I decided to relax for a few days and let Apple’s repair depot (an outfit called Flextronics International, located in Memphis) do what they had to do to finish up my iBook.
The status on Apple’s web site showed that the repair was finished and the unit was shipped back to the store on Friday. The web site’s status page didn’t change for the next several days, so I called Apple Care support. They told me it shipped but there was no tracking number available. The person I spoke with left a message for the repair service company asking for a tracking number, and I was told it would take up to 48 hours for a response to come.
I called the store, and sure enough the computer was there. The person I spoke with told me they replaced the LCD screen, which made me a very happy dude. I went to the store to pick it up and sure enough the screen looks great: no more white blotches.
(The problem with the case’s being loose doesn’t seem to have been addressed, but that wasn’t the critical problem anyway.)
I have to wonder if this would have been fixed to my satisfaction had I not made a lot of noise about it last week. And the fact that it came back repaired and in good condition still doesn’t excuse all the tumult at the beginning of this saga. I’ll have to make a decision between now and January ’06 as to whether I want to get Apple’s extended AppleCare service on this unit. If this is an example of how Apple handles repairs, I may look for alternatives.