Remember back in 2010 when Apple first came out with the Magic Trackpad and it was made of glass? Well, I can prove that the Magic Trackpads are made of glass.

Last Friday night I opened my M2 MacBook Air and saw what looked like a hair across my trackpad. With a dog, two cats, and my own long hair, finding a hair on something is a pretty familiar experience. But unlike all of the other times, blowing on this “hair” didn’t make it go away. I brushed with my hand, and it stayed stubbornly in place.

I then realized it was a crack in the glass. But get this – when I ran my fingernail across it, I couldn’t feel it. The trackpad had actually cracked from the inside!

I texted Jill from the Northwoods, and she found a Reddit thread from a year ago with people talking about this happening to them. I searched the interwebs and found some threads in Apple Discussions about it too. I would definitely not call this a widespread problem, but it was comforting to know I wasn’t alone.

I always buy AppleCare, so I gave them a call. Saki from first-level support answered my call for help. She asked the obvious question, “Did you close it with something in the hinge?” I pointed out that I’d just told her it was cracked from the inside. How could I have caused that?

I suggested that it would not make me happy if Apple came up with some scenario where they decided this was my fault. Saki asked whether I could hold for a minute or two while she asked someone else what code she was supposed to use for this one. That’s another indication this isn’t a widespread problem. She came back pretty quickly and said they’d be sending me a box to ship my Mac in for repair.

The main reason I’m telling you this story is to illustrate how much easier and faster it is to use this method than to take it into an Apple Store, even if you have one close by. Steve and I have both used this service many times and it’s always been faster to ship it away ourselves.

On Monday morning the box arrived at my house. After making a full backup with Carbon Copy Cloner, I packed my baby up and dropped it off at FedEx at 11:30 AM. They told me I’d missed the pickup time for that day, but at 4 in the morning on Tuesday, Apple Repair in Tennessee sent me an email telling me they already had my device. Later Tuesday afternoon they sent me another email which gave me pause…

We’re returning your device to you along with a letter that provides more information. If you have any questions after reading the letter, contact Apple Support to discuss your options.

Notice the letter didn’t say they’d fixed it, it just said they were returning it. The letter also suggested I might have questions when I get it back. I was very concerned that they were refusing to fix it because they thought it was my fault. But if that’s what they thought, it would have made more sense to contact me to ask for authorization to pay for the repair, right?

I looked at the status of my ticket on Apple Support and the communication there was slightly different – it said, “Your repair is complete.” I wondered if that meant they repaired it, or if that was a nice way of saying they were washing their hands of it.

On Wednesday at 12:35 PM, barely more than 48 hours after I’d dropped the laptop off at FedEx, it was delivered back to my house. Even better, the trackpad was replaced. Apple had just unnecessarily alarmed me with their poor communication.

I mentioned that I did a full backup of my laptop before shipping it off, which is always a good idea. In previous repairs, I’ve had the SSD either replaced or wiped, so I wasn’t taking any chances. As much “fun” as it’s been to do clean installs and running Migration Assistant lately, I was not in the mood this time.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that I continue to be a fan of the mail-in process for hardware repair by Apple, and I continue to be a fan of buying AppleCare. I believed Apple when they said our trackpads were made of glass but now there’s no doubt in my mind. It would have been interesting to know what stresses caused it to break from the inside but for now that mystery remains unexplained.