Yes.
The title of this video is correct.
Apparently there is a lawsuit against Apple currently
with relation to the M1 MacBooks
and a potential screen defect.
And in this video,
we're going to break it down
and I'm going to to tell you if you need to be worried or not.
Now, I have made a video on this topic
a couple of weeks ago.
I definitely do recommend watching that as well,
if you have the time, but if you can't be bothered,
here is a quick breakdown to get you up to speed.
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Now, I wanted to preface this video just by saying
that I'm not an Apple apologist
and I'm not trying to defend Apple
so that they'll sponsor my channel.
I've made plenty of videos criticizing Apple in the past.
Now, a big part of why this is possible is because
we have sponsors like Bellroy,
who sponsors videos here and there.
And that allows us to actually go out and buy
all of these M1 Macs, in this case,
four of them for you guys.
So we can do testing and share our results with you.
And this allows us to remain impartial and unbiased.
So big, thanks to Bellroy for sponsoring this video,
but more on that a little bit later.
Now, moving along into the video
for defect rumors like this,
we have to look at them rationally
and we also have to use existing data.
Does Apple have a history of having devices with defects
and not admitting to it up until the last minute?
Yes, they do.
But that doesn't automatically mean every time
a rumor pops up that it's legitimate
and you should be worried.
Now, if this does end up being an actual issue,
I will make a follow-up video telling you guys
all of my findings and what's been going on,
but for now, let's look at the existing facts
and data and let's get this investigation underway.
(dramatic sound)
So, you know that lawsuit I mentioned in my previous video
on this topic.
Well, now it's apparently made its way into court properly,
but before we examine the lawsuit,
let's talk about a few points first of all.
The first one being a guy called Louis Rossmann.
Now, if you're not familiar with Louis Rossmann,
he's essentially the GOAT for MacBook repairs.
He's been repairing MacBooks for close to 15 years,
and he has seen everything.
Now, he also unashamedly hates Apple.
So, he's the last person on Earth
who would want to defend them.
Yet, in one of his videos on this lawsuit topic,
one explanation he mentioned is that very often
people will accidentally damage that laptop
and then act like they didn't to try and get a free repair.
And this is especially relevant if they don't really take
the greatest care of their devices.
Now, I'm not trying to say that all of these reportedly
defective screens are due to accidental damage,
but it does help to explain and set up some points
I'm going to make later on in the video.
Now, back to Louis Rossmann,
he also went into detail on previous Apple defects
of which there certainly have been many.
And described some of them, for example,
peeling glue on a previous gen MacBook display
or a weak point in the hinge that caused some screen issues
in older models of MacBook.
These are all verified, visually obvious defects.
But as of the date of that video,
he hadn't come across anything that was obviously defective
on the M1 MacBooks.
And in his opinion,
if it did turn out to be a defect right now
there's just not enough data to tell for sure,
but let's come back to that a little bit later on.
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Secondly, I fix it,
which is a pretty well-respected company
that does tear downs of devices
and they also post repair guides.
They did a tear down of the M1 MacBook
and they had this to say and I quote:
"Internally the M1 MacBooks could hardly be
any more similar to their predecessors.
The new 13 inch MacBook Pro looks so familiar inside,
we had to double check that we didn't accidentally purchase
the old model"
with relation to the Air:
"Apart from the new board and cooler,
the rest of the Air remains all but identical
to its predecessor."
Now this doesn't tell you a whole lot,
but what we can deduce from this
is that this particular chasis on the M1 MacBook Air
and MacBook Pro is essentially exactly the same
as the previous generation of MacBooks,
which did not have any defects or issues with the screen.
(dramatic sound)
Thirdly,
I've had a couple of people comment saying that
because this Apple support forum discussion
has so many users reporting the same thing
it must be an issue.
Well, again, let's look at the facts.
864 people have clicked "I have this issue too",
which is a fair amount of people,
but even if every single one of those people suffered
from an actual defect,
let's do some math.
864 reported cases out of, for example,
1,000,000 M1 MacBook units sold that is a 0.08% chance
that your M1 MacBook may have a screen defect issue,
or the screen will just randomly crack.
That's well within manufacturing tolerances
for things like glass or screens.
And the truth is that a small percentage of devices,
regardless of manufacturer will just come out of the factory
with faults.
It's just unavoidable.
The reality is that way more than just 1,000,000 M1 MacBook
units have been sold.
So that percentage I mentioned before in reality
is actually a lot lower.
(dramatic sound)
Now, let's quickly mention something as well,
before we get into the lawsuit.
And there's something I like to call
the Apple controversy effect.
People just really love to hate Apple
and don't get me wrong.
A lot of the times the hate is deserved.
Apple does some pretty stupid stuff,
but things like this tend to pick up traction due to hype.
And many times it turns out there was no issue at all.
Now, if you wanted to protect your MacBook from drops
or scratches and that kind of thing,
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(dramatic sound)
Okay, so let's get into the actual lawsuit.
Yes, guys, I did read through the entire thing
so that you don't have to.
There are actually two class action lawsuits
with the same topic,
but this particular one here is better written
in my opinion.
So we're just going to go with this one.
They're both almost identical.
Okay.
So, here is the lawsuit.
I'll try and link it down below.
If you want to peruse it yourself,
I've made a couple of notes here,
so let's just skip straight to the highlighted sections.
So, here we have the parties involved.
