Interesting tibit viathe Consumerist
Apple will not repair computers that have been used in smoking environments - Is this a fair policy?
Sounds like a lawsuit looking for a client. This is seriously lame.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t all consumer electronics full of toxic substances?
Pandering to anti-tobacco zealots? Trying to beef up their “green” image? (How are they going to reconcile that with all the Mac-crazy hippies with Drum and rolling papers?)
I just asked Snopes about that article. I can hardly believe it!
Holy schmoley. I’m a smoker and programmer who has had various computer components die as a direct result of all the smoking gunk – decreased air flow, increased (sticky) dust build-up, malfunctioning fans, etc. I was all ready to say – sure, it’s fair, so long as it’s indicated clearly to the consumer that smoking presents an abnormal environment (akin to using it in an un-air conditioned topical climate).
But contaminated? Really?
I’d assume that those toxic substances are contained, rather than coating the entire thing. It hardly matters what toxic substances are inside a battery, just as long as you don’t open it.
Yes, I missed the cutoff to add to my post. This sounds like fake news.
That seems so crazy, it’s a little difficult to believe that could be official corporate policy. If it is though, screw 'em (says this long-time Apple user/supporter and non-smoker).
It doesn’t matter what toxic substances are coating a computer, unless you scrape it off and rub it on your mucus membranes.
And you’re just, what, assuming you know the standard Apple Repair Procedures? 
I just went through the AppleCare terms and conditions. Link to North American T’s and C’s (Warning: PDF filled with legalese)
Would being coated in tobacco gunk constitute abuse? It certainly totaled a VCR that I lent to my father years ago…
Here’s an old thread I made on the subject with a link to some photos, it took a couple hours to fully clean the machine out, and I still wasn’t able to remove 100% of the contamination
Well, there you go, right? If smoking does that to the equipment, I don’t think Apple should have to fix it under the warranty.
(I don’t know about that bio-hazard nonsense, though)
It doesn’t help the Apple designs desktop computers so that they can’t be opened and cleaned. Even regular dust can mess up a computer, but if you have an Apple, you can’t simply open it and spray it with canned air like you would with a normal computer.
That may be true on the iMacs, but the Mac Pro desktops are extremely easy to open and clean. I do it regularly.
I can see not working on the machine because the problem is it’s too gunked up with tar (I’m a smoker and I know what it does to my machines - which I clean regularly).
But not working on it because something broke unrelated to tar gunkage, or simply because it smells of smoke, is not cool. Not cool at all.
The iMacs are easy to open and clean as well.
As for the OP, the Apple store is being stupid. I suspect a letter from a lawyer will make them see reason.
That part already strikes me as perhaps unprofessional and suspicious. Could there be more to the story? Maybe the tech spilled his mocha latte in the computer while looking at it, and doesn’t want to admit it?
The “void warranty” bit I can buy. Cigarette gunk coating everything could surely be argued to be the result of an unusually damaging environment, beyond what they should be expected to cover.
The “refuse to work on it because it’s a biohazard” is just plain stupid.