back to article No, no, let's hear this out, says judge waving away Apple's attempt to kill MacBook Pro Flexgate lawsuit

A US court has rejected Apple's request to throw out a potential class-action lawsuit accusing the iGiant of knowingly selling MacBook Pro laptops with defective display cables. In an order [PDF] signed last week in San Jose, California, federal district judge Edward Davila essentially said he believed the case, brought by …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had the same thing happen to my Xiaomi Mi Air laptop.

    Guess they were trying to copy EVERYTHING about the MacBook Pro...even the defects...

  2. SuperGeek

    In all my years of repairing laptops, I have never had a repair in that was due to the backlight supply cable. The lamps wearing out, and the power rail to them, yes. Apple have set a new low, but then it's planned obsolescence.

    I wonder how long it'll be before another class action over the way heat is vented AT the screen, causing screen bleed on some models is launched? My Dell G3 copies this but I've undervolted the CPU to lower temps. Why everyone copies Apple's crap design is beyond me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A new low?

      LOL, new?

      Display cable problems also occurred in PSION's brief experiments with laptops known as the MC400 and MC600 (I think the main reason the MC200 didn't feature often was because few bought those), and were carried over to the S3 which initially had the same problem. And no, as far as I recall they didn't do recall or pick up the tab for the repairs, and that is over three decades ago.

      Now, that said, I do think that Apple should have picked that up as a warranty repair after they got a number of units back with the same fault, it's a shame they (again) let it go too far - especially after they apparently did get the picture (pardon the pun) as signalled by the appearance of a longer ribbon. They could have seriously upped the respect for the brand if they ensured those repairs were free of charge. Even better would have been to retrospectively refund repairs already made because that would be a relatively cheap way to boost brand respect. Now they have a lawsuit instead, which is IMHO very stupid.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In all my years of fixing laptops I have had display and backlight cables fail but I guess I've been doing it a lot longer than you have.

      Used to be a thing on Compaq laptops back when dinosaurs and 386 chips still roamed the earth :)

  3. Mark 110

    "Apple declined to comment."

    No shit . . . sherlock

  4. Simon Barker

    As piss poor as it was for Apple to make such a bad design that's guaranteed to fail under normal use and pretend the issue doesn't exist the whole reason it was so problematic was they also chose to integrate the cable as part of the display.

    Cable failing? Now you need a new display and the display is the most expensive part. Which is a bit of an issue.

    You can warn people about these problems but they will ignore you if they've made their mind up to get a Mac so Apple has no incentive to ever stop these practices, they're rewarded for them and anything that happens in the courts is pennies on the dollar to them.

    1. RM Myers
      FAIL

      That's not a problem - it's a feature (for Apple, not the consumer). Planned obsolescence has become a business model, and nothing promotes planned obsolescence like a very expensive repair which costs close to, or better yet, more than the value of the product. It's a win-win situation - either you make a new sale, or you rake in the money through your repair business. The key is getting the product to fail after the warranty period!

      1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

        "nothing promotes planned obsolescence like a very expensive repair which costs close to, or better yet, more than the value of the product. It's a win-win situation"

        It's not win-win, it's lose-lose and in nobody's interests to 'engineer' this kind of sh*t in. The consumer loses, but ultimately Apple does too. The reason they're a $2tn company is because the majority of their customers are happy with their CURRENT product, such that when it dies they want to buy a NEW one rather than switching to a different brand. If customers were treated as a one-time hit, then Apple would be far less successful.

        1. Ramis101
          Thumb Down

          in nobody's interests to 'engineer' this kind of sh*t in

          Hogwash. built in obsolescence is a key feature of the whole economy.

          Just compare a 20yr old Audi with one now, or Merc, or Bimmer.

          Back to IT matters. Name one good valid reason why i needed to change from Windows 7 to 10?

          So M$ could flog W10. thats it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: in nobody's interests to 'engineer' this kind of sh*t in

            That's my thoughts, why should we be always "updating" to the latest "features" that we don't want nor need.

        2. RM Myers
          Thumb Down

          I assume your sarcasm detector is broken. You might want to take it in for repair. And Apple is a $2tn company largely due to planned obsolescence of their phones as well as Android phones.The whole phone market would shrink drastically if the average phone lasted as long as the average PC. Apple has a very limited number of products, and is extremely dependent on the phone replacement rate being high. If Google wasn't doing the same thing Apple would take a real hit to their market valuation.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Weirdly, I have an iPhone 6s which is now quite old but still works fine (it has once benefitted from an Apple barrety replacement action but that's about it). I use it as recorder - with the right gear it supports broadcast quality audio.

      2. Snapper

        Especially if you sell the replacements and fitting in your Apple Stores lower than even your registered Apple repair people can buy the parts for. I've seen a huge number of broken screens and liquid spillages during lockdown but as soon as the clients get a sniff of what Apple are charging I've lost the sale.

  5. Wade Burchette

    Apple has had display cable problems for years, as the Canadian Broadcast Corporation found out in an investigation they did. Someone at the CBC took an Mac laptop to a "genius" bar, and was told that they fix so expensive, he should just buy a new one. They took it to an independent repair shop, who discovered the flaw was a bent wire on the display cable, and fixed it for free.

    1. RuffianXion

      Re: "neither side was short of a few shekels"

      "Apple has had display cable problems for years" , I think you mean Apple's CUSTOMERS have had display cable problems for years - it's not a problem for Apple if they are making money from it.

      Apple having been pulling sh*t like this for years. Check out the 'Genius Bar'-related videos on Louis Rossman's Youtube channel for some real eye-openers.

  6. razorfishsl

    No one has actually asked WHY Apple keep making products that keep failing for strange reasons.

    when you have ultra reliable components in a product from known manufacturers, how else are you going to build in obsolescence?

    Ah that's right...... start making your own CPU & silicon.... Trip back to 94 anyone ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @razorfishsl

      Maybe no one asked why because the answer is blatantly obvious. Ive

  7. naive

    Can we have this letigation in Europe too ?

    Instead of the EU commission gobbling up all the money with fines, and consumers get nothing.

  8. WIOHSITO

    It's all caused by that completely new and innovative phenomenon.....

    You know what I'm talking about....

    ooh what's it called....

    Now I remember

    it's called the iStreisand-Effect (tm)

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