“Let’s take a look at that battery,” advised Kyle on the phone. Doing a Google search for “Mac swollen battery” brought up a lot of articles and many youtube videos about the problem. An expert was needed.
Yesterday’s trip to the MacMedia store www.macmediainc.com in Peoria we found Kyle to be a very helpful man who patiently explained the situation. He installed a new battery. We were advised to let the MacBook Pro battery run through a full charge cycle at least once a month.
When we got home we found an article http://macformat.techradar.com/blog/how-to-extend-your-macbooks-battery-life going into detail. “A charge cycle is completed when you use up the full capacity of your battery and then recharge it. This need not be in one go: if you run your battery down to 50% and then recharge it, you’ve completed half a charge cycle. Do so again, and you’ve completed a full cycle. The lithium-ion polymer batteries used in modern MacBooks should be able to go through 1,000 full cycles and still hold 80% of their original full capacity. If you don’t unplug your MacBook very often, we recommend setting a monthly iCal reminder to run down its battery before giving it a full charge.”
Don and I were happy doing business at MacMedia, Arizona’s largest privately owned Apple retail specialist which provides both in house and on-site repair services, as well as sales. Yesterday the Arrowhead Apple Store was crowded with customers and geniuses, and you could hardly walk through the aisles. At MacMedia the store is large and displays lots of Apple merchandise. And we decided to get that new MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion, too. Kyle deftly transferred everything for us, and we can recommend him to you.
