Dang, ya'll
this has been a saga.
I went to three Apple stores and called Applecare twice. Eventually I was able to get the effing thing replaced.
At the first store, they accused me of spraying it with Windex and staining the screen. He couldn't give me an explanation of how it happened other than that I used an ammonia abrasive. He also suggested I might have put too much elbow grease into cleaning the corners.
At the second store, they accused me of putting water on the screen directly so that water went underneath the glass. I argued with the guy for 20-30 minutes. He kept calling it "physical, accidental damage." I asked him to tell me how I could've caused this. He couldn't give me an answer. He told me, however, that he can still say "the device couldn't have done that to itself." I told him he can't call it damage if he can't even tell me what might have caused it. I left after I decided the conversation was going nowhere.
The third store was the first to acknowledge that the problems was the screen's coating rubbing off. He told me that I should only use alcohol based cleaners on my screen. I told them that I follow the advice on the
Apple support page: just water and a microfiber. He said that water can vary from place to placethe Ph balance of the water can be wrong and cause damage to the screen. So all of a sudden, I have to keep a reverse osmosis system in my apartment because the water might be too hard for cleaning my screen? He also said I need to use the microfiber the laptop comes with. I asked him if they sell replacements Apple-branded cleaning cloths. He said nothey sell other brands of microfiber cloths. But
wait
I'm only supposed to use the magical microfiber cloth that came with my laptop and magical water from an enchanted well? lol. At the end of this exchange, he told me it was a possibility that the oils from my hands were eating through the coating. He said he still couldn't replace my screen without me having to pay 400 bucks for it. So I'm not supposed to touch or clean my laptop?
I left the store and called Applecare. They sent my call to a supervisor, who asked me to send pictures of the problem. The supervisor called two of the stores and asked them for their thoughts on the matter, and they determined that it was "accidental damage." They decided to pay for the repair anyway because "[I'm] a long time customer." They're sending a box to me for a mail-in repair.
Honestly, I'm not at all happy about the outcome. Every technician was condescending, and each of them made specious arguments. Each one made it seem as though I should just accept this problem, when there is clearly a defect. None of them even made the effort to try to give me suggestions for how to keep the problem from happening other than "clean it the way we clean it, which is the way you're already cleaning it, or something." I just feel annoyed knowing that they can just act as though we've caused these problems even though so many of us do.
!
