Secondhand smoke can void Apple warranties

Secondhand smoke is even deadlier than firsthand inhalation -- everybody knows that. But you probably didn't know that according to Apple, second-hand smoke is also really bad for your computer.

Derek, a resident of Iowa, had trouble with his Macbook overheating. So he brought it into his local Apple store for some maintainence under the terms of his AppleCare Protection Plan. After a few days, Derek says the store "informed [him] that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to 'health risks of second hand smoke'."

Not only is this obivously silly, but nowhere in the warranty terms could Derek find any mention of a smoking environment voiding the product's warranty.

Taking matters into his own hands, he bought a compressed air canister and gave the insides of his machine a thourough cleaning. After getting rid of the "biohazard" inside, he brought his laptop back to a different Apple store for more work.

Derek isn't the only person to encounter such strange resistance from Apple. Ruth bought an iMac for her son and had similar troubles when she tried to get the computer serviced at an authorized repair center.  In several emails, Ruth says that the service technicians refused to work on the computer "because it's contanimated."  After further questioning, a representative stated that the workers were not actually technicians and could not work on the iMac because he had been contaminated, thus making it a "biohazard."