Apple’s “machining tolerances” have really gone down the crapper in recent years.

[wry]

MacBook just came out of repair and I noticed that the power button/Touch ID sensor has a small nick on the top edge, and the Apple Store employees and manager said that it was considered within normal machining tolerances.

Really sucks because I personally would not tolerate this in the slightest, but oh well.

 

[johnmacward]

To everyone who says these imperfections brings out their OCD, can I ask you to be careful of the words you use in relation to OCD. OCD is not a replacement word for perfectionism or just a human “quirk” about being neurotic, it’s a massively debilitating anxiety disorder which can result in severe anxiety, depression, hospitalisation and even suicide.

If you’re slightly irked or annoyed by an imperfection in a product (or even massively irked or annoyed) but that doesn’t result in large periods of anxiety, depression and / or magical thinking about the imperfection then YOU ARE NOT OCD about it. You maybe have perfectionist tendencies in how you see the world and a keen eye for detail but THATS NOT OCD and I implore you all to stop calling it that unless you’ve been diagnosed with it. Associating the “annoyance” of poor manufacturing with a debilitating anxiety disorder does OCD a disservice And makes us think that those who suffer just have a mild form of perfectionism and / or are just a bit neurotic whereas their everyday existence can be an anxious depressive hell.

You wouldn’t associate cancer as a petty annoyance like the common cold. Please don’t associate the mild annoyance of things that are not quite perfect with OCD.

for those who are curious: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-doubt/201002/pssst-ocd-is-not-adjective

 

[jav6454]

Understandable, but in manufacturing you will always have tolerances. That's the nature of things. The day you can make a product perfect 100%, you can bet a company will make obscene amounts of money as you will stop having losses in remanufacturing, rework, raw materials and get rid of an entire department.

 

[beeftick]

I spent two years working for Apple and an Apple Certified Servicer as a technician. When your computer goes into the store for repair, the parts they receive from Apple to replace a motherboard (for example) are refrubished. We once got a brand "new" motherboard in for a customer's macbook repair and it was full of dust, debris and what looked like dog hair. Unacceptable.

I don't know if Apple is still doing this, but starting in 2017 they send all Macbooks to an Apple repair center in Texas to get repaired. They rarely do Macbook repairs in store anymore.

Don't even get me started on the Apple Service Manager that they assign your store. They are all Stanford grads who have no idea what it is like to be in the "trenches" of repair. They just get snotty when you go against their big binder of Apple policies because it was better for the customer....

In sun, Apple makes a decent product but working for them is a disaster if you aren't a CalTech grad of Machine Learning in their Infinite Loop office. Everyone else is just a plebian.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Thats not a matter of tolerances, and that isn’t a machined part. Apple Store Man is just saying words he heard once. But i see you’ve got to the bottom of it.

 

[aevan]

Upon closer inspection, it's not a dent but rather a small bump. Like a tiny grain of sand got trapped in the mould. Which I can tolerate.

You really shouldn't care about these things. No one likes getting a device with imperfections but this is really, really minor. If you do care about something like this - the obsessive-compulsive disorder you mention is not a figure of speech but a real mental health issue that you should probably seek professional help for.

 

[chabig]

I suffer from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which tiny imperfections on brand new products really bother me psychologically

If you wait a few weeks until it isn't brand new any more, you should be ok. This happens to me when I buy a car. It's beautiful and flawless, but soon collects small dents and dings, and I realize that such things can't be helped.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Interesting but yeah I sent in a MBA M1 to have a screen replaced due to a dead pixel and when it came back the hinge was just not smooth as new and would lift the laptop up. Maybe it would have broken in, who knows, but I know Apple would have given me the same “tolerances” talk so I traded it in a few weeks later.

 

[jav6454]

MacBook just came out of repair and I noticed that the power button/Touch ID sensor has a small nick on the top edge, and the Apple Store employees and manager said that it was considered within normal machining tolerances.

Really sucks because I personally would not tolerate this in the slightest, but oh well.

Depends on the design tolerances. However, I would personally not be bothered by it.

 

[wry]

Depends on the design tolerances. However, I would personally not be bothered by it.

I suffer from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which tiny imperfections on brand new products really bother me psychologically, even if such defects are "within tolerance" or don't impact functionality. People have suggested to me that I should work in quality control, but I feel as if under my supervision a lot of waste would be created due to having absolutely zero tolerance for anything varying by even 100 micrometers (approximately the width of a human hair). Ah well, guess I can expect that when there's a global supply chain and worker shortage.

