Apple adds M1 Mac notebooks to self-repair scheme

Loyal Mac fans inclined to break out the WD-40 and duct tape when their trusted devices misbehave now have access to an official Apple Self Service Repair program. Promising repair manuals and genuine Apple parts and tools, the program currently applies to MacBook Air and Pro notebooks with the M1 family of chips. It follows a …

[bpfh]

If I get this right…

You won’t be able to use this method as a way of upgrading the mobo for to storage, ram or gpu’s…. Well…. Not until you find a full spec one and use their serial number instead?

Does anyone have an m1 air with 2tb ssd? I would like to look at the serial number. Purely for research purposes of course…

[Solviva]

Re: If I get this right…

This sounds like you can now buy replacement screens - the uppercase/battery/trackpad has been available already and just needs a set of screwdrivers. At least at work we could order the uppercase and I swapped it out myself to replace the battery about 5 years ago.

[Aitor 1]

Ownership

So they essentially assert ownership of the machines people bought.

[Anonymous Coward]

A question of responsibilities?

It's all wonderful to have the right to repair, but I assume it is accepted that that means loss of warranty, no?

[Neil Barnes]

Re: A question of responsibilities?

That would seem logical; if specialist tools and skills are required it's probably unreasonable to expect Joe Public to have them. But it might be that the warranty transfers to the repairer?

[Repair Lady]

Re: A question of responsibilities?

Federal Law - the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act prevents OEMs, including Apple, from voiding their warranty if you use non-OEM parts or non-authorized labor. But don't expect the OEM to cover damages you might make to other parts while fixing your stuff. Plus -- if you phone is already more than a year old -- your warranty is probably expired. Go Forth and Fix.

[theOtherJT]

Re: A question of responsibilities?

I've waited years to say this on 'el Reg but...

...username checks out.

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing seriously wrong with Apple's "un"-ecosystem.

Though there are few laptop suppliers that are any good in this regard; Apple are probably the worst of the worst opting for proprietary form factors for consumable items in systems. Does the spares/repairs business really earn them that much? Staff overhead and rent on apple stores vs. the income made from monopolising that area of the sector?

No doubt it's part of the ongoing strategy to get you to buy a new thing when the old one claps out.

I don't want to jinx it, but nominally the Apple laptops we've had have been reliable workhorses lasting 10 years or more. As opposed to some other laptops that boil themselves alive at idle; and have unsurprisingly short asset lifetimes (and not much better to repair).

[Smeagolberg]

>[some Apple laptops]... reliable workhorses lasting 10 years or more.

>As opposed to some other laptops that boil themselves alive at idle;

>and have unsurprisingly short asset lifetimes (and not much better to repair).

I'm on my 5th year of using a Lenovo X1 Carbon, first generation, i7, circa 2012. It's been in use for hours every day since I bought it in 2017, second hand on eBay, for ~£400.

I replaced the external power supply after a couple of years of use that involved much-too-frequent cable-flexing. I've yet to replace the fan that failed about 4 years ago. (*) It doesn't get too much heat-making use (apart from intermittent YouTube distractions) or I'd have been less tardy about fitting a new one. It's mostly used for CMS / educational content creation and substantial emacs / git / shell script stuff, plus some video work and usual office-type things.

It's run various versions of Linux, plus VirtualBox.

The keyboard is better than any other I've experienced on a laptop in 30+ years. (Apple's have been too form-over-function unreliable in recent years and were never as good as Lenovo even at their best).

It's strong, slim, lightweight.

Because it just works it doesn't need to be 'bigged up' with boastful, often misleading and not always true, slogans about 'just working'. But I suppose some people like to believe the marketing b/s to justify their choice.

When it eventually gives up I'll get another second-hand Lenovo. I could probably do that 4 or 5 times for the price of a similarly powered Apple laptop and have the added satisfaction of using a well-engineered, professional grade laptop without the embarrassment of a glowing Apple logo in the Starbucks clone-rows.

(*) Well engineered hardware is easy to maintain, by definition. Engineering compromised by marketing, not so much.

[43300]

Look at how much Apple are charging for the tools, many of which (torx and pentalobe screwdriver, etc) can be picked up on ebay for a fraction of the price!