Earlier this year Apple introduced a Self Service Repair program that lets customers purchase genuine Apple parts, use official repair guides, and even rent the same equipment Apple uses to perform repairs. At launch, the company offered everything you needed to repair recent iPhones. Now Apple has expanded to cover MacBook laptops as well.

But just because Apple is offering official parts, guides, and tools for repairing your MacBook doesn’t mean that you should use them… because you could end up spending way more money than you would if you just took your laptop to a repair shop or bought third-party parts.

Say you want to replace an aging battery, for example. That’s one of the most common pain points in a laptop and one of the most common repairs. But if you have a MacBook Pro, Apple won’t just sell you a battery. They’ll sell you a “Top Case with Battery and Keyboard” kit that includes replacements for parts of your notebook that might not even be broken… along with a 162 page repair manual that goes through a bunch of steps to replace them.

One would almost think Apple doesn’t actually want anyone to use of its Self Service Repair program.

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4 replies on “Lilbits: MacBook Self Service repairs could get pricy, Apple will unveil the iPhone 14 on September 7th, and Google launches new Fitbit wearables”

  1. Too bad Apple (and others, let’s not fool ourselves) only put out a repair program to appear compliant with “right to repair” laws/expectations, another missed opportunity to do things differently.

  2. To me this just sounds like a sales strategy. It’s just to combat the common objection that consumers have about buying Macbooks (they’re not easily repairable).

    This one doesn’t get past people like us, but it will fool the average Joe who doesn’t know better. Average consumers don’t know enough to investigate the details of this program.

    I’m currently using a Macbook Pro i7 16″ model, and also an Macbook Air M1 model. I’m not sure I will be buying another Macbook anytime soon. Their support for external monitors is terrible, and the OS has far too many incredibly stupid bugs and oversights that have not been fixed in years. MacOS is getting incredibly stale in terms of functionality, while other operating systems are advancing year after year.

    1. An exercise on malicious compliance, if regulators had any spine no way this would fly, since they don’t it does.

  3. Gee apple, thanks for proving the point I was making just this morning about your whole self-repair service being designed to push the narrative that “none of our customers actually want to repair their own devices! So shut up about right to repair, it’ll never happen, and everyone hates you.”

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