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Apple Expanding Pilot Program Allowing Repairs of Select Vintage Macs Worldwide, Starting With 2012 MacBook Air

Oblivious.Robot said:
Slightly relevant -

My non retina 2012 13” wouldn’t boot up anymore, completely out of random. I highly doubt that ssd has failed. Read somewhere that usually for these models it’s the SATA cable that’s at fault? I have not opened the Mac recently, just when I upgraded the ram and ssd which was years ago, does anyone know if Apple will help with 6 years old device and sadly out of Apple Care too.

Gods if I lose the month long non back up work files and some photos, I’m so dead. :(
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If it was sata cable likely would boot with ? folder gray screen. Could be board sadly, that is an amazing machine.
 
I believe Apple has been doing this "unofficially" for years. I have an original version MacBook Air from 2008, which I bought from somewhere other than the Apple Store with a 5-year extended warranty. While this warranty was valid, there were problems, which the original seller refused to fix. An Apple Store Genius told me the problem was a broken hinge, it required the entire display to be replaced, it was out of warranty but I was a good customer and they still had parts for the 2008 display, so they replaced it at no cost. The MBA, with new SSD, is expected to attend its 10th birthday party soon.
 
TouchMint.com said:
Hard to believe my good buddy 2012 air is 8 years old. Helped launch my app company and while it hasn’t been my main computer for years it’s still running strong. Hoping I get another 2 years out of it and they don’t stop allowing for os and Xcode updates on it.
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Are you under the impression that it is currently 2020? If so, I'll have some of whatever you are smoking.
 
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Apple should offer a kit with all the parts for the 15" MBPs. That way you can build your
own good Apple laptop. Apply correct heat sink compound to the GPU and not glue the battery in. Use duck tape.
 
Tardis said:
I believe Apple has been doing this "unofficially" for years. I have an original version MacBook Air from 2008, which I bought from somewhere other than the Apple Store with a 5-year extended warranty. While this warranty was valid, there were problems, which the original seller refused to fix. An Apple Store Genius told me the problem was a broken hinge, it required the entire display to be replaced, it was out of warranty but I was a good customer and they still had parts for the 2008 display, so they replaced it at no cost. The MBA, with new SSD, is expected to attend its 10th birthday party soon.
Click to expand...
That was the Apple Store of yore. Older (SJ days) Macs lasted a LONG time and were supported - that's one of the reasons you paid the Apple tax. I have a still running MBP from 2006. I bought its last battery about 5 years ago from a 3rd party source. That was my last attempt to buy a part for the old laptop. Since Apple wouldn't supply security updates as of 5 or 6 years ago I put Linux on it and will keep it around until it breaks. Before the iPhone, Apple really concentrated on the Mac line - it was their main product.
 
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curtvaughan said:
To make such information unavailable lends to the argument that planned obsolescence is in force.
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Of course it is. All of Apple's politically correct environmental BS is just a bunch of politics. Apple would like everybody on the planet to replace their phones and computers every year with the newest Apple offerings. What about the replaced devices? We have plenty of landfill space for those!
 
My 2013 Air is built like a tank, and only this year has finally started showing it's age a bit... I've used it through consulting jobs, small business ownership, and now it's still going strong with Windows 10 on BootCamp. A little sad to realize that it could be added to this list as soon as next year.
 
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kemal said:
Apple should offer a kit with all the parts for the 15" MBPs. That way you can build your
own good Apple laptop. Apply correct heat sink compound to the GPU and not glue the battery in. Use duck tape.
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That's the main difference between proprietary computers and PC's. Dell, for example, supplies manuals and parts for their hardware of reasonable age as long as parts remain. Unfortunately, some non-Apple computer manufacturers are now following Apple's suit and making their products hard to repair, especially laptops and tablets - glued/soldered parts, hard-to-open casings, etc. Microsoft's Surface Pro, for example, is very difficult to repair. IFixit gave it a "1" repairability rating ("10" being easiest to repair). Even the iPad Pro got a "2".

https://www.ifixit.com/tablet-repairability

And for laptops:

https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability

It's with desktop repairs that current Apple products really lag (like the iMac).
 
I temporarily reactivated my 2005 iMac and it performed admirably. Though, the operating system is antiquated from a security standpoint, it still had snappy performance. Same too with the 2010 27" iMac High Sierra 10.13.6 I'm using now as a part-time computer. The 2010 iMac boot time is glacial but once it's thrashed itself to load everything, email, messaging, and Safari run okay. Macs remain useable longer than PC's - if you purchase a higher end Mac.
 