So, obviously the way a class action lawsuit works
is a law firm has to go out and find effective parties.
So, people that have had this issue,
and we have one here,
which is the first plaintiff,
and she states that on or around early June 2021
cracks began to form on the laptop's screen
and was soon accompanied by black bars streaking across
the display.
The plaintiff had not used the laptop in any manner
different from her prior daily routine
when the screen defect first manifested.
Now, guys, I just have to comment on this quickly.
I really do feel sorry for a lot of these people,
because very often what will happen is
it will actually be a defect,
but it's going to be something like a one in 500,000
or one in a million manufacturing defect
from not even Apple's workshop from the actual supplier
they get their parts from.
The reality is, you know,
things will just break.
If you get a car,
something might break down.
If you get a phone
that glass might crack
or the antenna might stop working,
it does happen.
And the tricky part is sometimes getting the manufacturer
or the reseller to actually cover that under warranty.
Because at the end of the day,
some people really do just get screwed.
So, if we continue down to the next relevant section
that I wanted to talk about, for example,
many class laptop owners have spoken out
about the screen defects
on the popular message board Reddit.
In one thread entitled
"Opened a new M1 13 inch MacBook, LCD is cracked
what the hell happened?"
And guys, this is my biggest problem
about this class action lawsuit.
The entire lawsuit is based off social media posts
from oftentimes completely anonymous users
on anonymous forums, such as Reddit.
And one of the main issues that I see
with this particular case
is that if you're coming up against
a multi-billion dollar company like Apple,
and you're just going to screenshot a few social media posts
and have that as the basis of your class action,
it's probably not going to hold up very well in court.
So for example, if we scroll down a little bit further here,
we can see some of the comments.
Again, they're almost all completely anonymous.
There are very little photos here, almost none.
I think only about five to 10% of people
have actually uploaded photos accompanying their posts.
So, if you can imagine sitting in a courtroom
and someone reading out a username "UnableGrape"
or "dolceexpress" or "lilacporch" as evidence
against a multi-billion dollar corporation,
it just doesn't really seem very legitimate.
And I think that this particular class action
is really going to struggle in a court environment.
Now you might be asking me,
Liam, where's all the other evidence?
Surely there's mountains, right?
Unfortunately not.
It's again,
literally just some social media posts from anonymous users,
no photos, there's no expert opinion from a repairer
or ex Apple employee.
There's no clearly identified fault.
For example,
like the hinge fault Louis Rossmann
pointed out in his video.
There's no mention of if these devices were produced
on a certain date or possibly came from a defective batch,
you can find the manufacturing date of a device
fairly easily using third-party software
and the serial number.
This lawsuit just says,
"Yes, there is a defect"
without really providing any reason
or evidence to prove it.
Now, I thought I'd give you really quick
my personal opinion on class action lawsuits like this.
And in my opinion,
the aim of a lot of these class action lawsuits
is for a law firm or a lawyer, for example,
to gather as many plaintiffs as possible.
Plaintiffs, in this case, being people
who have experienced this issue,
get them together,
get a minimum amount and then put it into court
because in the unlikely scenario that,
wow, it does actually turn out to be a defect.
They've already got a lawsuit.
They've got plaintiffs,
they've entered it in the court
and now they could very well make millions of dollars
from a lawsuit such as this.
If you look at the statistics for class action lawsuits,
very, very many of them fail and go completely nowhere.
But if you can make one of them stick,
it could end up being a very, very good payday.
Now, one thing I'll quickly mention
is a little personal anecdote from me.
Like I mentioned, at the start of this video,
I've got several M1 MacBooks.
I've put them through a lot,
rendering an Australian sun,
dropping off a couch,
closing the screen multiple times with the finger
or sheet between the lid and keyboard, et cetera.
And at night, I'll generally throw it on the bed
or put it on the ground and charge it.
I really don't take as good as a care as I should
of my M1 MacBook,
but I haven't had any issues so far.
And this is across all four of the MacBooks
we've had here for testing and video purposes.
Now, on my previous video on this topic
out of about 50 to 60,000 views,
I had only about 10 people comment
saying that they had experienced a screen
on their M1 MacBook randomly cracking.
Now, moving on to what to do,
if your M1 MacBook screen cracks randomly.
You should take multiple photos right away.
You should also take note of the events
leading up to the crack,
so, where was it in your house?
Was it sitting on a table?
on a bed?
Were you using it?
Was it rendering a video, for example?
and then take it straight to Apple.
If they refuse to repair it under warranty,
push it further and try to escalate it, if you can.
If they refuse to repair it under warranty,
be loud about it.
Go into Reddit, go into YouTube,
make Reddit posts with tons of evidence,
lots of photos, make some videos,
upload them to YouTube,
send them to people like me
so we can collect them all
and get it out there to the public.
Because if enough people do this
instead of a few anonymous posts simply saying
"Yeah, my screen cracked too."
We can actually get somewhere with this.
So, those are all the points I wanted to cover
in this video.
I just wanted to stress as well,
that this very well could turn out to be an issue.
But at the moment, there's just not enough data.
And the MacBooks have been out for almost a year
at this point.
So, you've had millions and millions of users
using and abusing their machines
and only seeing a couple of hundred people
with this particular defect online
I don't really think it's going to turn out to be an issue,
but again, if it does,
I won't hesitate to make an update video
and show all you guys about it.
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