Agree, about 7 years ago I spilt liquid on my MacBook Pro. They let me off the repair costs (significant, new motherboard etc..), just said be a bit more careful. Have recounted this story many times since, sad to hear things may have changed.

I've still encountered cases like that recently — I'm not sure the situation is any worse now (at least with support incidents). It's all just anecdotal.

I think to be fair it probably depends on which country you're in. In the UK I've found their support to be downright poor, even when compared to other device manufacturers, but I'm told in the US they're better.

All those free repair and decent Apple experience are all from US. Worldwide Apple Services tends to be crap.

I even heard in some part of the world Apple started to paid commission to Apple Retail Staff for products sales. ( They used to pride themselves the lack of conflict of interest and to provide the best services possible )

I had a similar anecdotal story just a couple of months ago. I've spilled a few drops of juice on my 16" MBP keyboard, which was enough for three keys to become sticky. They've replaced the keyboard and whole top case chassis for free without any comment and I got my laptop back in three days.

It was the best tech support experience I've had in my life.

I wonder if this boils down to which level of support contract you buy?

For what it's worth I had no additional support outside of a standard warranty..

It's one thing for Apple's product quality (or quality control) to be less now that Steve Jobs is no longer with us. But it's another thing for customer-hostile dark patterns to become Apple's norm. :/ (I was subjected to the worst customer support experience of my life with the #KeyboardGate defect.)

Jobs was one of a kind.

Counter-anecdote: I have spilled liquid on MBPs more recently (latest is 2019 MBP with touch bar) and didn’t need to bring them in for repair as they kept working after having been thoroughly dried.

Seeing reports about old laptops breaking from the same, I suppose the upside is that they are becoming less fragile.

I broke the screen on a new Macbook 2 years ago, days after buying it. It was entirely my own fault so not covered by warrantee. I called Apple support and was told £800. Since I bought it with an Amex card, it was covered on that insurance, so I made an appointment to get it replaced. I went to the Apple store and was given a formal quote of £645 parts + labour. They went off to get the paperwork and were gone for a while. When they got back, they told me that the part wouldn't be available for 3 months (it was a new release) and gave me a new laptop, free of charge, on the spot.

edited for clarity.

Huh? Instead of charging you the cost of a repair, for that new unit, they just did a swap for you free of charge?

Something similar happened with my two year old, out of warranty iPhone with maxed out storage. It had the original battery swollen. I assumed they would just swap out the battery and charge me, but they said they wanted to send the whole thing in to be inspected, and unfortunately they didn’t have any prior gen phones with that level of storage on hand, so asked if I would mind receiving a current gen replacement.

This happens with automotive manufactures.

Vehicle breaks, the part or component that fixes it is unavailable/backordered/allocated for months+.

Manufacturers will offer to buy back the vehicle, at original sale price, rather than force you to wait (and relieving them from having to provide a loaner/rental).

Yes.

It’s a mass market set of products now, so different problems. Still, they are better than any competitor I’m aware of.

Their staff are more empowered than most companies though. Usually I’m able to get what I want with a minimum of fuss, you just need to go in person and be very calm.

The problem on Apple is that there's only option: pay much