Expecting some holiday money? Thinking of rushing out to spend it on a shiny new MacBook Pro? After months of testing, our colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports say, maybe don’t do that just yet. [More]
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Apple Cuts Dongle Prices After Users Complain About New MacBook’s Port Shortage
By 11.4.16
Apple wants to bring its MacBook Pro users into the future, and has done so by eliminating every port on the latest version of the computer except for two USB-C ports. The problem? Most of the peripherals on the market aren’t USB-C, so that means users will have to travel with a fistful of hubs and dongles. Responding to their complaints, Apple has lowered the price of the dongles that customers will need to plug in all of their other stuff. [More]
Apple Discontinuing MacBook Startup Chime
By 10.31.16
One of the most instantly recognizable sounds in electronics may be about to go the way of “You’ve Got Mail,” as Apple is reportedly doing away with it signature startup sound on its Mac computers. [More]
Apple Recalls Some MacBook Chargers, Because They Should Actually Provide Power
By 2.15.16
Having trouble charging your MacBook? You may have one of a “limited number” of charge cables that contain a flaw that can prevent charging now being recalled by Apple. [More]
Microsoft Trade-In Program Pays $200 For Your Old Windows Laptop, $300 For A MacBook
By 10.16.15
Microsoft is hoping a $200 trade-in offer will help convince current Windows users to stick around, and that $300 is enough to win over Mac users. [More]
Apple Retail Chief: The Days Of Waiting In Line At The Store Are Over
By 4.7.15
Camping out in line days in advance of the newest Apple product is so 2014, y’all, to the point where the company’s retail chief is reportedly pushing workers to nudge customers seeking out the Apple Watch or new MacBook to order online instead of waiting it out at physical stores. [More]
Apple Announces Repair Program For 2011 MacBooks With Self-Destructing Graphics Cards
By 2.20.15
Back in October, we shared some MacBook Pro owners’ complaints about their computers, which had what can broadly be described as “video problems” that often rendered the computers unusable. Apple has now announced a repair program in response to users’ complaints, and perhaps also in response to their class action lawsuit. [More]
Owners Of MacBooks With Self-Destructing Video Cards File Class-Action Lawsuit
By 10.28.14
A few weeks ago, we shared with you the saga of the self-destructing MacBooks, machines manufactured in 2011 with an unfortunate tendency to overheat their discrete graphics cards, rendering the computers unusable and their owners sad. Now lawyers representing MacBook owners have filed a class action lawsuit. [More]
Thousands Of MacBooks Made In 2011 Have Self-Immolating Graphics Cards
By 10.17.14
Models of Apple’s higher-end portable computer, the MacBook Pro, have come to the end of their three-year extended warranties. That leaves their owners at the mercy of Apple when something goes wrong, and at minimum thousands of the computers have had the same computer-killing problem with their graphics processing unit. Apple has not publicly admitted that the machines have a problem. [More]
Apple Takes Back Wi-Fi-Sabotaging MacBook, Replaces It With Shiny New One
By 11.29.12
Micahel’s new Macbook had a very unusual flaw. Whenever it was connected to his home network, it would take out his modem. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the whole Apple Store’s network down, so he wasn’t able to replicate the problem for the Geniuses. After five trips and a variety of repairs, Apple finally gave up…and gave him a brand new MacBook. [More]
Not Even Apple's Most Obnoxious Geniuses Can Solve My MacBook Problem
By 8.2.12
Mark is one of those longtime loyal Apple customers who Apple haters love to hate. For the first time, though, he’s run into an intractable technical problem that even the Geniuses can’t solve. The computer freezes when he uses wifi, which is problematic for anyone using a computer during the last decade. He’s taken his MacBook to the store in person, called Apple tech support (on his iPhone, naturally) [More]
Does Your New MacBook Have A Kinky Cord?
By 6.26.12
Have you recently purchased one of Apple’s shiniest, newest notebook computers? David, the proud owner of a new MacBook Air, noticed some thing strange about the power adapter that came with his new toy. It looked like there were was a kink in the wires, spiraling under the surface of the cord’s white coating. A replacement off the shelf of his local Apple Store had the same problem. Apple swapped out David’s computer for a brand new one so his could be sent to engineering for tests, and the third adapter had the wire kinks too. Is there some kind of Apple blight going around? [More]
Laptop Thief Caught Thanks To Spy Program, Twitter, And Eventually, The Oakland PD
By 6.1.11
After Joshua Kaufman’s Macbook was stolen from his apartment in Oakland, he notified the police. Due to budget cutbacks, Oakland PD don’t respond to many non-violent crimes anymore like burglary, grand theft, and car wrecks, so initially they couldn’t help him. Then Josh activated a tracking program on it called Hidden. Like other similar programs, it gave him real-time remote access to his computer, letting him take pictures using its webcam and capture screenshots. He set up a Tumblr to post them, his story went viral, he gave the tracking info to the police, and they ended up trapping the thief and getting the laptop back to Josh. [More]
What Should I Do When An Amazon Marketplace Vendor Disappears?
By 9.16.10
Darren tells Consumerist that the vendor that sold him a failing MacBook Pro battery through the Amazon Marketplace has disappeared. Since the replacement battery wasn’t made by Apple, he’d like to find out what kind of warranty the battery might have and seek a replacement. Amazon is no help, and the company’s domain name is no longer registered, so e-mails bounce back. What should he do? [More]
Macbook Pro Shocks Owner, Leaves Marks
By 3.31.10
Karen says Apple is shocking her. Not with their innovative product design, but literally, her 2004ish 17″ Macbook Pro is shooting electricity into her arms. “We’re not talking, little static shocks,” Karen writes, presumably, using the selfsame laptop, “these are fully legitly painful shocks.” [More]
Apple Has Given Me 5 Broken Hard Drives In 3 Months
By 3.15.10
Consumerist reader Victor has had a few — five, to be precise — problems with his Macbook Pro in the last few months. According to him, he’s had the hard drive replaced four separate times and also had his entire laptop replaced, only to have that hard drive die on him too. So Victor wrote Mr. Apple himself, Steve Jobs, and copied Consumerist on the letter. [More]
Warning: Your Older MacBook's Hard Drive May Self-Destruct At Any Time
By 2.25.10
You should be backing up the data you keep on your laptop in case of hardware failure, theft, or an unexpected cup of coffee on your keyboard. This bit of common computer sense has a bit more urgency if you own certain MacBooks sold in 2006 and 2007, since their hard drives may fail suddenly with no notice. Fortunately, Apple has a free repair program: but only until the computer is (at most) four years old, and only once your hard drive has already failed. [More]
Don't Get Cat Vomit On Your Laptop
By 1.20.10
Tayler’s cat and Tayler’s MacBook Pro just had an unfortunate run-in. Does anyone have any advice on cheap ways to repair this laptop, or at least how to get the content off of it without paying hundreds of dollars? [More]
