In some instances, some customers only had to pay $200 for the battery replacement fee and got themselves a brand new laptop. This is clearly a pretty amazing deal, but unfortunately it seems to have run its course. In an internal memo obtained by MacRumors, it looks like Apple is now instructing Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers that as of the 26th of July, the necessary components for battery replacements are now available, meaning that replacement models will no longer be given.
We suppose this shouldn’t really have come as a surprise given that it was probably costing Apple quite a bit of money to hand out replacement laptops for next-to-nothing (a $200 service fee is but a fraction of the cost of a brand new laptop). That being said, it also wasn’t exactly official as some users who have tried to get their laptops replaced were declined, so perhaps the replacements were also at the discretion of Genius Bar employees.