure really any more common on Apple devices than their
competitors? Are other major manufacturers' products substantively better in
any of these regards? Has he ever spoken to anyone who actually designs laptop
circuit boards?

One of the interesting things I've noticed is that Apple product owners have a
near-universal expectation of long life and durability, whereas owners of PC
laptops are _more likely_ to treat them as unfixable and/or disposable. I
think this unspoken bias is playing deeply into the Rossmann perspective.

Now I don't doubt that a lot of what Louis says is technically correct, and if
everyone in the independent repair industry was as competent as Louis is in
2019, he would probably have a point. But they're not, so he doesn't. Given
the shoddy low standards that dominate the independent Apple device repair
industry, it's unsurprising that Apple doesn't do anything to help them.

~~~
baybal2
Hinges are no. 1 wear sensitive component in flip phones and laptops. They
must be properly engineered. Even some cheap flip phones had slip rings for
display connection 15 years ago, why Apple can't do the same?

~~~
NickNameNick
As much as I want to agree with you, those old phones had low resolution, low
refresh rate screens. You need a much higher quality connection to push UHD
video down, and I doubt you can get a slip-ring to reliably carry signals of
that high a frequency. The capacitance and signal reflection issues would be
tricky to work around.

~~~
baybal2
That's at least not a problem for a two lane displayport (10 wires,) which is
quite high frequency

------
macbookcabler
I just picked up the latest MacBook Air. I can literally see the display
ribbon cables in the hinge area. They do not appear to be under as much
tension as the Pro in the iFixit video, but I wonder if my Air will exhibit
the same issue at 366 days after purchase...

~~~
kzrdude
Hope it goes well and looking forward to the 366 day report on that. :)

------
dschuetz
The recent Macbook Pro's models are beginning to sound synonymous to "design
flaw". How can such a super expensive highly sophisticated computer be
unreliable that much. I guess that Apple now has hit the level-of-integration
wall.

~~~
nicoburns
Yeah, it makes all of apples marketing about being environmentally friendly
seem pretty disingenuous.

------
xfitm3
I wish I could get away from Apple products.

I use macbooks. The display is great and I do like that macos typically just
works. No futzing. I'm on iOS because I trust Android less.

It's the lesser of two evils, unfortunately.

~~~
sneak
I love apple hardware and still have a $5000 latest-gen laptop from them and
haven’t had any of the commonly described problems of the last half-dozen
years... but I still find myself using my 16gb Pixelbook at least 5x more than
my touchbar retina MBP while on the road. Something about the case, the
keyboard, the aspect ratio... also ChromeOS is secure like iOS, and can run
Real Linux in a VM. It’s an excellent machine. The only thing I super miss is
iMessage and Facetime.

~~~
gst
I would really love to buy a Pixelbook (or another Chromebook) because I
really like the software stack. But the fact that Google never updates the
kernel on those things (you're stuck with whatever kernel version was on it
when you initially purchased it) is a major reason for me to not get one.

On my Linux laptop I can always run the latest software. On my Macbook Apple
will stop to provide software updates at some point, but in practice the
hardware is probably going to die before that anyway. On a Chromebook parts of
the software stack are never going to be updated. And while most of the users
probably don't care about the kernel version itself, a lot of Chrome OS
features are dependent on the kernel version: with an older version you're
going to miss some features (such as being able to run Linux apps), although
the hardware itself would be capable of supporting them.

~~~
sneak
I don’t know the kernel versions on my phone, my Pixelbook, or my rMBP. They
are all up to date from the vendors.

I don’t understand this argument.

~~~
gst
On iOS macOS the kernel version isn't an issue as Apple ships OS updates with
the latest version of Darwin.

On Chromebooks the kernel version doesn't matter if you only use basic
features. But for more advanced features the kernel version determines which
features are available. For example, Linux app support for Chrome OS isn't
available on kernel 3.14 and older.

Chrome OS devices usually ship with a certain kernel version which isn't
updated later on. So you could have a device where the hardware would be
perfectly capable to support a given feature, just to not be able to use it
because the vendor refuses to update one of the core components of your
system.

------
userbinator
It seems to me the design flaw may actually be in the material of the ribbon
cable itself; Apple has always been using slightly different plastics
formulations (presumably for environmental or maybe cost reasons) than other
manufacturers, and have had past issues with cracking and such.

I'm not sure what the material is, but the black cables they use don't look
like regular (Kapton) ribbon cable to me. Ironically, it might be better being
thinner, as then it can handle the same bend radius with less strain.

Edit: replacing the cable in the top half is very difficult yet probably still
possible, judging by what the various Chinese phone repair shops have been
able to do with glued-together screens.

------
type-2
I wanted a macbook pro but then keyboard issues stopped me. I was absloutely
sure I would buy the new air, but I had seen some youtube videos where some
keys would behave abnormally. So I'm still with my old air. Old one has served
me well, and I guess I will just have to do without the retina display.

------
m_mueller
I was a mac user for 13 years - last year I switched away to Thinkpads. I
really hope that the ones making decisions for the new mac mini are in charge
of the next macbooks - maybe they become tenable again at some point. After
all this, they still haven’t learned with the Air.

