Lots of places that offer nationwide Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod service will try to you lure you to their website by saturating their webpage with geographic keywords that make it appear that they are “in” your area.

If you’re looking for “local” Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod service or repair that’s really local to the Baltimore, Maryland or Washington DC areas, then you’ve found the right place.

MacMedics has been repairing Macintosh computers in Maryland since 1989.

When you’re looking for local Mac, iPhone, iPod, or even iPad service from a reputable service provider, come see us at MacMedics.

Thinking about going to the Apple Store for service? Our service is faster, usually less expensive, and carries our full MacMedics 1-year service warranty. See our Blog post about that here. The majority of our our Apple warranty repairs are complete and ready to return to you within 24 hours. Need a rental while your unit is in the shop? We can do that too!

Be sure to see our Blog post on why shipping your broken Mac or iPhone off to parts unknown is something that you should really think twice about.

My 30-second elevator pitch has evolved to include ATM repairs.

So someone in the elevator will see my MacMedics jacket, shirt, or tool bag and asks, “What exactly is MacMedics?”

I say, “MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Macintosh service and consulting business. We service and maintain Macs at ad agencies and other places where pre-press and graphic design happens like corporate graphics or marketing departments. We like to say we’re in the ATM repair business, because when your Mac is broken or slow, you’re not making money.”

I got a huge dose of this wisdom this recently. A guy who lives and works near our shop has a video production business. He’s been asking about maybe getting a new Mac for the last year or so.

We exchange e-mails every so often when he has a question about his Mac or to ask if we need any video production help. I saw him at Subway not too long ago and he let me know that he might be getting a new Mac soon.

He came into the shop with his older MacBook Pro that was really sick. He had tried to run a Firmware update while he was in the middle of a project and it failed, thus making the unit inoperable. It’s not a common occurrence, but we do see it from time to time. As soon as it happened he ordered a new MacBook Pro from somewhere else, and then brought that in so we could transfer his data from the old unit to the new unit. Sadly, we could have saved him even more time if he had purchased the new Mac from MacMedics.

Normally this is not a big deal. We set it up the new MacBook Pro to migrate and it failed about 75% of the way thru. We tried a few other things and tried again, and it failed a second time. We then began to suspect the drive might be failing as it was getting kind of noisy and it was getting pretty hot as well.

I decided to go ahead and clone the drive on our data recovery equipment, so I could copy the data off the drive quickly. I then had to fix that data in order to get it into to shape to migrate it. His hard drive was a huge mess. The report on the drive was seven pages long! The total process ended up taking several hours and it delayed him over 24 hours from the point where his old unit blew up.

So, he’s a professional guy who makes his living with this MacBook Pro, and he had no back up, and he’s never had the unit serviced or looked at. This MacBook Pro is really his ATM cash machine as it provides him with all of his bread and butter for his business.

This is a fantastic case study in why a little preventive maintenance goes along way. If you treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, you’ll never have these problems. Let’s get real here? Are you going to let your ATM degrade to a point where it stops dispensing cash.

1. This client’s MacBook Pro is well over two years old, so if we had seen it at any point recently, we would have most likely replaced the unit’s hard drive proactively and serviced the unit.

4. A little bit of annual maintenance and an automatic and tested back up system pay for themselves very quickly.

We’re friendly with this fellow, so if had stopped and called us on the phone, we would have been able to tell him all of this. We love to talk shop. If you have questions about how to treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, just pick up the phone and give us a call!

As Apple Authorized Service Providers, we perform quite a number of Macintosh warranty repairs on behalf of Apple’s customers. We also do so for many of our own customers whom have purchased their Apple gear from MacMedics.

Over the last six months or so, our Apple service business has basically doubled. The Apple Stores in the area are so overwhelmed; many Apple owners are finding out that there is an alternative to making an appointment or waiting around in the mall for a face-to-face with a Genius at the Genius Bar. See our recently updated Blog post on why it makes sense to come visit MacMedics in either Lanham (1 mile from I-495 at RT 50) or Millersville (5 minutes from BWI Airport or 10 minutes form the Annapolis Mall)

When we perform an Apple Warranty or AppleCare repair for someone, Apple sends them a survey to ask how well we performed the service on Apple’s behalf.

Apple then forwards these remarks and the accompanying scores to us with the idea that they will help improve our service.

In the latest round feedback from Apple, these anonymous comments praise MacMedics in such a level of detail it almost looks like we wrote them ourselves.

These are direct from Apple, and we’d like to thank our loyal customers for supporting us. THANKS!

-Very customer focused.

-Matt at Mac Medics knew right away how to resolve my problem.

