Closest Apple store is 6 hours away and in a different country...

[hamlin]

Hi, I'm new to mac and was wondering what I should do if something does go wrong with my macbook? I live in Thunder Bay, Ontario and the closest Apple store would be 6 hours away in Minneapolis Minnesota (Mall of America). Obviously I am not going to drive there to get help. Is the only option I have is to send it back to apple?

Does anyone else have this issue?

 

[aristobrat]

You can work with AppleCare over the phone to diagnose the problem, and then they'll arrange for you to ship it back to them, or you can find a local Apple authorized service provider.

http://www.apple.com/ca/buy/locator/

 

[hamlin]

You can work with AppleCare over the phone to diagnose the problem, and then they'll arrange for you to ship it back to them, or you can find a local Apple authorized service provider.

http://www.apple.com/ca/buy/locator/

Those places are 5-6 hours away (kenora 5-6, Winnipeg 8)and Kitchener is about 17 hours away lol. How can a city of 115,000 not have ONE apple store/Authorized service provider.

 

[AcesHigh87]

Those places are 5-6 hours away (kenora 5-6, Winnipeg 8)and Kitchener is about 17 hours away lol. How can a city of 115,000 not have ONE apple store/Authorized service provider.

You have it easy by comparison to me, not trying to sound spiteful though. I live in the maritimes, there isn't one apple store east of Quebec. If I were to stay in Canada the closest would be Montreal. Yet just the city of Toronto gets 3...

 

[R94N]

Well, Apple is opening new stores all the time. It's just a matter of time I guess

 

[snberk103]

Well, Apple is opening new stores all the time. It's just a matter of time I guess

Still, Thunderbay is going to be pretty far down the list of places to get an Apple Store. However, it sounds like a good opportunity for the OP to start a new business.....

 

[notjustjay]

What about the campus computer store at Lakehead?

 

[Makosuke]

Maybe authorized service providers are less common in Canada than the US, but I'm a little surprised at the lack thereof given that I'm six hours from the nearest city of significant size and/or Apple Store, and my entire county only has a population of about 120K, but we've got two authorized service places that will do warranty work for Apple.

That said, since it's a laptop, you're probably going to have to send it to them anyway--Apple Stores might do laptop work, but even with the local authorized service provider here they still just send you a FedEx pickup box to ship it to them.

The good news is that service is usually very fast considering that it's being shipped twice--the one time I needed to send a laptop in for repairs it was back within the week.