http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/22 ... arranties/

Bio-hazard, eh?

Depends on how heavy a smoker they are, I suppose. The house I am in now was vile when we moved in. It was a smoker’s house, and there was a yellow residue on EVERYTHING. The windows had an amber tinge. It took ages to get all that crap out.

At firth I thought that this was fairly sensible of Apple, after all, how many of you would want to get your hand grubby with cigarette residue? However, after a think they could charge the person something so that employees could use protective measures such as screens, breathing equipment and gloves. Then again, why doesn't Apple take these precautions anyway? Who knows what might be lurking inside a laptop keyboard....

Well because they cost money and also because they won't know they need them until they crack the case open, at which point it's too late.

I have a feeling this must be arse covering on their part. if a staff member repaired a computer and in the process got exposed to high levels of cigarette residue, if that employee later developed respiratory problems or lung cancer, they would have a case to sue Apple for compensation as they had required them to work in a harmful environment. If you're not allowed to let people smoke in an office building, how about requiring them to work on equipment that has had significant contamination from cigarette by products?

I'm of the opinion there is a lot of unnecessary apartheid about smokers these days but you have to say there's a difference between being exposed to the smoke of one cigarette and the possible part-residue of hundreds of cigarettes.

Jon

If a Mac can easily be killed by fag smoke, then it isn't fit for purpose under the sale of goods act.

I know that was a flame but the article never said that the smoke was the cause of the problem. Only that it was the reason that they wouldn't fix it.

Pretty much anything with a fan in can be damaged by prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke and dust. It clogs the bearings and sticks to everything. The only way to protect against such contamination would be with a high-grade filter system, which would require constant maintenance.

Since the vast majority of computers are not used in such a hazardous environment, it's rare for such an option to be worth the expense and aggravation. After all, most computers are not used under water either, but you can get models designed for the job should you so require. Most people just don't require it, so it's not standard.

Alas it does:


However, since Mac's only use PC parts, it would be right to say that PC's are just as susceptible to death by smoking as Mac's are...

Well quite. Just how many a day does the guy smoke if it's pretty much killed the hard drive? Optical drive, you could imagine it takes pretty few smoke particles to affect the optics but a HDD is a sealed unit. It'd have to corrode the SATA connection or kill the motor. That's pretty f!cked up right there.

Jon

Welcome to Apple. If you do not conform to our standard Apple user, please do not purchase our products.


Can just imagine that happening next. What about all of the PC technicians who work on such machines?

Also, does this mean all smokers will need to carry warning signs informing people that they are smokers, so you can choose whether or not to interact with them, on the grounds that any 'tar' may be present?

Gives me an idea for one of those scare pictures on the side of ciggy packets - "smoking voids your warranty" - with a picture of a macbook or an imac in the background...

People may actually pay attention to that one.

Ah, furry muff.

Frankly, if it's as bad as it sounds, they're [LIFTED] idiots. I do techy stuff for PC and Macs but if the thing really is that clagged up the hard drive has gone south, I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

Jon

Agreed.

I suspect that the plaintiff is a chain-smoker who spends inordinate amounts of time on his Mac blowing smoke right into the intake.