Dana Stibolt will be the guest speaker at next meeting of PPOGA – Professional Photographers of Greater Annapolis. He will be talking about backing up your important data redundantly and automatically.

The meeting will be held at the Annapolis DoubleTree Hotel (near the Annapolis Mall) Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 6:30pm. Free gifts from MacMedics for all who attend. $12 entry includes food, beverage, and door prize entry!

See the Professional Photographers of Greater Annapolis’ Facebook page here.

MacMedics Announces New Lower Prices For Same-Day iPhone 3G and 3G S Glass/Digitizer Service

iPhone 3G Glass/Digitizer Repair $89.95
iPhone 3G S Glass/Digitizer Repair $99.95

You can drop your iPhone 3G or 3G S off by 10:00 AM and we’ll most likely be able to have it ready for pick up by 4:00 PM. We also offer flat-rate $10 FedEx Ground shipping if you’d like to have your iPhone shipped back to you. We can also ship via FedEx Express via the service of your choice. We are also happy to ship your device back to you on your FedEx or UPS account.

iPhone repairs are super popular and tons of sellers of Do-It-Yourself iPhone parts, tools, supplies, and videos have come out of the woodwork.

There are three huge things to consider:

1. Is the part you are buying the correct part for your unit AND is it a “real” part? Many sellers from eBay and Craigslist are selling “High Copy” parts, which are usually far inferior in quality.

3. If you “do it yourself” you’re undertaking the risk of damaging or destroying your iPhone. The people that make the videos are usually the same people selling the iPhone service parts, and they make it look super easy in the video. Why? They want you to think it IS easy so you buy the part from them. Also don’t forget that internal parts of an iPhone are very delicate and sensitive to static. We know this and take every precaution in our Apple inspected Mac Lab.

We’ve blogged about iPhone repairs many times before. So you can read our past posts here.

Are You Snowed In Baltimore Or Washington DC Today? This Would Be An Excellent Time To Check Your Time Machine Or Other Macintosh Backup System.

Are you snowed in the Baltimore-Washington area? A snow day is an excellent time to review your Mac’s back up plan, add an extra layer of protection, or test the back up you already have running! Don’t forget, there’s no such thing a set-it-and-forget it backup plan! (This post has links to all my other posts on this topic. Read, learn, and protect your data.)

We also see a rise in data loss that can be attributed to folks moving data or computers around during bad weather. If you are moving your data, switching back ups, or upgrading to a new computer, or doing ANY type of data housekeeping, please read this Blog post first.

MacMedics Case File: White MacBook With Spectacularly Broken LCD.

This white, plastic Macbook came into the MacMedics shop via one of our institutional Macintosh repair contracts. It looks like someone dropped something on the top of the unit to puncture the screen back (the part with the Apple logo on it) and broke the LCD hard enough that a convex lump is visible on the front of the LCD.

See this picture large size here.

See this picture large size here.

See this picture large size here.

No problem! We have the parts to fix it in-stock so we had it fixed same-day.

If your MacBook or MacBook Pro has a broken LCD, MacMedics can fix your laptop! The Apple Store charges as much as $1200 in some cases to fix this problem. We can usually fix most LCDs from $349 to $549. All commonly used LCD are in stock. WE stock over a dozen different types and sizes.

MacMedics has also become quite well know for our MacBook and MacBook Pro Uni-Body glass repair. We can fix this issue as well, and again for hundreds of dollars less the Apple Store.

If you are in the Baltimore or Washington DC area, just stop by our Millersville or Lanham office and we can get your Apple laptop repaired and back to you very quickly (most cases are handled in 24 hours). If that’s not fast enough, MacMedics does offer low-cost MacBook rental units to keep you up and running is you’re headed out of town or on a deadline.

Before you make an appointment for the Genius Bar, drive to the mall, find a parking spot, and then lug your Mac through the Annapolis Mall to get to the Apple Store, please consider supporting your local neighborhood Mac shop!

Need more convincing? Take a look at these comments that were sent to Apple from clients who we performed Apple Warranty or AppleCare service for recently:

The service was the best I have ever had on any product. Thanks!

I could not be more happy with the combined service of Apple and Mac Medics. Mac Medics had it couriered to their location and I had it back on Tuesday after the Holiday. I mean serious who works this fast? While the rest of the country enjoyed their 3-day weekend somebody was working on my problem. My satisfaction is off of the charts and I have told many peers and coworkers this amazing story. Thanks again!!!!

Stop! Before You Make A Trip To The Annapolis Apple Store, See This Checklist First

Visit MacMedics in Millersville (near BWI airport) or Lanham, Maryland (near RT 50 & I-495) the next time you need Mac sales or service.

