“First it was swelling batteries, now some Apple computer users are reporting a very different problem, with their pristine white MacBook’s displaying yellowish stains in the area around the keyboard where their hands rest,” Louisa Hearn reports for The Sydney Morning Herald.
“The MacBook was introduced to the market early this year and, while there are several references on Apple’s own user forums to the stains, a number of blogs devoted to flaws in Apple hardware have complained that the company has blocked or closed some of these discussions,” Hearn reports.
Full article here.
Apple Discussion Thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=516645&tstart=0
According to Damien Barrett, writing for TUAW, “This discoloration is not dirt and cannot be cleaned by anything that people have tried, and the list is extensive: iKlear and similar cleaners, hot water, Windex, diluted bleach, a Magic Eraser…the list is long. There definitely appears to be a problem here with the plastic that Apple has used for the palm rests on the first-generation white MacBooks.”
Full article here.
Some photos of the yellow stains: http://flickr.com/photos/tswartz/tags/macbook/
MacDailyNews Take: Natural oils from the users’ palms reacting with the particular plastic used in the MacBook case? If not, then why is the yellowing happening only on the palm rests? Heat affecting the MacBook plastic? A possibility perhaps, but, again, why only on the palm rests? There isn’t a plastic-warming processor directly under each palm rest. What do you think?
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Then you have the truly scary fan boys who are so fanatical about their new Apple product that they bitch and moan over every single little imperfection they can manage to dream up. “My tab key is mushy, boo hoo!”
Just like auto magazine editors who issue poor reviews over slightly misaligned cup holders. Little details like safety and reliability are taken for granted.
Get a frickin life! It’s a G. D. tool, a machine, and a damn fine one at that. Knock it around, scratch it up, yellow it, use it up and go buy yerself a new one for cryin out loud!
Apple users expect better. I have a 20-year-old Apple II that’s still functional (and surprisingly usable!); how many PC’s can claim that? If we wanted cheap disposable commodity junk we’d buy Dell.
REPEAT ONLY USE NON-ACETONE BASED NAIL POLISH REMOVER!!
If you use acetone it will EAT the plastic!!!
And then you can’t get a new MacBook because, well you damaged it.
If I had the smarts, I would market plastic sheets with adhesive that would cover those affected areas. One could put sports logos on them, calendars, whatever, etc.
This is ridiculous, I gotta go to bed…..Good night folks.
I think I’ll stick with my 12inch iBook G4 1.2 Ghz for a while. Maybe 3 years or so, or when they sell the Black MacBook for $999
I’ve had it 10 months and still looks new.
It might be a problem with peoples sweat, as mentioned above.
There have been cases of people who have tarnished their watches and valuable jewelry because of their sweat.
In some cases it was because of things they had eaten and medication they were on, for example a course of antibiotics.
We are toxic mammals after all.
Leo.
I think we should all use Rubber gloves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the plastic should be resistance of perspiration, oil or whatever that turn the plastic to yellowish…
in this case, the Macbook sucks.
Some people just have body chemistries. My brother has worn similar areas on every laptop he’s ever owned. After about three months it looks like he’s been rubbing certain sections of his Vaio with very fine sandpaper, and also, he wears the type off the keys very quickly as well. Strange, but some folks are just like that. He replaces his laptop about once a year because of it.
Sorry, that should read, “Some people just have strange body chemistries.”
Let’s wait and see how the inevitable lawsuit, brought on by the inevitable lawyer, on retainer to Microsoft, turns out.
Microsoft is such a financier of FUD projects that any bad shit connected to any Apple products is probably being promoted by the dark side of the force.
As well, a small percentage of all switchers are really Microsoft double agents. It was inevitable. Let’s round them up and ship them to Gitmo.
Hmmm, I used to work for a plastic injection molding company. My guess is that Apple tried to save a few too many pennies and changed vendors. Differences in the material and injection process is causing some to yellow.
