The Apple Files

Written on October 4, 2006 – 9:29 pm | by Ash |

Last night’s Technofile, the techology segment of TV news channel Sky News featured the issue of MacBook Random Shutdowns.

The segment featured an interview with 3 affected MacBook owners:

• Matthew Swanson from macbookrandomshudown.com over webcam
• Myself (Ash Matadeen) and
• Robert Nisbet, Sky News Environment Correspondent who actually had his MacBook shutdown during the interview!

The segment started with an overview of the random shutdown experience and then moved on to show how widespread it is with the 1000+ registered RSS MacBooks over at the macbookrandomshutdown.com RSS List.

Also featured was

• Apple’s own ironic Get a Mac ad (YouTube Link) which mocks PCs for their restarting habits.
• A quick glance at the possible cause of the shut downs (heat sink).
• Footage of a MacBook shutting down in Apple’s own store.
• A comment left by someone (under the alias of “smarter than you”) on a post over at macbookrandomshutdown.com who disrepectfully posted the following in response to a MacBook user considering taking legal action against Apple:
  

  “learn to spell ORGANIZED idiot before you take legal action”

  In an attempt to find out the identity of commenter “smarter than you”, his IP was tracked to 20740 Valley Green Drive, Cupertino, home of Apple Computer, Inc.

  

Apple’s Reply to SKY NEWS!

Last but not least, Sky News contacted Apple! However, the spokesperson had nothing more than this to say:

“Customers who experience problems with their MacBooks shutting down intermittently need to contact AppleCare for service.”

If you want to see the news segment, an edited version of Technofile airs once again on Sky News tomorrow, Thursday 5^th October 2006 at 21:45(BST).

Alternatively, you can wait for the release of Episode 6 of the Technofile Video Podcast (iTunes Podcast Link).

Technofile Video Podcast

Update 7^th October:
The news segment is now available for download as a video podcast.