Apple eliminates $99 data migration fee for Mac upgrades & repairs
Apple has quietly done away with a $99 data migration fee it charged Mac owners getting some repairs or upgrading to a new computer.

"Beginning April 2, there will be no cost for data migrations with the purchase of a new Mac or data transfers with a repair," an Apple store operations specialist informed TidBITS. The question arose when a reader of the site was recently told his iMac migration was free.
AppleInsider was not able to confirm that all services venues were aware of the new policy, with about one quarter of the venues we polled not aware of the change.
Apple does offer tools and instructions for migrating Mac data without help. People who can afford to go without their old machine may enjoy the convenience, but in some cases may have to wait several days if there's a backlog of customers and/or there's a large amount of content to transfer.
The need for manual migration has diminished in recent years as a result of cloud services and faster internet connections. Signing in with an Apple ID, for instance, will let Mac owners grab files from iCloud Drive, stream from Apple Music, and regain access to iTunes purchases. There are also multiple dedicated online backup services, and online stores will typically let people reinstall missing apps.
Restores are even simpler on iOS devices, since Apple offers its own full backups via iCloud or iTunes.

"Beginning April 2, there will be no cost for data migrations with the purchase of a new Mac or data transfers with a repair," an Apple store operations specialist informed TidBITS. The question arose when a reader of the site was recently told his iMac migration was free.
AppleInsider was not able to confirm that all services venues were aware of the new policy, with about one quarter of the venues we polled not aware of the change.
Apple does offer tools and instructions for migrating Mac data without help. People who can afford to go without their old machine may enjoy the convenience, but in some cases may have to wait several days if there's a backlog of customers and/or there's a large amount of content to transfer.
The need for manual migration has diminished in recent years as a result of cloud services and faster internet connections. Signing in with an Apple ID, for instance, will let Mac owners grab files from iCloud Drive, stream from Apple Music, and regain access to iTunes purchases. There are also multiple dedicated online backup services, and online stores will typically let people reinstall missing apps.
Restores are even simpler on iOS devices, since Apple offers its own full backups via iCloud or iTunes.
Comments
Glad it will no longer apply.
As a side story and a warning, I'd resurrected this old machine back in Septemeber 2018, that's when I bought it a new battery. I bought it from New Egg and it was only $59. I've used this 15" MBP i7 only a couple of times since then. Yesterday I found this non-genuine Apple battery was totally dead. New Egg tech responded to my text informing me they were not the actual supplier but had acted (unbeknownst to me, to be honest, I thought I was buying from New Egg) as an intermediary and the battery had been supplied by and I quote Jay from New Egg, "The Market Place seller top gear.' Basically, I am out of luck I guess with a few hours usage from the battery. So I will never buy a non-Apple battery again ... lesson learned.
BTW The original 2010 battery was still working fine but was so old it only ever charged to about 60% hence the new one, so it wasn't anything wrong in the MBP that killed this New Egg supplied battery.
That said, when I walked into a stunningly beautiful new Apple Store with an iPhone 7 and said, "I'll take a new iPhone Xr in black, and will trade you *this* for *that*" I was told: "sure. Let's get that complete." About 45m later I walked out with a iPhone Xr that functioned just like the iPhone 7 I walked in with...only better.
Compare that to the complete and utter hell of upgrading to iOS 12.2 and WatchOS 5.2. Took. 4. Fucking. Hours.
v
To a certain extent this feels like another way they are undercutting their authorized partners and third party repair shops. A tech still needs to get paid for the time involved.
On the other hand, most of it is dead easy without help, so...
1) I will pay more than from a third party
2) I will get better service than that supplied by a third party
That is probably as it should be. It is also why Apple Stores are shifting away from being sales outlets and shifting towards service providers.
If confirmed, it is good this fee has been eliminated but it doesn't change the fact that it existed, although I had no idea it did.