15 ms·

I Took Apple To Court And Won, Twice

218 points by jasoneckert 7y ago

thenaturalist 7y ago
What a "peculiar" behavior on Apple's part. The fact that they base their arguments on a moisture paper which seems to be extremely easy to refute and spend more money on lawyers than they would have needed to actually fix this within an established company program just seems... stupid? Whomever is in charge seems not to have learned from this as well.
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  Because having an established company program that fixes these issues is the last thing apple wants, their main goal is to upsell to the newest product when an old one breaks, hence all the fun planned obsolescence stuff. Why else do you think they make all their products notoriously difficult to repair?
  - ishansharma 7y ago
    Ah, the planned obsolescence argument. It used to be invoked all the time with software (updates are making it slower) but Apple just released software updates to fix GPS on several older iPads. Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy.
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      > Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy. ... And suing customers like crazy to support a less repairable product strategy.
    - dd36 7y ago
      I recently had to buy Quickbooks 2019 because 2016 would no longer let me import my bank transactions.
    - 0_gravitas 7y ago
      Of course I'm sure that's the only reason why they use special proprietary screws that you can't normally find anywhere else (along with the special screwdrivers themselves) because if there's a shortage of anything, it's small screws that can be used in the production of electronics. Let's not pretend that apple is interested in keeping older (and by older I mean not the current newest) machines alive any longer then their decaying, conveniently irreplaceable, battery lasts. When apple starts making a show of actually putting up not-intentionally-cryptic schematics and supplying the market with the parts necessary to repair their dying machines (batteries would be a good start) I might loosen my tinfoil hat, but you'll have to forgive me for the time being...
      - Zarel 7y ago
        I'm pretty sure those are because they dislike it when people who aren't their employees repair them, because they dislike getting blamed when someone else messes up a repair job and blames them for it. It's the same reason most companies try to prevent third parties from repairing their products. 100% "I don't want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job".
        0_gravitas 7y ago
        And yet if they want people who are their employees to repair them, why do third parties like Rossman get any business? Clearly he and people like him are providing some service that apple isn't, that service so far mainly looks like repairing apple products that apple doesn't seem to want to for one reason or another. I like that "I dont want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job" also comes with "I want my reputation to mean you will possibly just never actually receive a repair job". Also, that reasoning wouldn't explain things like, oh I dont know, Thinkpads? I've never heard complaints and issues with them like i do apple, especially when it comes to the quality of the machine itself, and they are famously modular and repairable.
        Zarel 7y ago
        I didn't say it was a _good_ reason, or that all companies make it hard for people to repair their products. I'm just saying that if a company _does_ make it hard to repair their products, and you sat in on the meeting where that decision was made, you're going to hear "I'm tired of people trying to repair our products and screwing it up".
    - jplayer01 7y ago
      I mean, it's no accident they're making every effort to make Mac hardware as unrepairable as possible by third parties. And it's not because they want to repair the things themselves.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        Right. It's the upsell. MBP with water damage to the battery charging circuitry. Battery is fine. Laptop is fine on AC power. Let's see how much it'll cost... maybe $300ish? Labor, parts? Nope. "That will be $899. Maybe we should talk about getting you into a new MBP instead?"
- scott00 7y ago
  In any one specific case, fixing a litigious customer's laptop is definitely cheaper for Apple. But by having a policy of fighting legal claims vigorously regardless of merit, they can make it wildly uneconomic for customers to sue, which decreases the probability of getting sued. I suspect the economics of their behavior work quite well overall.
  - aczerepinski 7y ago
    The economics might suck for Apple but they can easily afford to pay the lawyers. The customer on the other hand probably has a much tougher time missing work for court sessions.
  - dd36 7y ago
    If it’s wildly uneconomic for its customer, it’s also wildly uneconomic for Apple.
    - chipperyman573 7y ago
      It's supposed to be a scare tactic, like how Walmart always sues people who steal more than $20. The point isn't to make it more worthwhile in the one case, it's to scare off 1000 other people who would otherwise do the same.
      - benologist 7y ago
        It's more like a fraud against consumers than a scare tactic. Walmart is being robbed, trace amounts of moisture doesn't mean Apple is being robbed they've just invented that condition and threshold as an excuse to not service warranties. They have a rich history of requiring legal action before respecting consumers rights, even to fix their own mistakes.
