Over the years, I have had nothing but good service from Apple / Applecare (if you bought Applecare for your product)
I have a late 2001 model iBook that is still running strong thanks to them and have only had two issues with it under heavy use. My first problem was a defective Power brick (AC Adaptor) which the charge light would never turn orange indicating that it was charging the battery. You could tell it was doing so from the menu bar tho but it was a minor issue. I called them about it and they sent me a second power supply via 2 day shipping no questions asked.
A few years later I had bigger problems. My wifi signal kept cutting out and I could never figure out what was causing the problem. During that time, my iBook was the only notebook I had with wireless and was thinking to myself about the horror stories about the antena cable getting crimped in the display hinge. I called Apple about it and did a bit of troubleshooting and booted in both Mac OS X and even in OS 9 to make sure it wasn't a software issue. They then were blaming it on possible interference in my home disrupting my wifi signal and my router was pretty old, so I set out and bought a cheapo Netgear from Best Buy...
The problem remained. I then took my iBook to a local spot that had wireless access and the culprit was my iBook.. I called Apple again and explained all the troubleshooting I've done and they sent me a box to ship to them overnight. (the courier was kind enough to wait for me to pack my iBook in the provided box and take it with him. Props to Airborne Express!)
I got my iBook back in three days after Apple replaced the logic board, the antenna assembly and numerous other components. (also replaced a missing rubber foot that was missing) but two days later the problem returned.
I called them up again and they explained all the services they performed and claim they bench tested it before shipping it back. (they must have just turned it on and shut it down...) and I asked them if they tried replacing the Airport card.
Needless to say, they never did during that whole fiasco. They sent me a replacement card and a box to return my defective one in and that solved everything. It really makes me wonder why they never look at the smaller things first to see what may be causing such a problem instead of overhauling the entire computer only to find that it wasn't the computer itself. Only a peripheral.
(sorta like replacing a motor on a car when you have a bad spark plug...)
If anything, I pretty much got a brand new computer for only a few days of going without it. It still runs like a charm and still gets a good four hours run time off the original battery.
Despite those troubles, I have never seen another company provide such support like that.
