back to article MacBook Air owners get laid

Mac-centric web forums are abuzz with complaints about MacBook Air display problems. It would seem they're getting laid. In paper-making parlance, "laid" refers to paper with thin, tightly spaced horizontal lines. Some unlucky Apple MacBook Air owners claim that noticeable horizontal - or nearly horizontal - grey lines are …

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  1. arran

    try

    not bloody sitting, dropping and using them as somewhere to write notes on then.

  2. Slaphead
    Paris Hilton

    Was always so

    Funny people are complaining about this now, this was pretty much always a "feature" of the old style white and black MacBooks - in fact as I type this I can see the same effect on my MacBook - but then I knew about this before I bought my MacBook, so I walked in with my eyes open - and to be honest if you have work on your computer so close to the display as to see this effect, you really ought to have an eye test.

    Reason - cheaper LCDs to keep costs low - also Apple source LCDs from more than one manufacturer, which explains why this is present on some units but not others.

    I'm always amazed at how many people miss the point about the macbook air - it's a highly portable, email, web browsing, wordprocessing and spreadsheet affair - it is not a Maya rendering powerhouse as one of my customers seemed to think.

    Funny how it's always Apple that attracts the whingers and moaners - if this was a dell this would be non-story.

    Paris, because she's been laid on screen if my memory serves me correctly.

  3. Bug
    Paris Hilton

    Hrm, annoying

    Given how much they cost. bet the owners are gutted :(

    Thing is, the Apple logo already shines through the panel a bit on the Air, looks like an ink splotch on the screen, so they're not really useful for on-the-go image work anyway- better off with one of the MBs or MBPs (the MBP is pricey, but it's a lovely machine, and the screen is really easy on the eye).

    Don't like the Air myself, not enough ports, and the performance of the machine is "meh" for the price- more of an executive toy than a workhorse. I can see the argument for a new Alu Macbook (continuing the fine traditions of the Powerbooks, built like tanks), but not El Skinny. As an ageing UNIX bigot, graphics monkey and part-time musician, have to admit that Apple's shiney toys are great when you're on the move. However, The prices are ridiculous - and in the case of the Air, the build quality isn't there.

    A lot of people can pay 1/3 the price of a macbook, and get 2/3 the performance for the day to day browing/office etc tasks- and don't need the gorgeous screen- an OK one will do. Most people are also fine with machines made of surprisingly tough modern plastics and can also live with a little extra bulk. You have to really need or want one to shell out that much.

    Disclaimer: I recent bought a new Macbook Pro. It's fricken' amazing, though it does attract a few too many lustful glances. However, I know I was being really self-indulgent, I probably could have got by shoving XP and linux on a run of the mill machine, and spending a few days taming windows so it didn't suffer those funny little stalls and dropouts that you get from all the junk in systray messing with the scheduler- and hoping everything supports ASIO so latency isn't a killer. However, I chose not to- my rationale is that I already own a load of mac audio software and I'm saving money really.. honest. Not just a shiny toy really. Umm..

  4. Wade Burchette
    Jobs Halo

    Apple's solution to problems

    Pretend it never exists, silence anyone who says it does exists, and make another anti-Microsoft commercial showing how your products are perfect whereas the competition is full of problems. Problem solved.

  5. pctechxp

    Steve 'Dick Turpin' Jobs

    Thankfully I rely on a PC from a manufacturer whose support is second to none and have only ever bought an iPod and a few music tracks from this outfit.

    However, looking at their own forums tells a whole story about the lack of customer care from Cupertino, once they have your money they couldn't care less, thank goodness staff in the stores have been a little more caring.

    I bought a track from iTunes a couple of years ago and think there was a problem during its encoding as it skipped, I used the report a problem option as you are supposed to do but heard nothing more about it, thankfully it was only 79p and not in the hundrds or even thousands that these poor misguided souls have paid for these POS.

  6. Simon Painter
    Flame

    Mac users can get f*cked

    surely that would have been a better tagline?

  7. Thomas

    This is what it's come to?

    You're so desperate for joke titles that you're willing to dedicate the opening parts of stories to explaining the joke?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Old Gateway laptops did this too...

