Ugly display spots on expensive notebooks: Apple’s so-called Staingate affair, which has preoccupied the company for more than five years, is entering the next round. If MacRumors reports to Apple’s authorized service providers (ASPs) citing an internal paper, an exchange program for affected devices is still active.

However There could be delays in treatment this year as Apple decided to do all the repairs in-house. According to the memorandum, this will initially affect the USA, but will probably soon be handled this way worldwide.

Anti-reflective coating with poor durability Staingate occurs when the anti-glare coating of an Apple notebook partially peels off over time – often even over a large area. “Retina screens in some MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers can have problems with the anti-reflective coating (AR),” said Apple’s internal instruction to the ASPs last spring.

This was the first time that the MacBook Air from 2017 was even mentioned in connection with state gate problems; however, it is still not part of the internal repair program. This is reserved for the MacBook Pro and the MacBook with inch large screen, which is no longer built. Hardware from year of production 2018 is not covered anyway.

Repairs will be centralized in the future According to the fresh memo, which officially came into effect on January 4th, all affected machines must be sent to Apple’s repair centers. ASPs themselves are no longer allowed to do the job, which leads to delays. Why this was decided is unclear. In connection with the memo, it becomes clear that Apple is still busy with the topic five years after the quality problem first became known.

Already 2015 an internal exchange program was launched. At that time it was also said that affected computers could still be touched for up to four years after the date of purchase. So that means that Apple now still machines from 2016 or 2017 processed. Since there is still no official exchange program at Staingate, those affected have to go to Apple and should contact the service employee directly.

(bsc)