~~~
chvid
Would Thinkpad / Lenovo create an extended warranty for an issue like this?

~~~
sschueller
I think most companies wouldn't have an issue to fix a design defect for free
because most laptops can be cheaply serviced.

On a Lenovo you can easily replace the keyboard becuase it is not rivited into
the main case. You could also replace the display without the entire case.

~~~
chvid
Beyond what is required by law or contract?

------
bertil
“Stage light”! Thank you! I’ve been struggling to find help on that one.

I‘ve had that problem on a lot of my MacBook; I’d say most of the models
2012-2015. (I haven’t upgraded since.) I’m happy to pay for repairs: I just
did on my power cable, the second time for that model, roughly every two
years. Most of the time, I notice the problem at the peak of Summer, when I’ve
been working like crazy, and internal temperature is likely far from bounds.

My biggest issue isn't design flaws (yes, you would expect fewer for a machine
at that price) but _findability_. There is a ton of help online but it’s
useless if I don’t know how to describe it in a search engine. I can’t take a
screen capture; photos don’t show it well. Given the patterned look of the
problem, the fact that I had it on several machines, I knew it was something
explainable. I simply could not. Because it’s intermittent, bringing it to the
Genius Bar is unhelpful.

If relevant posts are being deleted, that’s horrible. If Apple wants the
problem (and the independent repairmen) to go away, offer a high-production
description of the problem on your Help page; if you really feel the need to
add some scaremongering that it’s too high-tech for independent shops to deal
with it, but _give that symptom a name_.

------
willtim
From an environmental and ethical standpoint, I find it quite abhorrent how
unrepairable these machines are. As iFixit said, this would be much less of an
issue if the display cable could actually be changed.

------
ksec
Keyboard ( 2018 3rd Generation Butterfly keyboard Still have the same issues )

Now the hinge, or Flexcable.

Thunderbolt 3 / USB Port frying.

Just what more to come from these 2016+ MacBook Pro TouchBar.

I am typing this on a 2015 MacBook Pro with AppleCare running out next year.
Not entirely sure what happens if this laptop have problem. I surely don't
want any of the current MBP.

------
mistersquid
(Disclosure: I own a 2017 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar whose moving parts have
not had any problem but whose sound/speakers [technically moving?] has been
sent for warranty repairs twice.)

Another way of looking at the Touch Bar MacBook Pros is that the design of
their moving parts is so flawed the entire product could probably be
categorized as defective.

This is unacceptable and made even worse by their SOP of removing posts that
expose them to liability.

Apple has not had hardware problems like this since the Sculley years and I'm
very worried things will get worse for their general-purpose computing devices
before they get better. (iPhones, for now, do not seem to have the same show-
stopping usability issues.)

EDIT: add missing conjunction to first sentence. Replace closing parenthesis
with square bracket.

------
makecheck
Wouldn’t it be great if there were compartmentalized laptop designs, with
standard-sized places to snap in whatever accompanying hardware that you want?

You can essentially plug a desktop computer into whatever keyboard,
mouse/trackpad and display that you want; or at the very least, you have a lot
of options. Why, in modern laptops with some of the most advanced industrial
designs ever, is the entire experience now a pain in the neck?

A significant number of annoyances with modern laptops are _not_ in the
computing itself but in the surrounding components that are just too damned
unreliable. What’s worse, these surrounding components have an entirely
different useful lifetime than the interior.

I want a Mac laptop but I want to be able to “slide in”
$MODERN_MAC_MOTHERBOARD under an existing _robust_ frame that has whatever
keyboard/trackpad I want. This could well include a frame that isn’t broken
yet from a previous generation, and would _definitely exclude_ unwanted
“innovations” like Touch Bars. I want to slide in new batteries. I want to
unhook the entire top display and replace it with a new generation of display.
And if repair is required, I want to be able to go into a store and borrow a
temporary display module (say) that I can slide in _to my own laptop_ , while
mailing in the broken display _only_.

