According to a report by Joe Rossignol for MacRumors, Apple has finally replenished its top case assemblies with accompanying glued-in batteries for mid 2012 and early 2013 MacBook Pros with Retina display. This is following over a year of shortages during which Apple offered "free, delayed repairs" to customers — a service that the company is discontinuing now that the part is widely available again, Rossignol noted.
Instead [of the free, delayed repairs], Apple has resumed charging its standard out-of-warranty fee for all 15-inch MacBook Pro battery replacements, which is $199 in the United States. The fee is waived if the notebook is covered by an AppleCare+ plan.
The shortage of the top cases for these models came to light all the way back in March 2017, when Apple technicians were notified of a "severe constraint." Apparently, Apple expected the shortage to clear up in just a few months — around September 15, 2017, to be exact — but the company kept pushing the date back as the lack of supplies persisted. All this resulted in some pretty generous offerings on Apple's part, such as the aforementioned free delayed repairs or allowing customers to exchange their non-functional MacBook Pro for a "functionally equivalent model."
Essentially, all this is to say that the system has once again returned to normal, and if you've got a MacBook Pro model in question in need of a battery replacement, you can go back to going through the usual channels and won't have to worry about a big delay.
For more information, I'd strongly suggest you give MacRumors' article a glance here.
Thoughts?
Did you have to wait for a battery replacement for your MacBook? What was your experience like? Share in the comments below.
