Hi everyone.. I just wanted to share my experience:
My macbook started to have GPU failures yesterday (April 1st) and it got completed crazy... not booting anymore, crazy lines on the screen, etc, etc.
I work at a big international investments bank (IT) and, here in the bank, we have thousands of Apple products everywhere. All the meeting rooms with Ipads, Apple tvs for each TV, ipods and also worldwide. I'm one person that is usually reference for technology choices (family, work, etc), probably like many people here. So I'm feeling really bad about this macbook, again, like everyone here, and I contacted Apple yesterday through media.help@apple.com
I wrote all this history on an email to Apple: How started, how I found all these threads, people with the problems, thousands of websites talking abt this, petition, everything.
16 hours later, an Executive Relations from Apple USA called me, directly on my mobile phone (in Brazil). I got surprised with tnat, and actually I got very happy on the beginning, but the end of this story is sad.
He said that Apple is reading all of these threads and websites, and they did some researchs with many of the laptops sent to Apple Care. He said that their conclusion is that this is not a project problem and It could occour with any component of the macbook (harddrive, motherboard, keyboard, etc) like any PC and, at this time, it was the GPU.
I told him about thousands of people having the problem at the same time and how this is possible on an such expensive notebook. I asked him: and if it was your macbook, costing 2200 USD, having this problem with only 2,5 years of use. Would you accept or would you be happy? He said: I would be sad too but this can happens with any notebook, any brand... So, we stayed on an infinite conversation loop 😐 I asked him the same thing 5 more times, he answered the same thing all the times.
I asked him to send everything that he was saying by e-mail, so I could have it written. He denied to do that and said that Apple feel sorry for my (our) GPU problem ( 😕 ) but they cannot do anything else than offering the local assistance address to me.
I insisted and asked him many times abt the GPU free replace. He said, no, your 1 year warranty does not cover that (and he also sent by email the link of my macbook warranty contract 😁 😐 )
So,
1) they know the problem;
2) they are seeing and reading all these people here talking and making this mess;
3) they already did the researchs and the conclusion is: ok, this is not a problem, this could happen with any macbook.
4) if you dont have apple care, they will not help you.
We spent 25 minutes on the phone and I didnt get anything more than this. He said that "maybe the price at the Apple Authorized Service Provider" would not be so expensive as you said. Go there and take your macbook to check that.
I asked him: but how can I keep buying apple macbooks now after this? He answered: the macbooks are getting improved.
Great! Thanks Apple for making and selling a Ferrari except for the fact that it can be used only for 2,5~3 years.
😟
