I had a similar experience a while ago.<p>My PowerBook G4 Titanium overheated and melted. I called Apple support. They took my number and told me to wait for a call.<p>Ten minutes later, an executive in Cupertino called me and apologized for my "trouble." Then he made the a similar offer to the person in this story-- if I agreed to not talk about the incident, he would send me a fully loaded brand new PowerBook G4 (aluminum model at the time) worth almost $5k, an iPod, and an external hard drive.<p>I took the deal, of course, but refused to sign anything.<p>Here's a picture I sent to Apple HQ immediately after the incident: <a href="http://bit.ly/Gv93d" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/Gv93d</a>
A friend of mine posted about her MBP overheating in the Apple forums and was promptly banned.<p>I understand not wanting negative press, but surely covering it up is only going to cause bigger controversy in the long run?
I can understand that a company, here Apple, will try by lawyers and other means to silence things but in the long run this is really bad and damaging to the image of a company.<p>I wonder why they didn't choose to just handle the matter gracefully? Would have avoided bad press, or am I missing something here?
<i>After being passed around several departments, he spoke to an Apple executive on the telephone.</i><p>I'm mildly surprised he was able to get to an Apple exec so quickly. I've tried and given up in frustration. I did send an email afterwards, and got a response back. So it ended well in my case.
It's amazing to me that these devices don't fail more often. The chemistry behind a Li-Ion reaction is much more volatile than most people realize. It's a bit unnerving to think that I'll probably have one in my pocket for the next decade.