See our Blog post with all the details on why to come see MacMedics instead of trekking to the Apple Store. Clients that come to see us, often tell us they will never go back to the Apple Store for Macintosh sales OR service!

Or review this quick top 11 reasons here:

1. No appointment is needed: No need to call ahead when you’re ready to come visit MacMedics! Just walk in and our Apple Certified Techs will take great care of you.

The Apple Store won’t upgrade your hard drive for you. But, MacMedics can, and we can do so either in or out of Apple warranty.

Here’s a common hard drive scenario that we help MacMedics clients with every day.

Your hard drive has failed, but you’d like to replace with a larger hard drive.

This makes perfect sense. Your MacBook with a 120 GB hard drive kicks the bucket, and in the process of replacing it, you’d like to upgrade it. MacMedics can help!

In Warranty: If your Mac is under warranty AND it’s hard drive fails, we can upgrade you to a larger capacity hard drive “under warranty”. All you do is pay for a new hard drive in the capacity of your choice.

Here’s how it happens:

1. We diagnose your computer’s hard drive as failed.
2. We order a new hard drive from Apple.
3. We install a new third party hard drive in the capacity of your choice.
4. We will install a new operating system on your new hard drive. (good time to upgrade your OS if you wish!)
5. You pay MacMedics for the cost of the new hard drive.
6. We send your old hard drive back to Apple.
7. We give you the Apple replacement hard drive to keep.

Your total cost: Just the price of a new hard drive, assuming we don’t also have to worry about or recover any of your data.

The free “original” size hard drive is yours to keep and you can sell it, keep it as a spare part, or use it to upgrade one of your other Macintosh computers.

Installing a new, large, faster, and more robust hard drive in your Macintosh does not void your AppleCare warranty. The only caveat that you have to keep in mind is that the Apple warranty WILL NOT cover the third party hard drive under Apple’s warranty. But if it should fail it is covered by a 1-year MacMedics warranty.

Out Of Warranty: If your Mac is out of warranty, we can also replace your hard drive with any size hard you would like. Most hard drive “upgrades” or “retirements” are done for our flat fee of $150 plus the cost of the hard drive. (Black or White original MacBooks are done for $99)

Obviously, if we have to recover your data from a failing hard drive, and provide other services in order to get your computer back in shape other charges may apply.

Here’s how it happens:

1. We diagnose your computer’s hard drive as failed.
2. You choose a new hard drive size and speed.
3. We install that new hard drive for you.
4. We clone your data from old hard drive to new hard drive
5. We test and run updates on your computer.

MacMedics keeps all popular hard drive sizes and speeds in stock at all times, so we can get you back on-line as quickly as possible.

This is just one more reason that MacMedics is often a better choice than trekking to your local Apple Store and dragging your iMac or Mac Pro through the mall. See our complete Top Ten reasons of why not to wait in line or fight the crowds at the Apple Store here.

When MacMedics performs an Apple Warranty or AppleCare repair for one of our clients, Apple sends a follow up e-mail to ask how we did. These are some of the mini-reviews that we have received.

#1 The service I received at MacMedics was very good and they always called me and left messages updating the status and progress of my computer.
—–
#2 I loved being able to walk in talk to a rep and have the work started right away. They have great customer service they always keep me up to date on their progress and explain their work and my service options every step of the way.
—–
#3 They were awesome. Nuff said. Dana runs a great show there.
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#4 They were fantastic. The service was quick the people were friendly and willing to answer all of my questions.

These are anonymous comments, so if one of these Apple Warranty or AppleCare reviews for MacMedics is yours, thank you!

If you need Apple Macintosh please consider visiting MacMedics in Millersville or Lanham instead of trekking to your local Apple Store. You never need an appointment, we’re 10 steps from your car, We’re cheaper, we’re faster (most warranty repairs are completed in 24 hours), and above all we’re accurate! We only fix what needs fixing. See our previous post with our Top Ten Reasons Not To Stand In Line And Fight The Crowds At The Apple Store.

Don’t forget that MacMedics Millersville also repairs all types of iPods and iPhones. Don’t pay Apple to swap out your iPhone for $199? We can fix your iPhone 3G glass or digitizer for $89 or iPhone 3G S for $99 (we also have “While-You-Wait” iPhone service where we swap out the entire top half of your iPhone 3G for $124 or iPhone 3G S for $145. What’s even better, is almost iPhone and iPod service and repairs that come into our shop are fixed the same day. If you’re in by 12:00 Noon, we should have you out the door or your iPhone in the FedEx truck by 5:00 PM!