Even then, it wouldn't be covered under the limited warranty unless "failure has occurred due to a defect in materials or workmanship, so I guess it can't be helped unless the thing were to crack or stop working.

Guess I can just fill it in with a UV curing black resin if I really wanted to.

 

[antiprotest]

I suffer from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which tiny imperfections on brand new products really bother me psychologically, even if such defects are "within tolerance" or don't impact functionality. People have suggested to me that I should work in quality control, but I feel as if under my supervision a lot of waste would be created due to having absolutely zero tolerance for anything varying by even 100 micrometers (approximately the width of a human hair). Ah well, guess I can expect that when there's a global supply chain and worker shortage.

Even then, it wouldn't be covered under the limited warranty unless "failure has occurred due to a defect in materials or workmanship, so I guess it can't be helped unless the thing were to crack or stop working.

Guess I can just fill it in with a UV curing black resin if I really wanted to.

Here's my experience from a different angle that their standards are not up to par. For quite a few years I would always pre-order new iPhones until I noticed that there would be hardware imperfections EVERY TIME, such as discolorations, loose or uneven buttons, etc. Since then I have stopped pre-ordering to avoid the first batch(es). I would wait until after New Year to buy from store. Never an issue since then.

 

[Fishrrman]

Looking at the image in post 1, all I could think of was...

 

[Analog Kid]

My advice to people who really do have OCD triggered by manufacturing imperfections that leads to debilitating compulsive behaviors: bring a doctor's note to the Apple Store. Personally, if someone came into my store and said "I have a kind of OCD and can't handle the fact there's a bump on my key", I'd tell them to kiss off and deal with an imperfect world. If someone gave me medical evidence that their life is severely impacted by an irrational but real response to things the rest of us are merely annoyed by, I'd go to the stock room and find them a new box.

 

[spiderman0616]

I've had a mixed bag in this regard from Apple. I do not suffer from OCD, but I do have severe anxiety that can sort of present like OCD sometimes. Fortunately, after talking to a counselor and getting on the right anxiety medication, it is no longer an issue. So things like a not 100% perfect gap in one little spot or a little nick in a key isn't going to bother me these days. And even if it does, I will likely forget about it within a day or two.

However, I have also had issues with Apple gadgets that I think were reasonable to complain about:

1) My iPhone 4, iPad 2, and iPad 3 all had to be replaced multiple times for dead pixels and dust particles under the screen. I find both problems unacceptable. I also had many home buttons go bad on iPhone 4. Apple has fortunately fixed the screen problems in most iPad models now with laminated, higher quality displays. Many of my iPad replacements came with scratches and dings, and the iPhone 4 replacements I got seemed to get worse and worse cosmetically. I finally had to settle on one that had a good screen but a dinged up antenna band.

2) I've had two different iPad Pro models spontaneously start sucking down battery power in standby mode, to the point where I've had to either charge them every other day fully or turn wifi off to get the drain to stop. I still never figured out exactly what was going on, but ultimately chalked it up to software. One of the times Apple just swapped it out in store, even out of warranty. Another time, I had to fight with them because they tried to charge me for a whole new iPad, almost full price!

3) I've had AirPods, Apple Pencils, and other accessories go bad here and there--they never seem to have a problem just swapping those out in store.

Anyone who's scared to send their fancy MacBook in for repair though? I totally know the feeling. I've seen how the typical Genius handles gadgets behind the counter, and it is far rougher than I would treat an expensive and mission-critical device. They slide them around, flop them down on table tops, whack them into stuff, slide stuff around on top of them, etc. I'm sure it's just because they're so over it--they do this all day long and are far beyond caring about your personal device.

 

[Vazor]

Got my MBP back from repair and had a nice big scratch on it, which wasn't there before. Couldn't prove it so I did not get anything from them. They really don't care.

 

[Luposian]

To everyone who says these imperfections brings out their OCD, can I ask you to be careful of the words you use in relation to OCD. OCD is not a replacement word for perfectionism or just a human “quirk” about being neurotic, it’s a massively debilitating anxiety disorder which can result in severe anxiety, depression, hospitalisation and even suicide.

If you’re slightly irked or annoyed by an imperfection in a product (or even massively irked or annoyed) but that doesn’t result in large periods of anxiety, depression and / or magical thinking about the imperfection then YOU ARE NOT OCD about it. You maybe have perfectionist tendencies in how you see the world and a keen eye for detail but THATS NOT OCD and I implore you all to stop calling it that unless you’ve been diagnosed with it. Associating the “annoyance” of poor manufacturing with a debilitating anxiety disorder does OCD a disservice And makes us think that those who suffer just have a mild form of perfectionism and / or are just a bit neurotic whereas their everyday existence can be an anxious depressive hell.