    - scott00 7y ago
      Correct, in any specific case. But Apple's playing a repeated game, and any given customer is playing a one-time game. Apple can reap the deterrence benefit in future cases, but the customer doesn't really get any reputational benefit from playing hardball, and so has to evaluate the wisdom of suing or not suing based on the outcome of just the single case at hand.
- wpietri 7y ago
  It depends on how success is measured. Let's suppose that the UK repair operation is manage separately. Let's call that exec Joe. And suppose further that the person in charge measured by metrics like "doesn't spend any more on repairs per sale than the US operation does", implying that spending less is better. Joe making a rule something like "refuse any warranty repairs if a moisture sensor trips, even if the damage is unrelated" is a pretty easy way to keep repairs down. Some people may sue, sure, but probably not many. And let's assume further, as is common, that Apple's lawyers are all on staff and under their General Counsel. That means they're a fixed cost, and not directly on the budget of the repair operation. That is not one of the metrics Joe is evaluated by. Maybe they won't need to add any new lawyers to handle the extra load; maybe they will. Further, any relationship between repair rules and legal costs will be hard to spot, given that it's delayed by time and filtered through many people. So at worst, Joe might down the road have to face some sort of complicated analysis from the head of legal complaining about increased costs. But he can point to repair cost savings, so it'll be difficult to say whether on net he's making or costing Apple money. I would guess the bigger risk for Joe is not legal expenses but the PR problem from writeups like this or an eventual decline in something like a Net Promoter Score metric as more people feel put off by Apple. Those, however, are also pretty long feedback loops. So Joe gets an immediate reduction in repair costs versus the possibility of a problem a year or three down the road. Many ambitious execs are perfectly fine with that; they're hoping to be in a new position anyway in a couple of years, so it may be the next guy's problem. And really, Joe may not have a problem at all; as this article makes clear, having to sue the company wasn't enough to keep the guy from buying another Apple laptop. That's not a great incentive for anybody to change behavior.
  - Gravityloss 7y ago
    Well that's not a good way to run a company - it's basically designed to be customer hostile.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
      Capitalism!
    - 7y ago
- rasz 7y ago
  >seems... stupid? Not when even the CEO lists repairs as one of bigger growth concern https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-investors-people-bought-fewer-new-iphones-because-they-repaired-their-old-ones https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-invest...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
radcon 7y ago
Everyone should be required to watch Louis Rossmann's videos before buying a MacBook. Apple has probably scammed people out of hundreds of millions of dollars just by using fake excuses like "water damage" to avoid fixing things under warranty. For example, a computer Apple said had "been in a bathtub" when it was really just a manufacturing defect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2r-g8EaTfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2r-g8EaTfY FWIW, my experience with Dell has been the complete opposite. I complained about a couple issues with an Alienware laptop (processor whine, low battery life) and they had a tech at my house the next day with replacement parts. Probably the best service I've ever gotten on any type of product.
- oflannabhra 7y ago
  I just don’t like Rossman. I’m sure there are solid technical criticisms that he makes, and I personally agree that Apple is too draconian re: repairability (both in design and policy). However, I absolutely cannot trust someone who has such a financial incentive, or as deep a history of twisting facts to make Apple look bad. Beyond that, there is something entitled about earning your entire income repairing another company’s devices while also demanding they make proprietary parts and knowledge available to you. I wish there were a critic of Apple’s repair policies that had less of an agenda than Rossman.
  - groovybits 7y ago
    > deep a history of twisting facts to make Apple look bad. Can you provide examples?
    - oflannabhra 7y ago
      1. In 2016, Rossman claimed that Apple was filing suit against him, and was seeking to shut down his YouTube channel. In actuality, one of his videos had shown a schematic, that Rossman illegally obtained, and Apple requested that the schematic be removed from the video. [0] 2. In 2016, Rossman claimed that Apple had a 4 Gigabyte memory chip buffer on their webcams. He speculates that this is due to a nefarious intent on Apple's part. In actuality, it is a 4 Gigabit (512 MB) chip that acts as a buffer. [1] 3. In 2018, Rossman claimed that Apple had contacted Customs and Border Protection to have his import shipment of Apple batteries seized. He claimed that they were genuine OEM batteries, maybe scavenged from old devices. [2] In actuality, the devices really were counterfeit. Rossman had contracted an OEM manufacturer to build batteries to Apple's original spec, which bore Apple's logo, most likely without Apple's knowledge. [3] [0] - https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/12677-free-speech-under-attack-youtuber-repair-specialist-louis-rossmann-alludes-to-apple-lawsuit https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/12677-free-speech-un... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3-j_RaX74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3-j_RaX74 [2] - https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw [3] - https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossmann_admits_to_using_parts_from_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...
