Inflated

I have a 13-inch Unibody MacBook Pro purchased in 2009. This week, the trackpad became very hard to click. In fact, on this computer the trackpad has always been slightly harder to press on the left than on others of the same model, but I wasn’t really concerned. Except this week when it got worse. I opened the bottom panel to see whether I could somehow clean whatever was blocking the trackpad, but without success: the battery covers the area too tightly. But at the same time I understood why the trackpad stopped working.

The battery had inflated. Not by much, but surely enough to almost entirely block clicking on the left. Obviously, there is nothing to clean; the only possible remedy is to change the battery. I close and fasten back the bottom cover. I’m a little sad, because this battery is still in perfect working condition if you abstracts the deformity.

Today, I went to the Apple Store. The Genius had never seen it on a Unibody model. $200 later I have a new battery. It’s still costly when you consider it replaces a battery that was still working fine but likely had some kind of manufacturing defect. I’m a little disappointed.

On the brighter side, the trackpad now works better than it ever did even when the computer was new. I wonder when exactly it started to inflate…