You wouldn’t associate cancer as a petty annoyance like the common cold. Please don’t associate the mild annoyance of things that are not quite perfect with OCD.

for those who are curious: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-doubt/201002/pssst-ocd-is-not-adjective

Anytime I have one of those urges to nit-pick at something, I just say I'm "being anal". But is that a correct term either?

 

[pshufd]

Only Australian MacBooks give you the Heebee-BeeGees.

Is the notch on the bottom of the screen?

 

[wry]

Upon closer inspection, it's not a dent but rather a small bump. Like a tiny grain of sand got trapped in the mould. Which I can tolerate.

 

[Sterkenburg]

For what it's worth, you have my sympathy. I am also in that small group of people who can and do notice ~0.1mm-scale marks on items, so I understand what you mean.

However, minuscule imperfections are the norm in mass-produced products. Yes, even premium ones like Macs (it's the price to pay if we want to have electronics manufactured at scale). so we just have to learn to live with it and keep our OCD at bay. Think of it as just being a microscopic bump and not a damage (scratch or dent) and you'll be fine

 

[spiderman0616]

I think he's saying this was a refurb part that got used. Pretty salient and relevant if you ask me.

Yeah, I would never put up with that, especially if I paid for the repair. Nobody is ever going to treat my stuff in a way that's up to my own standards, and I get that, but they could at least be gentle and use all new parts.

 

[triptolemus]

Apple Store employees and manager said that it was considered within normal machining tolerances.

Should have asked them to detail those tolerances. If they can offer that as a response then they should be able to reasonably articulate what it actually means.

 

[pshufd]

I bought a used 2015 MacBook Pro 15 at a great price. Lots of scratches, dents and dings (looks like it had been dropped on two different corners). Computer has worked just fine since I bought it.

 

[VaruLV]

To everyone who says these imperfections brings out their OCD, can I ask you to be careful of the words you use in relation to OCD. OCD is not a replacement word for perfectionism or just a human “quirk” about being neurotic, it’s a massively debilitating anxiety disorder which can result in severe anxiety, depression, hospitalisation and even suicide.

If you’re slightly irked or annoyed by an imperfection in a product (or even massively irked or annoyed) but that doesn’t result in large periods of anxiety, depression and / or magical thinking about the imperfection then YOU ARE NOT OCD about it. You maybe have perfectionist tendencies in how you see the world and a keen eye for detail but THATS NOT OCD and I implore you all to stop calling it that unless you’ve been diagnosed with it. Associating the “annoyance” of poor manufacturing with a debilitating anxiety disorder does OCD a disservice And makes us think that those who suffer just have a mild form of perfectionism and / or are just a bit neurotic whereas their everyday existence can be an anxious depressive hell.

You wouldn’t associate cancer as a petty annoyance like the common cold. Please don’t associate the mild annoyance of things that are not quite perfect with OCD.

for those who are curious: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-doubt/201002/pssst-ocd-is-not-adjective

May I ask you to be respectful of feeling of those people who say that they have OCD, perhaps they really do and youre no doctor to diagnose it for them, its their rights to call it out loud if they feel they have unhealthy obession/disorder that might cause them great deal of stress and anxiety. Many people whot think that they have OCD of a kind in reality turn out to be suffering from other, no less debilitating, mental issues and stresses in their lives.
I myself used to struggle with some forms of OCD and, for the most part, Ive gotten over them, however, I dont feel bad for people if they say they are OCD even if its just their way of telling that they are perfectionist whiners, so what?
There are so many ways of people expressing themselves and their feelings, should we start to pick them out one by one and call them out too? Where does it ends? Its ridiculous.

Just dont be so damn overly sensitive and self righteous, the world is too woke already with hyper sensitive people that can be triggered or felt insulted by the smallest, most harmless things that expect the whole world to bend their knee to their frail egos.

Live and let live, practice what you preach and all will be well.

 

[ElRojito]

MacBook just came out of repair and I noticed that the power button/Touch ID sensor has a small nick on the top edge, and the Apple Store employees and manager said that it was considered within normal machining tolerances.

Really sucks because I personally would not tolerate this in the slightest, but oh well.

That's Genius Bar code for "please god don't make me replace the top case again."

 

[jav6454]

That's Genius Bar code for "please god don't make me replace the top case again."

No, it's likely code for, "It's within tolerances".