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Rumour of inbuilt destruction Code

S

samuel11411

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 13, 2011
1
0
Hey guys.

I am interested to know if anyone has heard of this happening or know weather their is any legitimacy to these claims.

I have a couple of colleges who are avid MAC users are not ones to put their hands up and slander apple in anyway. For this reason I have found these statements quite interesting.

The observation is that serveral MACs have been purchased with the Apple Care plan and have not had any issues for the three year duration. However a couple of systmes have also been puchased with out the Apple Care plan system and have both developed issues around the thirteen month mark.

Upon asking around I have been told similar stoires and it appears to be more then just coincidence.

The idea being put forward is that there is inbuilt destruction code that is not activated when apple care is purchased with a new computer. However if apple care is not purchased this code will execute and cause the MAC to malfunction.

I am wondering what opoions there are on this idea as to wether there is legitimacy to the concept weather it is merly a consiprecy theory.

Thanks Guys.


P.S. This is a ligitimate question so please don't slander with tolling comments.
 
Um, no way. I know it's a legitimate question but That's not possible.
 
As another counterexample, over maybe 7-8 years of owning various Macs -- with AppleCare -- I have had 2 issues that required repair under warranty. Both were handled, and both were within the period covered. So no. You are making the mistake of generalizing from only 2 examples, when there are 10s of millions of Mac computers on the street. Or you are some kind of troll.

Also, it's Mac, not MAC. MAC, all uppercase, means Media Access Control address, which has to do with identifying a device on a network.
 
No.

The reason a lot of machines tend to die at the same time is because parts in machines are only rated for so many watt hours, which means machine lifespans can probably be fit to an average.

It's standard across all electronics.
 
My iPod Video 5th gen died exactly 13 months after my purchase. No warranty =/ Just a funny and depressing coincidence.

Had applecare for 1st generation macbook pro. Battery broke once a year. Got my moneys worth and then some getting replacement batteries.

But ya i doubt theres destruction code because as a poster above said, that would be illegal.
 
I've heard similar theories regarding Dell PC's. Almost every one I know who has used low end Dells has had there computer end up completely useless after 3 or 4 years and I read about some people trying to prove that this was intentional.
 
Here's why mine is a no.

Bought Mac Pro with no AppleCare, since I could always buy it on day 364 if I had an issue. December 2009-December 2010... no issues, so I decided it was going to be fine, and skipped AppleCare. Here we are on July 2011, and still no issues. I'm using it right now in a nice thunderstorm, but since it's plugged into two SUA1500 UPS units (Mac on one, 22" & 30" monitors and other peripherals on the other) it stays happy while the lights flicker.

I'm even using non-Apple RAM, a non-Apple eSATA PCI card, non-Apple internal Blu-ray burner, and non-Apple 2TB internal HDDs.

johnnieblue said:
I've heard similar theories regarding Dell PC's. Almost every one I know who has used low end Dells has had there computer end up completely useless after 3 or 4 years and I read about some people trying to prove that this was intentional.
Click to expand...

It's probably just because after four years, the computer is 467 years old in computer years. The three Dell PCs I bought in 2006 are still fine, although way behind the times.
 
My first MacBook had AppleCare and I had to take it in multiple times to get it fixed. At one point the told me the whole logic board was dying. I think there are always gonna be the bad ones of the bunch. Whether or not those have AppleCare is just a coincidence. However, I'm sort of convinced that when Apple releases software updates for iPads and iPhones, those updates are partially to make the older versions slower, thus making the user upgrade, but that is not a conversation for this thread.
 
Apple, or any other computer company for that matter, doesn't do anything like that. It may seem that computers without AppleCare break right after it expires, but that would just be because if it's your computer you are more likely to remember that one, and for other people's computers the ones who have it break are more likely to complain especially if their warranty just ran out.
 
If that was the case, then some hardware engineers at Apple would have built it. And more hardware engineers at Apple would have noticed it. A few of these engineers would have collected evidence. Can you imagine how much money Microsoft would pay for evidence of this? And can you imagine getting such an idea past Jon Ives? Past Apple's legal department? Past Steve Jobs?

(Jon Ives I think is one of those persons who are very gentle and polite until they are seriously provoked. Harming his precious hardware would be "serious provocation". If you suggested doing this in a meeting where he is present, I think he would ask everyone else to leave the room and talk to you alone. And you would wake up at the back door of some strip club with every bone in your body broken).
 
I've owned about 6 or 7 macs, I've never bought AppleCare.

I've only ever had 2 problems which I had to take my computer in to get repaired. One was under warranty, the other was not.
 
Even if this were possible and legal, what would be the point?

Having products self-destruct after ~366 days would drive away so many customers that no amount of AppleCare or repair sales would make up the difference.

And if there were such a self-destruct circuit, people would have found it by now, taken pictures of it, and posted them.
 
samuel11411 said:
The observation is that serveral MACs have been purchased with the Apple Care plan and have not had any issues for the three year duration. However a couple of systmes have also been puchased with out the Apple Care plan system and have both developed issues around the thirteen month mark.
Click to expand...

So out of an X amount of Macs two have developed issues? Two! Yeah definately something fishy here. :rolleyes:
 
No way and deep down Apple's main focus of quality and user satisfaction would simple conflict with such a practice, plus as for a Dell example, I have a Dell XPS 400 that's been through hell and back (curse word?), bought second hand, spent a good 1-2 hours COMPLETELY rebuilding it, and it had more dust than a well used Miele vacuum bag, and still runs like new and -


My brother Rex Cook whose company - Avatar Labs - (digital media content creation and animation company) - has been employing Macs for CONSTANT 24/7 more or less heavy, heavy lifting for as long as I can remember, I'd say at least a good 5-10 years, and I highly doubt there's any AppleCare ever involved as that'd bump up the price massively, and AFAIK had never had *any* issues with any product, I mean quite potentially the occasional issue here and there, but AFAIK nothing akin to a digital ticking bomg..lol.

Wasn't there also something else that was gonna end all computers that name-wise sounds familiar to a pre-XP Microsoft OS? :rolleyes:
 
It seems like everyone who has something die shortly after the warranty ends suddenly thinks there is a worldwide conspiracy to sucker them.
 
please... ask yourself


Would Apple risk their whole reputation and possibly risk destroying the whole company... to earn a couple of thousands of dollars on applecare? which is like 0.0005% of their whole sales?

any code that is runnable on a machine is decompile-able.

simply no.
 
Cindori said:
please... ask yourself


Would Apple risk their whole reputation and possibly risk destroying the whole company... to earn a couple of thousands of dollars on applecare? which is like 0.0005% of their whole sales?

any code that is runnable on a machine is decompile-able.

simply no.
Click to expand...


I think the amount of money Apple made from applecare last year would be somewhere in the billions of dollars. But still Mac issues seem to be fairly sporadic.
 
Also, because I've worked with Apple in this capacity when I was in IT... They're actually very sensitive about hardware failure rates. If you buy AppleCare, it could end up costing them money if the hardware failures are too high.

If you buy AppleCare for $200 and your logic board dies, guess who loses money? (Especially if your processor is soldered on.)
 
samuel11411 said:
The idea being put forward is that there is inbuilt destruction code that is not activated when apple care is purchased with a new computer. However if apple care is not purchased this code will execute and cause the MAC to malfunction.

I am wondering what opoions there are on this idea as to wether there is legitimacy to the concept weather it is merly a consiprecy theory.
Click to expand...

I think your friends need to have their medications adjusted - or at least get their tinfoil hats tightened.
 
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