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I'll Plug Your Store if You Plug Mine

DVI.jpgA couple of months ago, we noticed that the charger for our PowerBook was starting to wonk out. We'd plug it in and have to twiddle it just so before the orange "thanks for the juice" light came on.

At first "just so" wasn't very involved, but the amount of tweaking gradually increased. At the same time, the plug itself was getting fussier -- we had to jam it into the outlet and make sure it didn't settle, or no power was forthcoming. Eventually we reached our futzing threshhold and headed off to the Apple Store at U Village to buy a replacement.

Except they didn't have one. Everything there is new, shiny, and MacBook Pro. Titanium PowerBooks are officially retro, from their perspective, hearkening back to the glory years of 2004-2005. But the very friendly sales clerk suggested that I check out The Mac Store on 45th, "just a few minutes away. They sometimes stock a third-party power cord."

A few minutes later, moments after we walked through the door, a Mac Store employee in a white lab coat asked if he could help us find something. "One of these," we said, holding up our mischievous power cord. "Someone at the Apple Store said you might have one, since they don't carry them."

"Apparently they don't want to sell anything," he said. "We don't have Apple brand, but we've got a third-party version that'll work. Just save the package and if anything ever goes wrong, bring it back and we'll replace it."

"Thanks," we said, fresh power supply in hand. "So do you guys get a lot of business referred from the Apple Store?"

"Yeah," he said. "They're obviously happy to be the place to get the new shiny stuff. When people want something for their not-as-new Macs, though, they send us here."

As we waited to check out, we overheard the women ahead of us in line: "They said they didn't have it here, but to head down to the store at U Village and they'll have it." Mutualism in action is a beautiful thing. As is a functioning power adapter.

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By James in on January 12, 2007 11:10 AM

Comments [rss]

  • Todd

    I had to buy a new cord for my Ti Powerbook about a year ago. The $80 price had me a tad miffed, but that was just the beginning. I got it home, tried it out and found that it was defective—probably the same problem you had, I had to position the plug just right for it to work (it would make nice cracklin noises as I did so). I mentioned this to the IT guy at work, who told me that this was a known issue with Mac power cords (so why the hell were they selling them!!!). Rather than return the cord, I put the household extension piece on it and it has worked fine ever since.



    Needless to say, it's much easier to just stop carrying them then deal with the problem.

  • Dan

    jake, seems like the disk would spin but nothing comes up on the display during boot so our guess was that something was hosed on the logic board. It's kind of a soft answer as far as I'm concerned, but what am I going to do?

  • The third-party cord (don't have the box here) wasn't way cheaper -- more like $60 -- but my adapter had gotten well-nigh unusable so I wasn't in a shop-around-online kind of mood.



    Plus, the "bring it back if it ever stops working" sold me.



    I'd forgotten how much I like the Mac Store.

  • Dan I have taken a Powermac 6400 with a dead harddrive to the Mac Store and I was pleased with the work.



    What is wrong with your iBook?

  • LarryB

    I wish I had thought of that. A few months ago, the cord to my 2002-vintage G4 iBook had just the same failure. I must have gotten one of the last "real" power supplies, but the thing was over $80! I hope the third-party unit was cheaper.

  • Dan

    My ibook crapped out a few days ago and I tried for days to get an appointment with the geniuses at the Apple Store (U Village) to get it looked at. Finally I got in and the guy literally looked at it and told me he had to send it to Apple and it'd be $280. Is anyone familiar enough with the Mac Store (45th St) to know how they handle repairs or if it would have been any cheaper?

  • Since both stores sell Macs and iPods their fortunes are extended by more people using Macs and iPods. My pal BBQ works at Blockbuster in Queen Anne but to refers people to Scarecrow Video in the U District if they want something rare that Blockbuster does not stock.

  • Since both stores sell Macs and iPods their fortunes are extended by more people using Macs and iPods. My pal BBQ works at Blockbuster in Queen Anne but to refers people to Scarecrow Video in the U District if they want something rare that Blockbuster does not stock.

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