I have a really hard time believing that there are any _technical_ reasons not
to design laptops with this kind of flexibility.

~~~
gumby
It adds a lot of affordances and interface requirements that add the cost for
everyone and more opportunities for something to go wrong.

------
CommanderData
I convinced myself that Mac was the best laptop to buy in 2015 after comparing
all available options.

The design, beautiful. Technology unmatched at the time, Magsafe was genius,
Retina display and build quality fantastic.

I was soon to be an Apple fan boy and decided to buy the next model of MBP,
hoping for just minor improvements on CPU RAM etc.

I stopped myself when I saw 2016 MBP. I take Apple negativity with a lot of
salt but even for me, it seems Apple has compromised Mac's quality year on
year in so many ways. I still await.

------
m0zg
Apple just wants to sell you AppleCare I think. Joke's on them, though, my
ThinkPad X1 is still going strong after 4 years of heavy use. I'm otherwise in
the Apple ecosystem, I have the latest iPad Pro, iPhone 8 and Apple Watch 4.
But $3K for a laptop that doesn't have esc key and craps out if I drop a
bredcrumb on it or _open the hinge_? Give me a break.

------
xhruso00
This thing needs more exposure. Apple fix your reputation!

------
vbuwivbiu
Are there any other manufacturers of metal laptops ? Seems like there are no
competing metal-bodied laptops with a good centrally-mounted trackpad.

~~~
sschueller
Why does your laptop need to be out of metal? I would think features such as
performance, battery live, etc. would be most important and not what material
it is made out of.

~~~
zootam
it feels nice

~~~
artursapek
This is the gist of what Apple's customers are after: luxury, vanity, fashion.

~~~
wyclif
Aesthetics and good design are not mere vanity.

~~~
artursapek
They are when they take top priority. Also: "design is how it works."

------
rock_artist
Don't worry. With Tim's money driven approach we might see macOS XR on Lenovo
targeting the Chinese market

------
newnewpdro
Quit buying Apple products already.

~~~
jaabe
And do what? I’ve used Linux as my sole OS for a couple of years and it was a
terrible user experience where I spent way too much of my time trying to get
things to work. This was before I bought a 4K monitor, so it wasn’t even as
intolerable as it would be today.

I actually want to like Linux by the way. The philosophy and the fact that you
can use it on environmentally sound (and repairable) hardware is exactly what
I want. Unfortunately ease of use is more important to me than that. Apple has
that. Everything works out of the box, from the shared Callander, notes and
reading iMessages across devices to plugging into a 4K monitor and having
things just work.

I mean, even if you don’t care about the repairable hardware, the surface book
is frankly a cooler piece of hardware than a MBP. Sure it’s more expensive and
has no thunderbolt port, but it’s really damn sexy. Unfortunately it runs
windows and that’s an even worse user experience than Linux.

So I buy Apple products, not because I really want to, but because they are
the lesser evil when you want unix that just works.

~~~
black-tea
> Unfortunately ease of use is more important to me than that.

Why even mention "environmentally sound" hardware if the only thing you care
about is convenience? When it comes time to ask yourself why you didn't do the
right thing you already have your excuse: it was just so _convenient_. No
shit.

~~~
jaabe
I’d like to say you had a fair point, but what is the “right” option? There is
a reason I outlined environmental and repairability as two separate things
because unfortunately there isn’t always a correlation between the two.

It’s sad but sometimes the non-repairable options are actually better for the
environment, even if you have to replace them[0].

And this is assuming the repairable option will even last longer, which isn’t
always the case. It’s anecdotal but when I bought my 2018 MacBook Pro last
October it was to replace my old 2011 MacBook Pro. The old one still works by
the way. In a shorter period of just five years I’ve gone through three dells
at work. Despite the dells living mainly in docking stations and being
repairable two of them are dead.

To me it’s a priority list, and you are certainly free to disagree with how I
prioritise, but my point was that Apple fits my list better than the other
options.

[https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/greener-
electronics-2...](https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/greener-
electronics-2017/)

------
exabrial
Absolutely fascinating analysis. Makes the hardware engineers at Apple look
like rookies.

------
mishurov
Apple consumerist NPC followers will find excuses for it anyway.

------
artursapek
Apple's decisions are really unforgivable lately. Soldered on RAM, soldered on
SSD, irreplaceable display cables... what the hell ever happened to modular
design? How can this be anything but Apple wanting to shut down DIY repair and
even third party repair shops? I wonder how much of their revenue is
repairs...

~~~
userbinator
_I wonder how much of their revenue is repairs..._

I don't think they repair much, but they'll be certainly happy to sell you a
whole new replacement.

------
chris_wot
I remember that the version of the Macbook Air with an Apple symbol light on
the casing. It has the unfortunately flaw that over time the light burns into
the screen, it looks like someone has put a large mug of hot coffee on the
closed laptop...

~~~
duskwuff
That doesn't make sense. There isn't a dedicated light for the logo in any of
Apple's laptops -- what you see is the LCD backlight shining through a cutout
in the case. This has been the case ever since they started doing that with
the Powerbook G3 (iirc).

~~~
porphyrogene
The logo was translucent and also allowed light in from the back. There was a
logo-shaped burn issue but it was caused by ambient light shining through the
logo. At least that's how I understood it.

Edit:
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3476393](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3476393)

~~~
kolinko
+1. I can imagine someone leaving the laptop in full sunlight, and it burning
through the logo - but it feels more like user issue, you don't leave
electronics out like that.

