Tikkabik

I popped into the closest Apple retail store last Friday to show them the battery on my 17-inch MacBook Pro. It had stopped working and, what's worse, had begun to visibly swell and bulge on one side. Unfortunately, they weren't able to help me -- their solution was simply to try to sell me a new one. It was out of warranty, they said, and it wasn't covered by a battery service extension program Apple offers for some 15-inch models.

I declined, but today I gave AppleCare a call. After a bit of wrangling I managed to convince the person with whom I was speaking that this was, indeed, a very unusual failure. It would be one thing if the battery stopped charging all together, or only held a modest charge. Batteries do tend to fail the more they're used, after all.

But the fact that the battery had swollen -- at this point, so severely that it could barely be kept inside the MacBook Pro's battery bay without popping out again -- was definitely indicative of a defective unit.

Looking at the battery so the power gauge is located on the lower portion of it, the left side of the battery's housing had swelled up by a good 1/2 to 3/4 inch, deforming the case. Inside I can only imagine what's going on; I assume the battery cell itself had swollen, as I couldn't easily press down on the case to make it go down anymore.

After talking with two reps at AppleCare I finally got a dispatch number -- they are covering the battery under warranty, after all, which I really appreciate. MacBook Pro batteries aren't cheap, and certainly shouldn't have failed like this one did.