There have been reports all over the Mac Web for several days now at Apple will terminate support for repairs on Lombard and Pismo PowerBooks by authorized service providers as of June 30th . Owners of these PowerBooks will henceforth be obliged to return their machines to Apple for service and repairs, as is already the case for iBook owners.

Yesterday, MacNN also reported that Apple will be cutting 6 percent of its authorized service providers -- ones who failed to turn $100,000 worth of business in the last quarter. This seems arbitrarily discriminatory against dealers who serve lesser-populated markets -- and Apple owners who live in those areas.

These developments have to be regarded as retrograde steps. While sending your machine to a central service depot makes sense for some issues, I submit that it is ridiculous overkill in the instance of smaller, more trivial problems, that could be much better handled (and certainly much quicker) over the counter at an authorized dealer. A three-day turnaround is often too long for people who depend on their computers for their livelihoods.

I am also underwhelmed by some reports of user experiences with Apple's mail-in repair service. One friend of mine had to return her Wall Street PowerBook, then brand new, to Apple three times in order to get an issue with the power management circuit repaired. Cumulatively, she was deprived of the use of her expensive new machine for nearly two months. It has been trouble-free since.

This same person last fall purchased an iBook for her daughter. Recently, the iBook required service, and was duly sent away to Apple's service facility. When it was returned, the initial problem had been dealt with, but now the sound did not work. The machine had to be sent back to Apple once again.

A reader reports that when he sent his iBook back to Apple for service, it was returned with his files erased from the hard drive. Now this person should certainly have backed up his files before sending the iBook away, if possible. I don't recall the specific issue, so it may not have been possible. However, if the service had been handled by a local dealer is likely that an attempt would have been made to recover the files, or at least to consult with the owner before erasing them.

It is this level of personal interaction and communication that will always be missing from mail-in service. I appreciate that Apple is frustrated by what they cite as a too-high incidence of software problems being misdiagnosed by service providers as hardware problems, with Apple having to pick up the cost.

I'm not sure what could be done to remedy that problem, but I think that removing the liaison provided by local authorized dealers is not a satisfactory answer.

Charles W. Moore

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March 20, 2010