{"id":43456,"date":"2024-05-30T15:50:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T19:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=43456"},"modified":"2024-06-04T14:39:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T18:39:44","slug":"apple-silicon-macbook-pro-battery-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/30\/apple-silicon-macbook-pro-battery-replacement\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Silicon MacBook Pro Battery Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2024\/5\/7.html\">Jeff Johnson<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/112530409041058705\">Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2024\/5\/7.html\"><p>Yesterday I took the M1 MacBook Pro to my local Apple-authorized service provider that I&rsquo;ve been going to for many years, who performed all of the work on my Intel MacBook Pro, including the battery replacements and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/671767\/retina-macbook-pro-what-is-staingate-what-can-you-do-about-it.html\">Staingate<\/a> screen replacement. This is a third-party shop, not an Apple Store. To my utter shock, they told me that they couldn&rsquo;t replace the battery in-house, because starting with the Apple silicon transition, Apple now requires that the MacBook Pro be mailed in to Apple for battery replacement!<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>As a Mac owner for over twenty years, I&rsquo;ve always been able to arrange for same-day repair, dropping off the Mac in the morning and picking it up later in the day. The last time, due to Apple&rsquo;s increasing restrictions on Apple service providers, I had to pay an &ldquo;emergency service fee&rdquo; for the same-day repair, but I&rsquo;m perfectly willing to do that. My time at the computer was worth more than the fee. This new nonsense about requiring mail-in repairs, however, is a step way over the line.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>I checked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.selfservicerepair.com\/en-US\/order\">Apple&rsquo;s Self Service Repair Store<\/a>, and sure enough the top case with battery and keyboard for my MacBook Pro cost $615.12, although there is an $88 credit if you return the replaced part to Apple.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I didn&rsquo;t like it when Apple first got rid of user-replaceable batteries, but it didn&rsquo;t seem like <em>that<\/em> big of a deal because they promised quick replacements at any authorized service provider. The battery wasn&rsquo;t glued in; you just had to unscrew the bottom of the laptop. It&rsquo;s surprising and disappointing that they&rsquo;re now designing products such that this essential service is even more difficult.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/02\/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law\/\">Oregon Passes Right-to-Repair Law<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/22\/self-service-repair-for-m1-mac-notebooks\/\">Self Service Repair for M1 Mac Notebooks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/15\/products-useful-lifespans-should-be-longer-than-their-batteries\/\">Products&rsquo; Useful Lifespans Should Be Longer Than Their Batteries<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/27\/apple-self-service-repair-now-available\/\">Apple Self Service Repair Now Available<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/17\/apple-self-service-repair\/\">Apple Self Service Repair<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/06\/apples-support-gap\/\">Apple&rsquo;s Support Gap<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"apple-silicon-macbook-pro-battery-replacement-update-2024-05-31\">Update (2024-05-31): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/macbook-pro-battery-replacements\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/macbook-pro-battery-replacements\/\">\n<p>I called my local third-party repair place and asked them about replacing the battery. They told me they could change it in the store with same-day turnaround for $350, about the same as what Apple charges, using official parts.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Ternus&rsquo; point is that Apple&rsquo;s solution for preventing liquid damage to all components, including the battery, compromised the ease of repairing an iPhone, but the company saw it as a reasonable trade-off.<\/p>\n<p>But it is also a bit of a red herring for two reasons.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>If there is any repair which should be straightforward and doable without replacing unrelated components or the entire device, it is the battery.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=40533396\">Hacker News<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=40534047\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=40534047\"><p>The problem isn&rsquo;t really the hardware. I actually do have a Mac mini that I use for testing. (And I still have a couple of older MacBook Pros, though they can&rsquo;t run the latest macOS versions.) The problem is my software setup. Like I said in the blog post, I&rsquo;ve got everything on the MacBook Pro. To get everything I need in working order onto a secondary Mac, and then &ldquo;sync&rdquo; all changes in various software back to my main machine after a period without it, would be a major pain in the butt. And that&rsquo;s never been an issue before, because like I said, this is the first time in decades of computer ownership that I haven&rsquo;t been able to arrange same-day service. Even overnight service would be ok, but mail-in is out of the question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/link\/2024\/05\/making-battery-replacements-easier\/\">Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/link\/2024\/05\/making-battery-replacements-easier\/\">\n<p>There are a lot of trade-offs when it comes to the design of mobile devices, but making it easy to replace a device&rsquo;s battery should always be a high priority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Especially for a Pro device.<\/p>\n\n<p id=\"apple-silicon-macbook-pro-battery-replacement-update-2024-06-04\">Update (2024-06-04): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/112554787884160513\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/112554787884160513\">\n<p>As a kind of test, I emailed my local Apple Authorized Service Provider from a masked address and asked anonymously about MacBook Pro battery replacement, without giving them my serial number. They actually have 3 locations in town.<\/p>\n<p>The first reply was kind of misleading: &ldquo;We can do the repair through AppleCare+. The process takes usually around 3-5 business days. We can do the repair at 2 locations&#8230;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>I expressed confusion about the 3-5 day process, and the second reply said, &ldquo;The 3-5 business day process requires us to run diagnostics, isolate the issue and mail the device out to Apple for repair.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>So it had nothing to do with me specifically, and my machine wasn&rsquo;t &ldquo;flagged&rdquo;, as someone suggested on the web. They&rsquo;re sending all repairs out to Apple.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Johnson (Mastodon): Yesterday I took the M1 MacBook Pro to my local Apple-authorized service provider that I&rsquo;ve been going to for many years, who performed all of the work on my Intel MacBook Pro, including the battery replacements and a Staingate screen replacement. This is a third-party shop, not an Apple Store. To my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-30T19:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"c6a33aac-537a-47a4-8408-8d6ef524e074","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-06-04T18:39:48Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AxqM6rFN6R6SECI1u9STgdA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2014,416,2208,1358,30,100,1860],"class_list":["post-43456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-m1","tag-applecare","tag-battery-replacement","tag-environment","tag-mac","tag-macbookpro","tag-unauthorized-repair"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43456"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43507,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43456\/revisions\/43507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}