Review: AppleCare Service, MacBook Pro Battery issue

I’ve reviewed AppleCare before, the Do-It-Yourself experience I had with my Video iPod ear buds.

Now I’d like to discuss how wicked-fast and professional I found the service on my MacBook Pro battery.

First off, my battery went nuts. The timing started dropping abruptly. Instead of three or four hours of productive life off of it, I was suddenly getting maybe an hour. And then it started cutting off abruptly, turning the MacBook Pro off without even the usual friendly warning I was used to, sometimes when the battery indicator cheerfully claimed I had an hour and twenty minutes or so of battery time left. An annoyance, but I’m a save and save often kind of guy and sort of decided to ‘deal with it later’.

Until, mysteriously, the battery started to SWELL and puff out, like something out of Aliens. The metal back plate pushed out so I now had a sharp edge cutting against my leg and I found, when I decided to reset the power management unit (PMU), which is now incredibly and amazingly easy, saw that the plastic casing had popped open too.

Oh no!

It was definitely time to do something about all this, before I had hot molten lithium burning on my lap and legs.

So, now that I had the Canadian AppleCare number saved on my desktop, I called right away.

This time my product was still on phone support, unlike my Video iPod that was past its ninety days when I called for it. Robin, the Canadian call centre fellow I talked to for this issue, was very helpful, as helpful as Sebastien who had assisted me with my iPod previously.

All Robin needed was my name and address, my serial number and such all having been stored when I registered the laptop, and within about three minutes, if that, he had arranged to have a new battery shipped to me with no hassle at all. He only had to get my Visa number in case I decided I wanted to start a collection of broken batteries. They want the broken parts back, of course.

Robin said I’d have the battery within four to five business days. To my amazement, it came the next morning.

I put the broken battery in the self-remailer provided, called the courier to pick it up and it was gone, once again, by that afternoon.

Wow! This is incredible service, REALLY incredible service.

Usually, with other companies, I am used to having the whole parts return thing take a few week, but Apple came through once more with speedy, friendly, and painless service and, once again, I’m impressed.

I didn’t find a whole lot of information on the Apple support bases about slowly expanding MacBook Pro batteries, so wasn’t sure if I was the first with the problem. Not likely, but it was nice not to have to prove that I had an issue by playing twenty questions. That’s a plus. And I didn’t have to go through a series of “did you try this and did you try that” interrogations. I guess they assume if you’re smart enough to buy a Mac you’re smart enough to know when you’ve got a real problem.

So, now I’ve got a working battery again, and even more warm fuzzies about being a long-standing Apple customer. If every computer vendor had that level of support, well, I can only imagine how shocked everyone would be.

And, as a tip to all of you folks with MacBook Pros on your laps, check your batteries. If they are, upon occasion, prone to swelling and going bad like this, avoid the cuts and burns and call right away. Apple is there, as always, eager to help and to help quickly.

Yes, they have great products, but having great products with lightning fast service is yet another reason why I expect our grandchildren will be still be buying Apple, despite occasional industry press claiming that One Infinite Loop is poised to go the way of the dodo. I don’t think so!

Thanks, Apple! Once again, Bravo Zulu! Well done!