jedberg 7y ago
Maybe it's because I live in Silicon Valley, but my repair experience with Apple has been quite different. I took my six year old laptop in for a recall on the video card, which required a logic board replacement. They did that at no charge. In the process, they broke the power unit, so they replaced that and my six year old battery, both at no charge. They also replaced the top case at no charge while doing the second repair because they said they damaged it during repair. I never even saw the damage or had to complain. It took three weeks, but in the end I basically had a new laptop, except the screen.
- reustle 7y ago
  3 weeks without my income source is rough
  - aardvark291 7y ago
    If it's that vital, you should have a spare, or perhaps rent or borrow one.
    - nostalgk 7y ago
      To be fair, it is a bit tougher when Macs are so expensive. When my PC breaks, I have 4 other options I can count off the top of my head. When my Mac breaks, I only can afford to have one spare, and even that is more of a matter of lucky circumstance.
      - vinceguidry 7y ago
        Before I could afford MacBooks, I bought old ThinkPads off Craigslist and put Ubuntu on them. I could find ways to do most things. Nowadays it's a lot easier.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        Hell, a Raspberry Pi will do in a pinch... I mostly just need a terminal, I can spin up a beefy Hetzner server to work on for a few days for $1.
harry8 7y ago
Apple are just vile. Is there a dimension in which they are not just an utterly vile company? This is apple innovation all over. The fraudulent pretence of quality and honesty wrapped in shiny. But at least they're not selling their surveillance data about you you never willingly agreed to provide like google do, right? They're storing it and keeping it and can sell it as soon as it suits them, but they're not right now as far as we know. So we're paying them not to be the product just like we pay them for quality hardware and good service. The fact we're paying them for it doesn't count for much. iPod customers found out how paying apple not to be the product works when sync deleted their collection. No not me, not you, but people we know who aren't stupid had it happen, you remember, loads of people found out they were product like that. Just buy everything from apple, then when it doesn't work, pay more, and more and more because user friendly and "microsoft are actually worse" and google as though that would be a defence if it were true and maybe it is. ugh.
- rinchik 7y ago
  This is just an emotional speculation with no substance. Apple is the best there is at the moment, incomparable to G or MS (which explains the success). "They're storing it and keeping it and can sell it as soon as it suits them" - mr Nostradamus, thank you for your version of Les Propheties, your rant makes no damn sense.
  - forgivemyQs 7y ago
    Apple is the best? At what? I've never heard this. I've thought people are forced to buy Apple products due to proprietary software.
    - avgDev 7y ago
      Apple is probably best at extracting cash from their consumers while selling older hardware.
  - harry8 7y ago
    Perhaps not? My point is we put and awful lot of trust in Apple and they are almost always unworthy of it as soon as you scratch the surface. Like right here in this article. Right now surveillance tech is something that some are worried about. Maybe not you but it's a current concern repeated around here. Right now some think Apple are ok because you pay them so you're not the product. That's repeated here on HN often. I disagree with that. Because Apple have shown, in my opinion, that they are as vile as they can be to customers to enhance their profit. You don't have to agree. Perhaps neither of us are subject to a reality distortion field either.
qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
Re water damage: Louis Rossmann had a video up where he was repairing someone Mac. He was looking through his microscope while narrating, showing us what he sees. Said something like, "Oh, there is it. No water? Riiiight... People lie. People lie all the time. If Mother Theresa could get away with lying, she would."
- oldtkme9393 7y ago
  Right before Sprint bought Nextel, dooming both companies, I worked in what they called a “repair store”, taking apart phones and replacing bits and pieces (rubber keypads, boards, displays, most of the gadget) We saw this all the time: my phone never got wet. Crack it open with the ol’ spudger, find a blue-green mess. Had one lady bring hers in smelly like pee: her cat. Had another pull it out of her cleavage: full of salty crystals and moisture. I never went off that stupid paper, since the moisture of the PacNW air during rainy season is enough to set them off. But yeah people treat their expensive, sensitive gadgets like shit
  - ubercow13 7y ago
    Is the moisture in the air in humid places enough to actually do damage too, though?
