I am a recent Apple convert and feel like I have been ripped off

Question

I purchased a 13inch MacBook since I was getting a little bit tired of having to constantly reboot my PC. Bought a 13 inch MacBook in Nov 2008. Since this was my first Mac and did not have any other accessories/sofware etc from the pc world, I invested in buying all the accessories - duplicate power cords, apple care, more memory etc... all original ones from Apple (read expensive). I did not mind it since I was thinking that I will be using the MacBook for a long time. I recently found that my battery was not holding the charge and so I scheduled an appointment at the Genius bar at a local Apple store. I was told by my die hard Apple fans that enter all the details in and since you have Apple care, they will have a new battery waiting for you. I arrive at the designated time and (the person who was helping me had not even bothered to find out why I was there for - ok, granted he must have been busy). He sticks a usb drive and runs some program which tells him that the battery needs to be replaced. He then continues to tell me that the battery needs to be replaced and that I have an option to buy it at the store. I obviously asked him why I needed to buy when Applecare should have covered it. He rattled off some technical balther and finally it amounted to that the program he was running said that my battery had failed and Apple considers anything over 300 recharge cycles as having 'failed'. How in the world a common user like myself supposed to know this? When I challenged him to show where in Applecare this was stated...he pretended to look on the web and turned to a colleague of his for support and all they ended up doing was point me to the description for battery coverage for batteries under Applecare, which is quite vague. Here is my question - I have taken good care of my Macbook. I have seldom used it solely running on battery. I have always had the Macbook plugged in. Is'nt this unusual for my battery to fail this early and not being covered by Applecare?
I would have gladly purchased, had I known in advance what constituted failure- ie over 300 cycles etc..(though I would have questioned that this could be attributed to some manufacturing defect for it to fail so early). Why does not Apple state it as such as a part of the warranty description? This in my mind is a rip off.
I was planning a trip and did not want to be left without a battery so I was forced to buy one at $129. The gentlemen at the genius bar spoke to his manager and cut a deal for half the price. The whole incident has left a very sour taste for Apple's products and service - not sure if there are other similar surprises lurking in fine print in Applecare land.

Answer 1

bgrad wrote:
duplicate power cords, apple care, more memory etc... all original ones from Apple (read expensive).
In the future, ask about that stuff here first. Mac accessories (such as memory) are often different, but they shouldn't be any more money than the PC versions.
I was told by my die hard Apple fans that enter all the details in and since you have Apple care, they will have a new battery waiting for you.
It is not that automatic, but not far from it either.
I arrive at the designated time and (the person who was helping me had not even bothered to find out why I was there for - ok, granted he must have been busy). He sticks a usb drive and runs some program which tells him that the battery needs to be replaced. He then continues to tell me that the battery needs to be replaced and that I have an option to buy it at the store. I obviously asked him why I needed to buy when Applecare should have covered it. He rattled off some technical balther and finally it amounted to that the program he was running said that my battery had failed and Apple considers anything over 300 recharge cycles as having 'failed'. How in the world a common user like myself supposed to know this?
It sounds like you just had a loser. Complain about them and go to a different store. If you don't have another store handy, talk to the manager.
I would have gladly purchased, had I known in advance what constituted failure- ie over 300 cycles etc..(though I would have questioned that this could be attributed to some manufacturing defect for it to fail so early). Why does not Apple state it as such as a part of the warranty description? This in my mind is a rip off.
I was planning a trip and did not want to be left without a battery so I was forced to buy one at $129. The gentlemen at the genius bar spoke to his manager and cut a deal for half the price.
A spare battery is a good thing to have.
The whole incident has left a very sour taste for Apple's products and service - not sure if there are other similar surprises lurking in fine print in Applecare land.
Just avoid that store in the future. Most places are much better than that.
The real question here, the one that the "genius" didn't ask, is why you have a cycle count > 300. I have a 2006 Macbook, a 2007 Macbook, and one spare battery I bought sometime in 2006. The two batteries I have installed have cycle counts of 245 and 222, respectively. How can your 2008 Macbook have cycle count greater than 300? You should keep an eye on that.