I will also guess that Apple gets its cases from several mfgs. So you will only see this coming from the new vendors. Hey that is how companies keep this kind of thing in house. Special processes that are required to make it right. You keep those secret so new vendors have to screw up and you get the work back.
I would guess micro cracks collecting dirt and maybe mold.
N.
To all those posting and saying that we yellowbook owners need to wash our hands… please. If we were the types of people who didn’t wash our hands, we wouldn’t be complaining about this. The yellowing started on mine after two weeks, and I hadn’t even used it all that much. I’ve had an iBook for years and nothing like this has occured.
There’s a problem, a flaw or something, and Apple needs to address it, even if it’s particular to certain people.
R
The white MacBooks on display at the Apple Store in London have all developed this yellow stain. Several appear to have scratched quite easily along the hinged side of the back of the screen, too. Never happened to iBooks, so something is definitely wrong. “Natural oils from the users’ palms”? Rubbish.
Problem solved! You may remember that, a few months ago, it was discovered that Apple had submitted files to the patents office that contained descriptions for the case design of a so called ‘Chameleon Mac’ which was able to change colour. It now looks that Apple has actually started to manufacture these new designs and is incorporating them into the new laptops.
I don’t have a Macbook, but my light beige colored Logitech keyboard including its grey palm rest have yellowed after more than a year of usage (yes I’m a PC user), it looks a lot like the stain patterns on the photos of the stained white Macbooks.
While its a pain, I suppose you should wipe your white Macbook on a regular basis to keep the stains from setting in permanently (or get the black one). But damn I wish Apple would change the material used, or lower the price for the black ones, well, or charge slightly higher for the white ones with better material (because I want one!!).
This is almost like the pitting issue on the first alubooks. It will most likely only affect some hundred machines and subsequent batches will be fine.
Dirty Pierre le Punk: Try to be original.
Apple continues to create crap that explodes and kills. Everything they create is a disaster and needs to be pulled from the market. Now maybe people will see the problem and purchase real computers from Lenovo and Dell. Time to get away from toys that are poorly designed and executed. Also time to laugh at all the goofs that have been purchasing Apple stock over the last couple of months…can you say “wave goodbye to your money”?
Apple customers are ALWAYS wrong!
Apple is ALWAYS right!
It’s called acid-fingers. Each person is different. I used to have a buddy who
would play my guitar with new strings and a week later my guitar string were black. I know a guy who strings grand pianos and he has to wear gloves where the other guy doesn’t have to. I think this could be why some are turing yellow and why some aren’t.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!! CHEESE CURLS!!!
Seems too strange for me to believe skin oils could cause this. I’m thinking maybe they are all using some specific lotion or moisturizing soap which is rubbing off and reacting with the plastic.
it is apple’s fault. they should only sell the white macbook to people with good hygene. those with questionable washing habits should be forced to buy the black macbook.
MDN – you don’t get it. It’s about power per watt. The ultra-efficient, ultra cool Yawn-ah, er Yonah, er Core Duo, er Core 2 Duo (at least until next month, I think that’s the name) located under the palmrests is producing more heat than the trusty PowerPC G4 that was in the prior model. It’s all about efficiency. Apple gets to use Intel’s new technology that will ultimately secure all digital rights at the processor level, we get to use Microsoft Windows (yeah! – wait, didn’t we “switch” to Mac to get away from that?), Photoshop now runs slower (oh yeah – next year there will be some Universal Binaries or whatever to help the Intel chips match PowerPC performance) and the new MacBooks will turn yellow from normal use. Maybe Apple could patent this new “chameleon-skin” feature and even use it in the iPod. We already have black iPods so how about yellow? Maybe some sort of pro-ethanol tie-in promoting the environment or something. All the while our buddy Steve gets to worry with running Disneyland and we get told how great our new Intel machines are while we sit back and watch PowerPC chips running all three of the new high-end video game consoles. As the McDonald’s slogan goes…”I’m lovin’ it”.