    ...the problem was the internal display cable getting pinched between the over-keyboard bezel and the bottom of the screen. Reroute + shrinksleeve usually fixed them. Maybe a dot of hot glue. Talk about a bush-league mistake, though.

  9. Jacob Reid
    Jobs Horns

    Well, at least they are easy to return

    surely the entire point of the macbook air, when it fails then you can easily send it back to apple.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Wait for v3.1

    As any fule kno, you really need to wait until at least v3.1 although perhaps this universal truth is only recognised by Windows and PC users. Although I'm sure many Apple products have suffered from v1.0-v3.0 problems too - remember the dodgy batteries of the first iPods, etc., etc.

    I'll wait until there's a model revision with more than one USB port;).

    Bill 'cause he knows.

  11. Henry Wertz Gold badge
    Paris Hilton

    A theory

    My theory is, as has happened MANY times on Apples, Apple but a cheap 18-bit LCD into this machine rather than a proper 24-bit machine (for Apple users, 16-bit is "thousands of colors" and 24-bit "millions".) They will use dithering algorithms so the cheap display can pretend to be a proper display... I'm guessing rather than using a proper dithering algorithm (which tries to randomize the dithering a bit specifically to avoid getting laid.. heh...) the screen just goes ahead and gets laid (tee-hee again.)

    Paris, she also likes to get laid.

  12. Shaun Austin
    Paris Hilton

    "Never bu(y) version 1.0 of anything"

    Except... the screen problems are only with the latest revisions of MBA...

    Paris... laid... etc etc!!!....

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Mactards keep buying this...

    ... overpriced crap and when problem occur pretend it does not exist and as, Wade says, silence anyone who does complain. Very strange.

    Was in the Bristol Apple store today - was amazing how many people were not buying anything. They wont sell me a MacBook Pro "superdrive" as mine has died a few weeks out of warranty but, although they wont quote me, they will repair it for me and let me know the costs - yeah, right.

  14. Greg

    Well if you're going to be stupid enough...

    ...to buy a MacBook Air, then that's the kind of crap you're going to get.

  15. Thomas

    @AC "Mactards keep buying this..."

    The screen problem is currently on the front pages of, among others:

    • macnn.com

    • 9to5mac.com

    • machash.com

    • appleinsider.com

    • macsurfer.com

    That includes four out of the top five sites returned by Google for the search term 'Mac news'. I would therefore suggest that you have an extremely peculiar definition of pretending that a problem does not exist.

  16. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Gestures

    It seems vaguely amusing to me that the users who can't be trusted with more than one mouse button (for fear that their fluffy little heads would explode) are expected to use one, two, three and now four finger swipes and taps.

    Paris, because you only get four fingers in a Kit-Kat.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @Ian Johnston

    Crikey! What century are you living in?

    You're really showing your ignorance...

    Macs have supported multi-button mice for almost a decade now and have been supplied with a multi-button mouse for some years.

    Next you'll be claiming PCs can only have 640k of memory!

  18. Andy Worth

    Re:Steve 'Dick Turpin' Jobs

    "Thankfully I rely on a PC from a manufacturer whose support is second to none"

    It must be pretty poor if it comes second to receiving no support at all..... :)

    As long as you're not talking about PC World and their "tech guys" or whatever they are called this week, which you have to pay additional money for the privilege of using (???) then you might well be right.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So?

    Just stick it in a manilla envelope and post it back to apple.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Thomas and @AC

    Thomas, none of the sites you talk about are actually owned or run by Apple AFAIK, get the point now?

    AC, Mactards for years derided PC users with more than one mouse button, proclaiming the holiness of the one button mouse saying one button was all you need because the lord Jobs had spake thus.

    Then along came support for multi button mice and the mactards saw it was good but their article of faith was now diminished.

    Never mind, said the mactards, we'll re-write history and claim it was always meant to be so.

    Moral, if you can't trust a mactard to be truthful with history then you can't trust them with more than one mouse button.

    Paris, she gets screwed almost as often as Apple fanbois.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ AC 00:36

    woo, a multi button mouse!

    I would officially like to welcome Mac users to 1990s computing. Keep it up you fruity fashion types!