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      The last time I was in an Apple store I was in Seattle getting a MBA battery replaced. The Apple employee told me there were indications of water exposure but no apparent board damage, so the humid Seattle air was probably to blame. Thankfully for me, they didn't refuse to replace the battery because of this. But that experience leads me to believe those water indicators are considerably more sensitive than the electronics themselves. If I had gone in there complaining about some weird issue instead of simply wanting a new battery, would the lack of apparent corrosion on the board still lead that Apple employee to conclude that the board wasn't water damaged?
jammygit 7y ago
I hear this about Apple support a lot lately. 10 years ago, I heard only good stories. Has something changed?
- Traster 7y ago
  Yes, 10 years ago Apple was undergoing massive growth and establishing itself as a premium consumer brand where customer service was a differentiator. Their revenue is levelling off now as the markets they're in mature and they need to continue profit growth. They do this by raising prices (see the iPhone 6,7,8,X dance) and reduce their costs to expand their margin. Lowering repair costs is now a key part of their strategy in a way that it wasn't 10 years ago.
  - sah2ed 7y ago
    Not only that but iPhones are generally more durable now than when they first launched in 2007 allowing Apple to justify their need to raise prices. A more durable phone reduces the incentive to upgrade to a newer device every 18-24 months like was the case with iPhones from 10 years ago — like the iPhone 3GS — it offered a compelling reason to upgrade because it was released with much faster hardware specs than the iPhone 3G before it. The pace of hardware improvements: 2G -> 3G -> 4G cellular speeds; camera pixel count increases; faster processors etc, has reduced considerably.
    - ssvss 7y ago
      I found that the screen in the newer 2018 ipad pros get scratched easily compared to ipad 3. Haven't dropped the ipad pros yet, not sure whether the screen will survive, but have dropped the ipad 3 multiple times and the screen was much durable.
- awakeasleep 7y ago
  Yes. 10 years ago, an 'Apple Genius' was a relatively skilled role, and was permitted decision making discretion. In 2011 Apple Store employees went on a strike, and due to the skilled labor nature of the role, Apple was not able to quickly hire replacements. Apple had to cede to some labor demands. Ever since 2011, Apple has been putting a TON of energy into removing the skill from the Genius position. 1- Removal of troubleshooting from the role. Almost ALL genius work is now following a flow chart on the iPad, without involvement of the brain. People that have been hired in the past few years have no understanding of what is going on beyond the iPad workflow. 2- Removal of discretion from the role. A genius's ability to help you is now based on advocacy. Meaning, if they feel sympathy for you, all they can do is ask their manager to make an exception. 3- reducing the scope of the role. Stores have been reconfigured in a way that makes figuring out whats going on more difficult, and reduces the ability to find a workspace or access tools. 4- probably incidental but the scope of repairs possible has decreased, too. When your choice is to replace the screen, top half, or bottom half of the laptop there isn't much to think about aside from where the screws are.
gregschlom 7y ago
In my opinion the main takeaway here is that in both cases the OP was able to win their case thanks to the diagnostic of a third party repair shop - precisely the kind of business that Apple is trying to kill with its unrepairable products
- widowlark 7y ago
  This is super concerning
la_barba 7y ago
Apple pulled the liquid damage bullshit on my ipod. The device wasn't worth much so I declined and got a el-cheapo sansa. Apple is also trying to shut down independent repair, so in the future, there might not be a third-party repair shop who can expose Apple's lies..
laurencerowe 7y ago
This is very different to my experience. Around 10 years ago the battery on my Macbook Pro began to expand and come apart. There had been a replacement programme but it had expired about a year previously. I took it to the Apple Store (Oxford St I think) where an employee took a new battery out of its box, gave it to me and sent me on my way. I guess everything having to go away for repair now means there's less opportunity for store employees to do the right thing nowadays.
Circuits 7y ago
I can't help but wonder why the OP continues to purchase Apple products? Why fight this battle if you don't have too?
