my apple battery woes

a couple weeks ago, i downloaded a widget for all kinds of cool stats on my mac (i think it's called istat). at first, the battery stats showed something like 90% functioning. over after a few days, i looked again and strangely it has changed to 50-ish%. i thought i have been working too hard on my 50-page paper and have turned delusional. but that same horrible number showed up a few days in a row and then stayed.

it was then that i realized that my battery capability has gone down the drain dramatically. this thing is only barley 1 year old. if i don't plug it in, i can only use the laptop for about 1 hour. it gets used up pretty fast and scary.

thankfully, i had purchased this laptop with a three-year extended warranty. but that was from sg. i wasn't sure if the NTU offer applies internationally (because when i read the paper works from the time of purchase, it's not very clear). i was running through my brain of what other possibilities i might explore if apple doesn't recognize the warranty here. i thought maybe i will have to mail it back to singapore and get somebody to exchange it for me... or wait until i go back to singapore to visit... or just live with a faulty battery.

so i made an appointment with the "genius" at the apple store genius bar. it seems that they are pretty busy. to make things worse, i got out of the house later than i wanted to. not sure about parking, i grabbed a pretty good parking space that was free (since this is in the pasadena area... i knew parking is hard or expensive or both). i was walking on the street in the wrong directions. called my mom to get some help but she was getting pretty confused too. anyway... i found it at the end (but walked for a good 10-15 min). thankfully, since i had an appointment, the "genius" helped me. he gave me the initial talk that batteries do not last forever. they diminish their capabilities after many usages... blah blah blah. dude. i researched the web before i came. (i think he was just buying time). to cut the long story short, without any more questions, he got a new battery. did the paperwork. and put in the new battery.

moral of the story: make sure you buy the extended 3 year apple care. or else you might be like me... just a few days or months after the 1 year warranty wears out, you might find your computer destroyed (my poor ibook).