A warranty is their for a reason, anything that happens outside of a warranty is not Apples problem to deal with.
It's a common occurance that things fail just after the waranty expires. That's the way it happens, why do so many people always need to find someone to blame. It is getting really pathetic.
Apple also offers AppleCare. Why didn't they purchase this?. Apple are not responsible for this.
And no i'm not a fanboy, i've had a iMac that died after 14 months. I was pissed, but I didn't purchase AppleCare so that was my problem. People need to start taking responsibility themselves instead of always passing the book.
I could understand that if this were a less pricey product, or if it had died in less than a year, or even if a fewer number of laptops were affected, but what happened is ridiculous. This is a problem that wasn't fixed by just replacing the board, too. There are reports of numerous replacements and the iBook still broke down, which is a sign of a manufacturing defect and I didn't pay over $800 to have a laptop I'd have to keep repairing.
What got me angry through the whole thing is Apple's denial of a problem. Through the class action suit, numerous reports and petitions, several forums and even websites dedicated to this one specific problem, every time I (and a few other people I know with the same problem) called Apple to see what was being done, they denied they knew of any problem, right up to Steve Job's representative.
So if letting Apple get away with selling me a defective laptop that I paid good money for is taking responsibility I'll gladly be lumped into that pile of people that "pass the book" as you put it, but I sure as hell can't be blamed for doing so.