In related news several posts mysteriously disappear from Apples forums.

Hi,

I'm a sleazebag/sleazebag company looking for a chunk of wealth for no other reason than that I know the average dumbass jury will hand it over.

Though this raises insurance rates and limits growth, I believe I should be entitled to that which I have not earned.

Apple: "But our power adapters are so pretty and, they have magnets! Who cares if they catch you on fire?! ...Steve wouldn't care!"

Aww and that's one of the few things i liked on mac laptops figures apple...

While I agree frivalous lawsuits are the new gold rush for the lazy and morally reprehensible, I also know Apple is horrible with its product quality.

How many screens have they thrown at customers with serious display issues? How many batteries have they sealed in their products that barely make it past the 1-year warranty (and thus require expensive work to replace)? Apple may be known for its software quality and hardware style, but as far as hardware quality goes, they are pretty sub-par. No doubt there may be some legitamacy to this lawsuit afterall. Sadly though, any money that is collected will go straight into the greedy lawfirms pockets.

Oh wow, and here I was expecting a new patent infringement suit

Thanks for the interesting article Jane! Personally I find all power adapters have wiring prone to fraying. I've seen dozens of power adapters with the wiring right after the plug being worn... just from normal use. Seems people are just sue-happy to get the money Apple has... hehe.

But it just works, right?

Software Quality ? WHAT Software quality ?

garbage OS? Cant even code its own kernel ? Piece of $hit security and lie to everybody ?

Apple says that they want their customer to buy brand new laptops or handhelds before any of the problems ever happen.

Hey, look, I'm a Mac, and I'm slick and cool! You must upgrade and buy me now!

In real life Mac would be a quadriplegic, unable to do anything "normal" PCs can do.

This is actually a bit amusing! The ONLY thing I like about apple is that connector. And now it turns out that the only thing they did right is wrong .... lol

Apple loves sweeping their mistakes under the rug.

What else can you do when your the worst corporation in your market?

I should have said software useability. Apple owners (iPhone/iPod/iMac/MacBook/etc) seem to like their software.

this issue was resolved last year, so why the lawsuit, makes no sense to me. My MagSafe is fine here.

So they are suing the best adapter in the industry for something they aren't quite sure about?

Only in America.

I've seen power cord fraying problems on laptop AC adapters from Dell, HP/CPQ, Apple, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba, and Sony, and those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I've also seen it on AC adapters for Wi-Fi routers, modems (phone, DSL, and cable), ink-jet printers, routers/firewalls, cell-phones, etc. from dozens of manufacturers. This is an industry-wide issue, not anything specific to Apple, and I can't say it's significantly more likely on any one brand.

In 15 years of owing Mac laptops none of my Apple AC adapters have ever frayed or failed. One was recalled and replaced due to a potential fire hazard (not fraying related). MagSafe is the best laptop power connection yet put on the market, but like virtually every other adapter for portable devices, the thin DC cord is subject to fraying if you routinely stress it.

I wish there was some magsafe-like adapter for windows laptops, minus the fire thing.

You people really think this is a viable lawsuit? I'm no Mac guy by the way, but this sounds like some money grubbing scumbags trying to get a few bucks from Apple. First, they don't even know if what they are accusing Apple of is true, and secondly, Apple has offered to give out free replacements! Come on people..

"In 15 years of owing Mac"...

Truer words were never spoken....

I can attest to this not only on the Magsafe power adapter but the iPhone power charged/sync cable. Right where it plugs into the computer/USB the gray lining starts to pull back and there are exposed protective wiring over the cabling. That can eventually fray and I guess potentially cause a fire.

The minute I saw this happening, however, I took the power adapter to an Apple Store and had them give me another one. I'm not waiting for my house to burn down or my pants to catch fire so that I can make a few bucks suing a good company.

Oh the irony! Wasn't Apple hailed as "better quality" than PCs by Consumer Reports (see: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15062 ) and Mac users?

If Liunx kernel grunts (the guys who dwell there) could sue Apple they should.(Alas open source/GPL lets Apple do this legally. I find it funny most people don't know OSX IS based on BSD/Linux.

my magsafe burned my computer twice. I visited the apple store and the "genius" not really... said it was due to lint getting between the charger and computer.. BS. I called apple care told them what happened, and that my computer is indeed a fire hazard and they replaced the parts necessary..

As a former Geek Squad employee, I've seen my share of frayed power cords for laptops. While I'm no fan of Apple I can say the majority of frays were due to negligence on the part of the owner (dropping the laptop, yanking the cord out by the cable, or running it over with the vaccuum), which is exactly what the MagSafe connector was designed to address. Seems like they didn't provide enough strain relief, however. They were so concerned with making everything lightweight that they went with power cabling that was TOO light and too easy to break when the MagSafe feature was actually needed. Poor lifecycle testing.

I find it funny that people don't know that it's actually based on a Mach microkernel, with BSD compatibility, not upon Linux.

I have a Toshiba laptop that came with a LITEON adapter. Adapter is in fine condition. Laptop is 4 years old.

Good try though!

It is based on UNIX, not Linux.
Linux is a clone of UNIX as well, with BSD being UNIX.

HAHA mac "geniuses" are so funny. I worked apple tech support phone lines, maybe I spoke to you lol.

You could always count on the "geniuses" to create a problem that you had to mop up over the phone.

Here's a good one:
Women takes her macbook to the store, the fans are on constantly after startup.
Mac moron tells her it is the BATTERY, gives her a new battery. (???)
Women leaves store, gets home, turns on laptop, after 2 mins, fan are at full.
She calls in, I speak to her.
Bring up Activity Monitor, a process is stuck at 100% CPU usage.
Force quit the process, fans slow down and then turn on and off normally.
I advise her never to go back to an apple store.

Here's another one:
Mac moron selling a copy of Leopard (10.5) to a lady whose mac is like a G3 with 256MB ram. They sold her this cuz her mac had 10.3 (Panther i believe) and 10.3 wouldnt run the newest iTunes and she had just bought an ipod touch that needed the newest version of iTunes to work..

So the g3 laptop would not even BOOT UP the installer cuz it cant handle 10.5. No error message, nothing, just sits there on a blank screen accessing the dvd lol..gotta love the so called 'software quality' from apple...

Had to send the lady 10.4 (Tiger, which would run the newest itunes) to rectify the issue (and I had to speak to several different dummies in 'tier 2 tech support' before they would 'authorize' sending out the disks even though apple is the one that screwed up)..

And it isnt just one store, happens at a lot of them from across the US.

maybe all you mactards should think about that before talking about quality...