> It reeks of shade to intentionally grenade the hardware just to get more door traffic at retail locations

Apple already forces owners of "vintage" MBPs to come in to a store for repair (or repair-related warranty) work, even if the failing component is identical to that of a non-vintage model. You'd think they would prefer to send those devices in to a repair depot with lots of inventory for older parts, but now that you mention it I guess they figured out that foot traffic converts into sales at a non-zero rate.

Every part of this is a made-up, unsupported, bad-faith, outright lie. No part of this is “more likely” based on my 30 years of experience of actually dealing with Apple. What’s actually more likely, in my experience, is Apple going above and beyond to cover repairs, even out of warranty, for issues that are even partially their fault.

“Attempting to upsell” doesn’t pass the laugh test. And it’s incredibly crass and irresponsible of you to toss around words like “intentionally grenade the hardware” without the slightest hint of evidence.

> Every part of this is a made-up, unsupported, bad-faith, outright lie. No part of this is “more likely” based on my 30 years of experience of actually dealing with Apple. What’s actually more likely, in my experience, is Apple going above and beyond to cover repairs, even out of warranty, for issues that are even partially their fault.

You are engaging in projection.

> “Attempting to upsell” doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Then there should be no reason to force the user to come in to a retail shop to get approved repairs on their machines then, and apple can save lots of money by going to mail-in repairs.

> And it’s incredibly crass and irresponsible of you to toss around words like “intentionally grenade the hardware” without the slightest hint of evidence.

There's hundreds of examples in this thread alone.

No, I'm not projecting. No, Apple doesn't "force" anyone to come into retail shops; that is simply false. You can mail hardware in. Some people aren't near an Apple Store.

And no, there are zero examples in this thread of any evidence that Apple has intentionally harmed its own hardware.

So you are batting 0 for 3.