La-ang 7y ago
Apple stinks inside and out. I'm dazzled to learn this is their practice towards consumers who contribute to their large profits. As I have dumped Rotten Apple long time ago, these stories reassure me all along that there is no need to go back :D
crazygringo 7y ago
Just a counter-anecdote, but I've only had good experiences. Just yesterday I picked up my out-of-warranty MacBook Pro whose battery was starting to show problems after 3 years... turns out it was originally a faulty battery and they replaced it for free -- the whole top case including the keyboard. Last year my out-of-warranty iPhone had battery swelling so it was unsafe to swap the battery, so for the $29 price of a battery replacement they gave me a brand-new iPhone. Fraying cable on earphones? Replaced them for free as well a couple of years ago. Lost the rubber buds at another point? I stopped in, they just gave me an extra pair no charge. Maybe being in NYC has something to do with it? But service at the Apple store has been so far above and beyond any other company I've ever dealt with, it's been a no-brainer to pay the "premium Apple tax" in the long run for me. I wonder how much discretion managers in stores/countries have to be generous or stingy, though, or if they explicitly have different internal policies around these things.
- HNisCurated 7y ago
  Considering the Apple tax is 2x the price, why not get a regular product and replace it with a new product when it breaks? Maybe the product doesn't break, and you save money, and don't have to deal with Apple. Or the product breaks, and you get the latest and greatest instead of a year old referbished.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
w0mbat 7y ago
> There's no need for LIQUID CONTACT, or WATER DAMAGE > to trigger the 'sensor' but just humidity, caused > for example, by taking the laptop from a well-heated > room outside, in the winter. This is backwards. Water condenses on cold objects in hot humid rooms. In Winter the condensation would happen when you take the laptop inside, not outside.
mnm1 7y ago
Yet another reason I don't plan to buy any Apple computers ever again, especially laptops. They used to have fantastic service. If the logic board was faulty under warranty they would honor that. This humidity sensor seems to be there specifically for Apple to pretend like there's water damage when there isn't so they don't have to fix their shit hardware. And not honoring their replacement claim and misdiagnosing the problems are likely intentional too. The hardware is garbage and the support is abysmal. I don't care how great osx is, it's not that great considering the above facts. I would expect similar treatment and winning small claims cases in the US is much harder. Then you have to actually collect the money yourself. And we have no consumer protection laws. Fuck Apple. If this is the kind of company they run, a fashion company that makes shitty consumer electronics, I have no interest in wasting thousands on their garbage.
bigbaguette 7y ago
Good on him for taking the time and energy to get through it. Apple is still waging a war on its own customers. They wouldn't replace a faulty magsafe charger that suddenly died and that was still under warranty. The "genius" (that term is so ridiculous) at the store claimed that accessories were not covered, which is very very wrong under European laws. He then left me waiting and went asking his manager. This took a good 20 minutes and when he came back, the employee was adamant that the only way out of this was to pay 100€ for a new charger. I had to pull law excerpts, raised the tone of the conversation and started making a fuss. Then the mood magically changed when the other customers started noticing the argument and I left with a brand new charger. This was a terrible customer experience.

218 points by jasoneckert 7y ago

What a "peculiar" behavior on Apple's part. The fact that they base their arguments on a moisture paper which seems to be extremely easy to refute and spend more money on lawyers than they would have needed to actually fix this within an established company program just seems... stupid? Whomever is in charge seems not to have learned from this as well.

0_gravitas 7y ago
Because having an established company program that fixes these issues is the last thing apple wants, their main goal is to upsell to the newest product when an old one breaks, hence all the fun planned obsolescence stuff. Why else do you think they make all their products notoriously difficult to repair?
- ishansharma 7y ago
  Ah, the planned obsolescence argument. It used to be invoked all the time with software (updates are making it slower) but Apple just released software updates to fix GPS on several older iPads. Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy.
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    > Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy. ... And suing customers like crazy to support a less repairable product strategy.
  - dd36 7y ago
    I recently had to buy Quickbooks 2019 because 2016 would no longer let me import my bank transactions.
  - 0_gravitas 7y ago
    Of course I'm sure that's the only reason why they use special proprietary screws that you can't normally find anywhere else (along with the special screwdrivers themselves) because if there's a shortage of anything, it's small screws that can be used in the production of electronics. Let's not pretend that apple is interested in keeping older (and by older I mean not the current newest) machines alive any longer then their decaying, conveniently irreplaceable, battery lasts. When apple starts making a show of actually putting up not-intentionally-cryptic schematics and supplying the market with the parts necessary to repair their dying machines (batteries would be a good start) I might loosen my tinfoil hat, but you'll have to forgive me for the time being...
