Apple do Care!

Despite the fact that I have AppleCare on my main G5 Quad Mac, I've never needed to us it so far. But recently, the hard drive on one of my offspring's MacBook decided that it had become a mere lump of metal rather than a useful piece of storage, and so AppleCare was used for the first time.

After a quick phonecall where it was quickly established that I had done all the things that one could reasonably be expected to do (check the PSU, check the battery, check if it boots with various keys held down, reset the PRAM, reset the power management, etc.), things moved rapidly to an appointment at the Apple Store on Regent Street in London.

The Genius Bar runs a queuing system even though you have timed appointments, and so I joined the set of people sitting on the wooden benches at the top of the stairs. After about twenty minutes I was called, and the Apple Genius rapidly established that the MacBook hard drive was indeed as dead as I had described. Once a repair form was filled in and signed, I left, expecting a 7 to 10 day repair time...

On my way back home (trains will be the subject of a forthcoming blog posting, so I'll say nothing now) my mobile phone took a message from the Apple Store telling me that the MacBook had been repaired and was ready for collection. Total elapsed time from leaving the MacBook to receiving the phonecall was less than three hours. Needless to say, I couldn't turn around, but I was still hugely impressed at being able to get such a rapid and relatively painless repair.

So, the MacBook is well again and I have a happy offspring once more. The experience was far less painful and much faster than I was expecting, and I have to give Apple 9/10 for a job well done. I deduct one point for the long queuing time at the Genius Bar, and for not having anything on the web-site that says that you don't need an appointment to pick up a repair...