Apple coughs up G4 refunds to dissatisfied Danes
Still denies sudden ibook death syndrome
Apple will admit no wrongdoing, but has agreed to return money to Danish customers with allegedly defective iBook G4s. The concession comes after months of fighting a report from the Consumer Complaints Board (CCB) in Denmark that claims evidence of an original design flaw in the laptops.
A number of iBook G4 customers worldwide say that after only one year's use, the computers lose power and the screen goes blank.
The CCB investigation showed solder between two components loosen slightly each time the computer is turned on or off. With regular use, the joints break and no longer allow a current to pass through them.
Apple submitted its own technical report, which said the flaw did not occur through cycling the power. Earlier this month, the CCB ruled against Apple, dismissing the vendor's findings. The CCB reiterated that Apple must return money to customers for the faulty computers.
Apple was given 14 days to accept the decision or face public exposure on the board's list of "unwilling companies". reports the Danish tech pub, Comon.dk.
On Tuesday, the CCB announced Apple has agreed to their unhappy customers' kroner without admitting to the defect.
In a statement, the CCB's Frederik Navne Boesgaard said he was pleased that Apple accepted the arbitration. He hopes to move on to an improved dialog in both the consumer and Apple's best interest.
Or more precisely:
"I klagenævnet er vi glade for at Apple har accepteret afgørelsen, og vi ser frem til en forbedret dialog. Det er i både forbrugernes og Apples interesse." ®
COMMENTS
@ Jason
"so they nicked your hdd after replacing the motherboard. and didnt bother asking
hmmm you mean they didn't bother ghosting your stu"
I even left a letter with contact info inside saying to contact me. I would have bought that old drive if I could have. The work was done by an Apple contract house that does tons of other companies work too. :-(
The new equipment works great, but I really lost a lot of data. Now I back up much more regularly. :-) Live and learn.
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To the other post: MS troll alert!!
"Apple sales are increasing only because they are targeting the fashion conscious more money than sense brigade."
---Just because they look good, does not mean that they are not the best. :-)
" At least with a PC I can change manufacturer once they move from quality to crap and still keep everything else whether I run linux or microsoft. If you run osx - its back to Apple regardless of how crap they make the system and have to pay whatever they charge."
----- MS troll FUD . Your documents and images, etc can go from machine to machine. Jpg, quicktime, word, tiff, etc. all these are common format.
You must be a troll cause on one hand you state that you are comfortable swaping machines left and right, but suddenly you do not know how to use universal formats.
Maybe you also think that iTunes locks you to using an iPod, even though Zunes advertise that they can read iTunes mp3 and AAC files. :-( Very low quality of troll today. LOL Maybe I will just throw it back. :-)
Elder Norm
Title
"Apple sales are increasing only because they are targeting the fashion conscious more money than sense brigade. "
I know this sounds hard to believe for some of you Windows "fanboys and cultists" ;-), but some people find the Windows interface annoying as hell to use. Some people, even those who've never used anything else, utterly detest Windows. It's those people swelling the numbers now buying Macs. Not because they are fashion conscious and have more money than sense, but because they want any money they do spend on a computer to go on something they don't find more irritating than Chinese water torture. If that costs them 20% extra then that's the price of happiness.
The old views about Mac uers vs. Windows users no longer apply. Macs are very much a viable alternative to the average person and are becoming mainstream.
P.S. Yes, Linux is also an alternative, but it hasn't yet caught the imagination of the average person in the same way OSX has.
Mac Batteries not affected?
Well if mac batteries are not affected, then what's this story about...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/27/apple_battery_update_april_27_2007/
and why is apple replacing mine free of charge?
@elder norm
Apple sales are increasing only because they are targeting the fashion conscious more money than sense brigade. And yes PC manufacturers DO fail. At one time Toshiba made some of the best laptops in the world, now they don't. 2 Years ago Acer had fantastic build quality, but seem to be slipping. At least with a PC I can change manufacturer once they move from quality to crap and still keep everything else whether I run linux or microsoft. If you run osx - its back to Apple regardless of how crap they make the system and have to pay whatever they charge.
@Leigh
I'm assuming you're in the US as that would explain why the Macbook cost a "grand and a half"
re: rosetta - it was pointed out in EVERY review of hardware that until the apps you need were Intel native/Universal, there was a slowdown in using PPC OS X software as the Intel Macs would use Rosetta. Apple did talk about Rosetta on its website, so it wasn't trying to keep it hidden - but personally I would have checked out a few reviews first.
Although Rosetta was rubbish, you should have perhaps researched what you were going to buy... and maybe updated your software (a lot of companies provided free updates to make their software universal)
re: "yellowing of the shiny white case" - a problem affecting the first range of MacBooks, Apple then switched the type of plastic used and also replaced affected casing for free. Not ideal but it took action (reluctantly)
I would say that the cracking case problem was more of a design flaw.
re:"luckily for me the good old Reg had a story about the exact same problem happening to others, and how Apple have offered a free replacement battery for anyone affected - it's just a shame that Apple didn't seem to know anything about it!"
Erm, did you read the story? The main issue the writer to do with the power was an unsafe magsafe adapter and the writer demanded a product withdrawal of these adapters.... sadly, Apple had already phased them out about eight months earlier.
There ISN'T a battery issue with the MacBooks - they might have other problems, but this isn't one of them. If there was, it would be reported/bleated about on the Mac forums.... where your post wouldn have fitted in well.
Otherwise, you seem on the ball..
