I had my keyboard replaced a few months ago on my MBP--it sounds like a similar process since they replaced my battery, too.

It was going to be like a week to make an Apple Store appointment. I was able to walk into a local Mac shop on Apple's list of official service centers. At that time they sent it to the same offsite shops for service and they said it would take 1-2weeks. I asked about a loaner or if Apple had any sort of program since I need something in the meantime (even with different specs). I know Apple has a 14day return policy on new hardware, but I hate to abuse that. That local Mac shop was able to work something out with me with some refurbs they had on hand, but I don't think their supervisor was happy about it.

I got my computer back 5 days later. Since then, I've heard theres been a push to do more of these kinds of repairs in store to decrease the turnaround time by a lot.

A lot of this has to do with the original design. Old cars had oil filters you could take off with your hand, then you needed a special tool, then a stick thing with a strap, then you needed to take something off before you can use that tool. Apple keyboards used to lift up to expose the RAM, the batteries could be removed by sliding a tab (this was when the battery life was only a few hours and the life of the battery was like 200 cycles). Personally, I was much happier when maintenance was somewhere between that and what we have now.

I get your point but I've never seen anything to support your oil filter claim. My 2010 BMW has a cartridge style oil filter which should be removable by hand. My dad's 1948 Oldsmobile also has a cartridge style oil filter but it requires a wrench to remove the bolt holding it together. Both the BMW and the Oldsmobile put the filter in an easily accessible place under the hood.

In between we had canister style filters (like on my old Toyota) which may or may not require tools to remove depending on the incompetence of your mechanic. I've never seen an oil filter that needed to be installed so tight you need a tool.

I don't think the increased difficulty in changing the oil is malicious intent. Just much less space under the hood. I'm not a big car guy, but for every car I've seen it has been recommended to hand-tighten, but you often need a tool to reach an awkwardly placed oil filter or loosen it.

Lightness, not thinness. (Thinness just comes along for the ride because light things feel flimsy if they're not packed as dense as possible.)

About half of that time is because the computer with the defective battery has to ship to the repair center via ground rather than FedEx Express overnight air like usual. There are a lot of rules about shipping lithium-ion batteries, especially known-defective ones!

For me, the biggest issues are the set up and protecting my data. If I could remove the SSD, it would be so helpful.

Last time my battery ballooned, I had to risk turning it on and wiping my hard drive first.

The reason is that I have been asked for my password before and they wouldn’t accept my MBP for service if I didn’t give it to them.

Are they still doing that? I hope not. This happened to me (ballooning battery, recall repair, asked me for my password) for a 2006 MBP (the 1st Intel version), so something like 10 years ago.

If they still need your password to repair your computer, they really need to update their procedures.

Back then I just winced, gave them my password, and crossed my fingers (seems to have worked out), but these days I just couldn't do that. There's all kinds of financial and identity stuff in there.

No, you don't have to give them your password for ballooning battery. You can short-circuit the discussion with the Apple rep by saying 'you can wipe it if you need to'.

Had mine replaced a couple months ago, they still wanted access. I'm pretty sure they gave a good reason,but I forgot. Probably just to run diagnostics. I made them an account. Still not ideal but I think they could just boot in single user mode and give themselves one if they wanted to.

I once took in a 15" MacBook Pro to get a SATA cable replaced (my own fault for rushing an SSD replacement and ripping the cable). While they didn't ask for my password, they did make me sign a document allowing them to wipe the drive if they felt like it. This is despite the actual service being purely hardware-related.

Sure enough, after a few days I get the laptop back to see the hard drive's been wiped, supposedly because there were errors with the OS installation, though there were none that I picked up actually using the device.

Not that it's possible with Apple devices anymore, but that taught me I should have just given them the laptop without the RAM or SSD installed at all.

I wonder if they are being conservative with their estimates? Or maybe it's because of the high amount of demand they expect to happen.

I sent my MacBook to an Apple store a few weeks ago, and it only took a few days to replace.

"Only" 5 days? I think 5 hours is unacceptable.

That seems a little extreme. Same day would seem premium.

Probably takes that long because you can't just replace a battery in a macbook because its glued to the rest of the laptop so a battery replacement is essentially pulling the screen and mobo from your macbook and putting it on to a new macbook.

Well that's Apple's problem to solve. They can't just say 1-2 weeks oh well.

I have a Genius appointment and if they tell me 1-2 weeks I'm telling them to bugger off.

Thought it was 5 workdays tops? Perhaps they're expecting a ton of people turning in their machines since batteries usually need to replace by now anyway.

If only they made the battery replaceable... This should be an important and costly lesson for Apple.

I agree, it "should" be, but the unfortunate perverse incentive is that a certain percentage of Stockholm-Syndromed Apple victims will buy new devices to tide them over for the week or whatever while their batteries are being replaced.

they should provide an option where they send you a new battery and you replace it yourself

Maybe if the procedure didn't look like this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...

Over 60 steps and the battery hasn't even been touched yet. I don't think I've ever seen an iFixit teardown take more than 20 steps, and both my 2009 and 2012 era consumer laptops can be broken to base components in even fewer

It's amazing how much more complicated that procedure is than for the 13" MBP of the same vintage. You would think the smaller notebook would be harder to disassemble, but there are actually fewer cables and parts that need to be moved out of the way to get at the battery.