  22. Maverick
    Joke

    @ AC Monday 00:36 GMT

    > Next you'll be claiming PCs can only have 640k of memory!

    no, but it seems like it when you run Vista

  23. Thomas

    @AC who previously replied to me

    In that case I think maybe you should adjust your use of language. 'Mactards' is generally taken to be a pejorative describing Mac users and the Mac community, not direct Apple employees. I am a Mac user, but I am unable to find fault with your suggestion that Apple spend a lot of time pretending that clearly visible flaws with their products don't exist.

  24. Big Bear
    Pirate

    @Thomas

    Thomas, I agree 'Mactards' are the people who acquire Macs, but in terms of AC's and Wade's earlier post, it is generally accepted that Apple have a record of deleting some threads in their official forums that are indicative of problems with their products, and that it is difficult to get them as a corporate entity to admit fault with anything they produce. They are by no means the only company to do this (I believe Dell and Google "Do No Evil... Or Deny All Evil" are prime examples) but in this case it is relevant as the product in question is a late edition Air, and even though at least one thread in the official Apple forum is still alive, that thread is signposted as "This question is not answered". This marks the official Apple response as the golden sound of silence, which is at odds with a no-argument replacement of faulty screened machines instore, hinting that the powers-who-must-be-obeyed have told the staff of the problem and told them to replace machines showing it, solving the problem without ever admitting guilt or even awareness of the problem.

    I'm sorry to say that it looks like Apple are just behaving as all large corporate pirates alike...

  25. Psymon

    @ Andy North

    I see you are refering to the £1.50 a minute software support line.

    Yes, the tech guys do indeed supply free hardware warranty support. But, just like they don't help you with your "my mother didn't breast feed me as a child" issues, they also don't help you with your incopetence to operate the software on your own computer.

    Yes, I did indeed do a stint in Dantes seventh circle of hell, (formaly known as PCSC at the time), and after dealing with your 27th dribbling retard that can't figure out how to configure their own firewall, you get a little tetchy when they start demanding you give them tuition for free because their computer has a warranty.

    Those that can, do. Those that can't, spend 25mins on the phone whinging about it or buy a mac!

  26. Thomas

    @Big Bear

    With all due respect, the post to which I responded reads:

    "Mactards keep buying this...

    ... overpriced crap and when problem occur pretend it does not exist"

    That clearly means to suggest that Mac customers prefer to bury their head in the sand. I therefore think it was legitimate to show that 4 out of the top 5 sites as returned by Google for Mac news were reporting the issue. Apple's highly questionable and sometimes insulting behaviour towards some customers is not relevant and - at least by me - not even disputed.

  27. Pierre

    Oh, get over it!

    Stop bitching. It's inherently secure, it's tiny and stylish, just don't switch it on and you'll be fine.

  28. Mark Grady

    Goddamnit

    I was just about to buy a MacBook when until I read the rest of the article ...

  29. Big Bear

    @Thomas

    A civil discourse I can take part in - these have far too commonly descended into flame wars!

    I was taking AC's line as including the end part:

    "Mactards keep buying this... overpriced crap and when problem occur pretend it does not exist and as, Wade says, silence anyone who does complain."

    Which I took to be regarding the company "silencing anyone", not the users, especially looking at Wade's post that he references which is exclusively about the company:

    "Apple's solution to problems - Pretend it never exists, silence anyone who says it does exists..."

    I don't deny that it is the Mac users that are noticing this problem and it is a good sign that at least some users are not blindly buying into the marketing and hype surrounding the products. However, with 4/5 of the top Mac sites complaining about these problems, you would think that the great and good Apple Inc. would maybe sit up and take notice, and at least acknowledge a problem? I would be pretty miffed if I'd spanked upwards of 2 grand on a machine that is being sold as a premium product and something like this doesn't even get recognised as a problem by the company, especially as it like to market itself as the Rolex of personal computing!

  30. Daniel B.
    Boffin

    What's four finger swipe?

    No idea of what this is.

    However, the weird lines do sound similar to the new PSP model's woes with its LCD screen. Maybe the problems are related?

    @BLoad - I think you're talking about the PSP-3000. ;)

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