I’ve only ever bought one iBook new. It was an iBook G3, the 700MHz cheapo model Apple made to get into the sub-1000-by-a-dollar market a few years ago. I see how they did it, in hindsight, as that thing held together like popsicle sticks and rubber bands. Among the repairs that thing had: video issues, hinge issues, a bad hard drive, two power adapters, a DC board, and then the hinge again. After that last one I just looked the guy at the bar in the eye and said, “Dude, I want another one.” He obliged.

Somewhere in the middle of that story I was given a second iBook, though the “good” model above it. Four or five repairs on that one landed me my other iBook G4, and those are the machines my wife and I run today. Compared to the iBook G3, the G4 is stellar. I’ve not had a single repair on either unit, or the adapters (that revision they made right before the iBook G4 solved every single problem I’d had with it). Well, save one problem.

That damned foot.

There are three feet on the white iBook models that are similar. They have three arms that reach into sockets in the corners of the case and hold on rather tightly and, should they ever fall out, you just snap them into place again. Those are fine. That last foot, however, is attached to the battery and has no such socket. This foot consists of three plastic pegs. No clips, no catches, no innovative snappy thing to keep it in place, just a piece of plastic with three pegs that pushes into three holes on the battery casing. I understand the concept of them not having room for a socket in the battery, and that’s fine. My gripe is that a hard sneeze will pull this thing off and, unlike the other three, if this one goes you can’t get another one without buying a whole new battery. The others are priced like candy at the repair shop (a pack of six for like $10) but this one, lone foot is unavailable, and the one most likely to fall out.

My wife’s is gone. No idea when or where; one day it just went AWOL and she’s been footless ever since. I’ve been lucky. Every time mine falls off I wound up finding it. After the latest detachment I grabbed a bottle of glue and stuck that SOB on there in a big white glob of goo. When it dried, I abraded away the excess and was left with the foot as it was when I got this thing. So far, so good.

I just find it hard to believe that after making a product so completely reliable after such a set of lemons that they’d do something as stupid as make a push-on part in a high-friction area. That’s just irresponsible, at some level. Then to not offer the part for sale at all? Even for a repair? That’s cruel.

You know, I think that if you add up all the times that foot’s come off, I’ve had more than enough repairs to justify a free MacBook Pro.