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AppleCare/Service Hints | December 20, 2007

I just had to take my MacBook Pro in for service, and here are a couple of hints to help you if you ever have to do this.

• If you live near an Apple Store, don’t bother calling the Apple Care “hot line,” they have a string of things they’ll ask you to go through to rule out ‘human error’ (i.e. you) as the problem, and after all that they’ll more likely these days send you to the Apple Store anyway (or at least encourage it). They’ll still send you a box to send in a portable if you are insistent, but it’s not like the good ol’ days of AppleCare.
• If the Apple Store close to you is a particularly busy one (and they all tend to be especially this time of year), go online and schedules you appointment with an Apple Genius ahead of time. This will save lot’s of time.
• Create a dummy admin account if possible before you go, and lock your keychain. When they ask for the admin password , give them the info for the dummy account. It will allow them all the access they need, without easily allowing them to poke through your files. (Though if they really wanted to they could at this point, but this makes it inconvenient). They can use this info if they need to send you computer in as well.
• Make sure you back up everything before you take your computer in. I’ve never lost any info during a repair (…knock on wood…) but I know people it’s happened to. Time Machine provides a valid backup for those using Leopard.
• Prepare to be without your computer for a week or so. This sucks I know, but it’s a small price to pay for a healthy working computer. Often the repairs only take a few days, but occasionally they need to order parts or they could be particularly busy, and this will take some time.