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2012 MacBook airs are great!

They still had steve’s Input into them.

Apple most likely extended them as the amount of users still using them is huge. It’s not the users fault that the 12inch MacBook just sucks. Speaks volumes to the one port!

Tim should earn his 120 million bonus and do the opposite of what he normally does.
 
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TouchMint.com said:
Hard to believe my good buddy 2012 air is 8 years old. Helped launch my app company and while it hasn’t been my main computer for years it’s still running strong. Hoping I get another 2 years out of it and they don’t stop allowing for os and Xcode updates on it.
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Maybe it's hard to believe because it's not 8 years old!
 
DaveN said:
Good move. In the era where real world incremental improvements in usability are declining, it makes sense to keep the customer happy. This is much like Apple's support of legacy hardware with software updates. You do what you can to keep the customer's equipment up to date and thus give the customer value for the products you sell. Sure, not all features can be supported by new OS updates, but those that can are updated.
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Apple's software support has not kept up with the increasing viability of older hardware. Dropping the 2011 Macs in Mojave was a deliberate move, and the quad-core iMacs and MacBook Pros from 2011 still have faster processors than a lot of supported Macs.

In 2009, a lot of people complained when Apple dropped PowerPC. But the only PowerPC Mac that could possibly outperform a Core 2 Duo MacBook Air was a Power Mac G5 Quad. Today, there are a half-dozen different Macs from 2010 / 2011 with CPUs that can outperform Apple's brand new $1,299 MacBook.
 
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Reason is very simple. Apple sells the exact same laptop 8 years later. Not hard to imagine top case, screen, pretty much everything except motherboard and network/Bluetooth stuff is interchangeable.
 
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How do you find an Apple Authorized Service Provider? The link on Apple's website just takes me to Apple retail stores and the closest one to me is hours away. I have two 2011 27" iMacs with dead video cards that need to be repaired.
 
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redheeler said:
Apple's software support has not kept up with the increasing viability of older hardware. Dropping the 2011 Macs in Mojave was a deliberate move, and the quad-core iMacs and MacBook Pros from 2011 still have faster processors than a lot of supported Macs.
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Some even handle 16gb RAM upgrades, while current 12" MB's hardware has little substance. The Mojave cut was another screw you typical Apple move.
 
curtvaughan said:
That was the Apple Store of yore. Older (SJ days) Macs lasted a LONG time and were supported - that's one of the reasons you paid the Apple tax. I have a still running MBP from 2006. I bought its last battery about 5 years ago from a 3rd party source. That was my last attempt to buy a part for the old laptop. Since Apple wouldn't supply security updates as of 5 or 6 years ago I put Linux on it and will keep it around until it breaks. Before the iPhone, Apple really concentrated on the Mac line - it was their main product.
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Right about the hardware but not the software. In the SJ era, a Mac stopped receiving software updates after like 3 years. Now it's supported for much longer. The craziest example is my 2009 Mac Pro, which can run Mojave.
 
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Just edited a 1080p video on my MacBook Air 2011. It's a workhorse, going strong. Thinking about buying a USB-3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. And upgrading to a 1 TB SSD drive. HAHA, yes, you heard that right, UPGRADING THE SSD, that's possible on the MacBook Air 2011, Tim Cook for sure wants to shoot his foot because he can't take that away from us.
 
travelsheep said:
Just edited a 1080p video on my MacBook Air 2011. It's a workhorse, going strong. Thinking about buying a USB-3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. And upgrading to a 1 TB SSD drive. HAHA, yes, you heard that right, UPGRADING THE SSD, that's possible on the MacBook Air 2011, Tim Cook for sure wants to shoot his foot because he can't take that away from us.
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How much RAM? 4 GB?
 
Tozovac said:
Supporting extending the usable life of products seems to be a MUCH greener move than adding plants to their stores.
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Giving the public a perceived environment-concious attitude is going to win over more customers and increase sales, but actually increasing the lifespan of the hardware is going to decrease sales as fewer people will be upgrading.

Hence the deliberate decision to drop 2011 Macs and pre-Metal GPUs in Mojave, despite the fact the OS still has an OpenGL renderer. I also question whether the repair cost using this program is going to be reasonable given the age of the hardware, though I'm glad they're at least offering it as an option.
 
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Bit odd this applies to Turkey, of all places. Maybe mr. Cook likes mr. Erdogan, or maybe it would cost too much for this to apply to Europe, and apple don't have the ready cash available :p

More likely it's apples two fingers to the EU at the fines they've thrown at apple.
 
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