The Apple Store is in the West County Mall, a very upscale and large mall that’s only about twenty minutes away. This was my first time in one of these, and my first reaction was that they must still be moving in. However, I was assured that the white, empty spaces made it easier to look at the products.
I showed the TiBook to the ‘genius bar’ guy, and he’d never heard of the stuck TiBook battery before, and went to look it up in whatever genius bar guy manuals there was. It would have been better just to check the Internet, though.
Anyway, he said that he thinks the rim that holds the battery is broken and that’s why it’s stuck. Since this isn’t covered under warranty (“But it’s a known design defect!” “I don’t know about that, but look at the wear at the latch.” “But that’s because of me trying to get the battery unstuck!”), it will cost me about $250.00+ to fix it. Big ouch.
He was also cool and mentioned a couple of other places that do Mac repair and how they might be able to fix the battery without replacing anything. So there is that. However, I think it’s going to cost, and I’m not ready to do this.
Right now I have about 2 1/2 hours of battery life when fully charged, and that’s usually enough for sitting at the coffee shop, uploading work, downloading work, catching up with the weblogs, and email. I’ll probably just keep things as is until the battery gets worse, and then I’ll look at upgrading the memory in addition to fixing the battery when I take it in. With this, my TiBook should be good for at least another 2-3 years. Considering I bought this about five years ago, that’s not bad.
While I was waiting for the ‘genius’, I looked around at all the new gadgets the store carried. The company has a real thing for white, silver, and blue, doesn’t it? Made me feel like I should put on a virginal white robe and bath in a bath of fragrant herbs, first, before entering the store. Or is it black t-shirts with little bitten white apples?
Also, is the company philosophy consist of “why do things square when you can do things rounded, eh?” However, if you’re thinking of getting one of those new 12-inch PowerBook, think again. I mistook one of them for a really big iPod until I realized what it was. Speaking of which, there was a silver gray kind of blobby thing, which I think was a speaker system and holder for an iPod. I do wonder about the Apple design people and their use of drugs at times.
Most of the printers were Epson, but when I asked about the 300 the salesguy said I would have to download printer drivers for it, the printer is so new. I asked if I’d have to use CUPs, and he went, use what? Hee hee hee – so much for genius. I think the store should hire me; I look good in black.