Cannot kill the battery

June 25, 2006 on 11:25 pm | In Apple | 1 Comment

In 1986, the metal band Metallica asserted on their seminal album “Master of puppets”, that a battery could not be killed. Sadly for me, in 2006 Apple Computer threw an exception and Metallica were left holding the remains of their money grubbing power supply assertion in their well groomed hands. My MacBook Pro has developed a bad case of “Fat-Crap-Battery Syndrome”. This disease first presents itself as a bad case of the Mac switching off unexpectedly whilst on battery supply. Slashdot et al have covered the story in some detail in the past, so I was well aware this affliction could possible hurt my lovely little machine and I was immediately looking for the symptoms:

i) Shutting off on battery power, even though the battery monitor reported a full charge seconds before. Check.
ii) Battery beginnning to swell like some crap, overpaid talk show hostess. Check.
iii) User wishing Mr Jobs’s colon cancer had given him a bit more gip. Cruel but Check – the guy is a perfectionist after all.

So it looks like time to call Applecare and scream at some poor dick until I can scream at some Merc driving manager dick. Sometimes I wonder if my experiences with other companies’ support has damaged my expectations of product support…regardless, I will spend the rest of the time until Applecare UK opens honing a fantastic stream of obscenities and expletives into a workable sentence to throw at the first person who makes me follow their corporate “Wear the customer down until they fuck off” checklist of other-possible-but-clearly-unlikely scenarios checklist.