After having sent in my Macbook Pro Core Duo 1 in for repairs last year, with a broken motherboard, I was sort of pissed since it took 3 weeks to get back to me. I had to rent another machine to be able to continue development since I was heavily using Parallels. I easily got over it though, since I knew it was the first revision of the hardware platform and that there were bound to be problems like this.

Anyway, when the Macbook Pro Core Duo 2 was released at the end of 2006, I decided to get one. The much improved ventilation (virtually silent), more ram, a faster CPU and a glossy screen were too tempting to pass on. It's been a smooth ride, until the day before yesterday!

I was happily working when all of a sudden, the Mac Gray Screen of Death slowly slides from top to bottom. Yeah, I've been having them so frequently over the past two years, that they can start competing with Windows' Blue version. As usual, I do a hard reboot and ... nothing. Screen stays black, no startup chime, nothing works. I tried everything, resetting the PMU and PRAM, starting from a DVD, starting from another volume, using target disk mode, ... nothing. I call Apple Support, they make me do it all again while being on the phone, surprisingly the results are the same (another hour lost), and they tell me that I have to bring it into an official repair center.

I really dislike this new policy where you have to bring a laptop yourself to a store, even when you have bought the additional Apple Care support. A few years ago, they at least had FedEx pick it up at your place. Now, the burden is on you.

So, I drive over to the nearest qualified store (doPi in Mons, 35 kms from where I live) and drop off the machine. Yesterday was spent setting everything back up with my 'old' Core Duo 1 machine.

This morning the phone rings, it's the store where I left my Macbook Pro. They tell me that they're being put out of business by the state and that I have to hurry to pick up my machine, otherwise I wouldn't be able to recuperate it. So I drive back to them and then to another store in Brussels.

Bottom line, I drove 150 kms today and 70 kms the day before yesterday, just to hand over my machine for repairs ... 6 months after I bought it, and while having an extended Apple Care warranty.

Apple tech support in Belgium sucks!