Apple is preparing a revamped serial number format for the company’s hardware products next month which it says will offer better support for continued growth and scalability.
All “finished goods” under the new format will obtain a serial number that consists of 18 numeric digits, versus Apple’s current 11-character alphanumeric scheme. AppleCare Protection Plans and AppleCare Support IDs will be covered by the new scheme, although software products will be excluded.
“For the average customer, the change in serial number formats will be transparent. However, those die-hard Apple fans responsible for breaking down the company’s current serial format will now need to go to work in order to make sense of the new 18 digit serials,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider. “Currently, there are a handful of scripts on the internet that when fed with an Apple hardware serial number will return a list of details, such as the name and model of the product the serial belongs to, the date it was manufactured, and the precise location of the factory that built it.”
More info in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’d publish pictures, but we don’t want to get you too excited.
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I can hardly wait!!!!
Holy crap . . . wait until Wall Street digests THIS!
whats next … a bar code ?
Redykyouluss, deffinately.
Speaking of numbers, adding up Bill Gates name = 666.
how fitting. Google for “Bill Gates devil”
LOL at MDN’s take!
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Must be to defer counterfeitters.
Or they ran out of numbers…
18 is divisible by 6, 3 times, or 666, as in the price of the first unit and the number of the beast.
Many scholars think the beast will be a hybrid of human and computer.
yes, yes … this is all fine and well but how are Macs selling in Croatia?
Apple should use automotive-style VIN’s
i.e. 1AMXDABCD6X123456
Agreed, this does not seem very exciting.
But, when you can’t make out the serial number on the inside of an eMac door — what with it’s near microscopic point size (Sorry AppleCare rep., I can’t tell if it reads: z or 2) — then moving to an all NUMERIC scheme hopefully will mitigate this confusion.
Spend almost eighteen hours (in total) — on several occasions, on the phone — with three different AppleCare reps. Then have to PROVE your model isn’t actually 11 months old, because within the first TWO days of ownership — the motherboard is replaced (from a demo model), because of a speaker issue (yeah, that’s right!).
So now, when use the System Profiler to read the serial to the AppleCare rep, you read an incorrect number — the one from the motherboard. This apparently IS NOT the number of THE MACHINE — which is on the inside of the door on an eMac, almost tilting backwards, in 5-point type. This is the number AC wants. Oyyyy.
Aggravation and exciting are not the same thing.
The number of the beast is 616, not 666.
Look out! There’s a serial killer. (rimshot)
Is this what it’s come to? We’re all so enamoured by Apple that even when they change serial numbers on their products – it’s news?
No wonder we’re described as a cult.
I know MDN’s only passing on the info, but really, it’s time to filter out the news that’s trivial.
By the way I here Steve’s just bought a new pair of shoes, and they didn’t fit him very well, so he took them back, (just a rumour).
I wouldn’t consider people who believe the beast a hybrid of human and computer to be scholars.