Apple is offering free repairs to fix the iPhone X ghost touch issue and certain MacBook Pro laptops that may experience drive failure. The company announced the two new repair options today, acknowledging a problem in which the iPhone X's display reacts when it hasn't been touched or fails to respond to touch, and in which a MacBook Pro SSD may fail.
Today amid announcements of a new MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iPad Pro, one upgrade seemed to slip through the cracks. Not that Apple would announce this sort of thing on its own, but still, there's more power to be had. There'll be new configuration options on Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro starting late November.
Whether it's the need to protect their products' security and integrity, or just a slimy business practice, Apple is one of the most prevalent of modern tech companies that are clamping down on third-party repairs of their devices. Proponents of the "right to repair" were alarmed earlier this week when leaked Apple service documents indicated that the latest MacBook Pros and iMac Pro would be left inoperable after repairs from unauthorized service providers.
Apple, like many device manufacturers, are dead set against self-repairs or third-party repairs. These companies often cite safety, integrity, and trade secrets as reasons for discouraging those while consumer advocates accuse them of deplorable business strategies. That has never really stopped the third-party repair industry though companies increase their efforts to curb it. The latest from Apple is probably the most radical, making a 2018 MacBook Pro or even an iMac Pro practically useless if it has been repaired by an unauthorized service provider.
Apple has admitted it made a mistake with the new MacBook Pro, and will push out an update today that addresses the controversial thermal throttling of its latest laptops. The new Core i7 and Core i9 MacBook Pro 15-inch options arrived to a warm reception when Apple announced them earlier this month, but that warmth turned out to be the excessive heat from the new processors.
It’s really no secret by now that Apple has some of the most restrictive repair policies in the consumer electronics market. It even sometimes runs afoul of government regulations regarding warranties and third-party repairs. It has some pretty secretive procedures and proprietary tools for the job, which has left many in the third-party repair service industry coming up with their own solutions. That might have just become easier now that someone has leaked Apple’s internal videos showing its own official procedures for opening up iPhones and even MacBooks.
It seems that the uncertainty over Apple’s newest MacBook Pro generation. The problematic keyboard has been “fixed” by what is practically a cover-up. The most powerful Core i9 model might be throttling too much to take advantage of all that power. But now there might be an even bigger threat to the 2018 MacBook Pro’s longevity. Based on teardowns, sources, and lack of documentation, the latest gen notebooks might be unable to save the data on your SSD if its logic board becomes irreparable.
Not since Baywatch in the days of Pamela Anderson has silicone proved so fascinating to so many, as Apple using it in the third-generation butterfly keyboard on the controversial 2018 MacBook Pro. The reworked keys are, Apple insists, all about reducing noise, but that hasn't stopped plentiful speculation that in reality they're intended to address the spate of stuck buttons that forced the Cupertino firm to offer free repairs.
Apple's most potent MacBook Pro may have a cooling problem, but blame for the toasty Core i9's throttling may not lie entirely at the Cupertino firm's door. The 2018 MacBook Pro offers a six-core Core i9 processor for the first time, one of Intel's fastest CPUs, and instantly became an object of lust for those wanting workstation performance from a portable machine.
A leaked Apple service document has quietly conceded that the redesigned 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard is, indeed, intended to avoid the ongoing "sticky key" controversy, not just reduce noise. The third-generation 'board was billed by Apple as a fix for just how much sound its homegrown key mechanism produces when typed on.
With great power comes great responsibility or, in the case of computers, great heat. The fact that computers generate heat is nothing new and is solved by one of two methods to cool things down: heat dissipation or throttling. The latter, of course, reduces the processing power of the computer and is not an ideal situation. That, however, is exactly what one YouTuber found in the new 15-inch MacBook Pro running on an eighth-gen Intel Core i9, the fastest and the hottest model. Literally, too.
Apple just launched its mid-year lineup of MacBook Pros and not without some controversy, specifically around the keyboard. The mid-2018 generation features much-needed upgrades in specs but keeps everything else almost the same. One the one hand, that’s good for repairs since there’s nothing new to trip technicians up. On the other hand, it also means the MacBook Pro retains its low, low repairability score as well, which shouldn’t be news to anyone by now.