    - Zarel 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure those are because they dislike it when people who aren't their employees repair them, because they dislike getting blamed when someone else messes up a repair job and blames them for it. It's the same reason most companies try to prevent third parties from repairing their products. 100% "I don't want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job".
      - 0_gravitas 7y ago
        And yet if they want people who are their employees to repair them, why do third parties like Rossman get any business? Clearly he and people like him are providing some service that apple isn't, that service so far mainly looks like repairing apple products that apple doesn't seem to want to for one reason or another. I like that "I dont want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job" also comes with "I want my reputation to mean you will possibly just never actually receive a repair job". Also, that reasoning wouldn't explain things like, oh I dont know, Thinkpads? I've never heard complaints and issues with them like i do apple, especially when it comes to the quality of the machine itself, and they are famously modular and repairable.
        Zarel 7y ago
        I didn't say it was a _good_ reason, or that all companies make it hard for people to repair their products. I'm just saying that if a company _does_ make it hard to repair their products, and you sat in on the meeting where that decision was made, you're going to hear "I'm tired of people trying to repair our products and screwing it up".
  - jplayer01 7y ago
    I mean, it's no accident they're making every effort to make Mac hardware as unrepairable as possible by third parties. And it's not because they want to repair the things themselves.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      Right. It's the upsell. MBP with water damage to the battery charging circuitry. Battery is fine. Laptop is fine on AC power. Let's see how much it'll cost... maybe $300ish? Labor, parts? Nope. "That will be $899. Maybe we should talk about getting you into a new MBP instead?"
scott00 7y ago
In any one specific case, fixing a litigious customer's laptop is definitely cheaper for Apple. But by having a policy of fighting legal claims vigorously regardless of merit, they can make it wildly uneconomic for customers to sue, which decreases the probability of getting sued. I suspect the economics of their behavior work quite well overall.
- aczerepinski 7y ago
  The economics might suck for Apple but they can easily afford to pay the lawyers. The customer on the other hand probably has a much tougher time missing work for court sessions.
- dd36 7y ago
  If it’s wildly uneconomic for its customer, it’s also wildly uneconomic for Apple.
  - chipperyman573 7y ago
    It's supposed to be a scare tactic, like how Walmart always sues people who steal more than $20. The point isn't to make it more worthwhile in the one case, it's to scare off 1000 other people who would otherwise do the same.
    - benologist 7y ago
      It's more like a fraud against consumers than a scare tactic. Walmart is being robbed, trace amounts of moisture doesn't mean Apple is being robbed they've just invented that condition and threshold as an excuse to not service warranties. They have a rich history of requiring legal action before respecting consumers rights, even to fix their own mistakes.
  - scott00 7y ago
    Correct, in any specific case. But Apple's playing a repeated game, and any given customer is playing a one-time game. Apple can reap the deterrence benefit in future cases, but the customer doesn't really get any reputational benefit from playing hardball, and so has to evaluate the wisdom of suing or not suing based on the outcome of just the single case at hand.
wpietri 7y ago
It depends on how success is measured. Let's suppose that the UK repair operation is manage separately. Let's call that exec Joe. And suppose further that the person in charge measured by metrics like "doesn't spend any more on repairs per sale than the US operation does", implying that spending less is better. Joe making a rule something like "refuse any warranty repairs if a moisture sensor trips, even if the damage is unrelated" is a pretty easy way to keep repairs down. Some people may sue, sure, but probably not many. And let's assume further, as is common, that Apple's lawyers are all on staff and under their General Counsel. That means they're a fixed cost, and not directly on the budget of the repair operation. That is not one of the metrics Joe is evaluated by. Maybe they won't need to add any new lawyers to handle the extra load; maybe they will. Further, any relationship between repair rules and legal costs will be hard to spot, given that it's delayed by time and filtered through many people. So at worst, Joe might down the road have to face some sort of complicated analysis from the head of legal complaining about increased costs. But he can point to repair cost savings, so it'll be difficult to say whether on net he's making or costing Apple money. I would guess the bigger risk for Joe is not legal expenses but the PR problem from writeups like this or an eventual decline in something like a Net Promoter Score metric as more people feel put off by Apple. Those, however, are also pretty long feedback loops. So Joe gets an immediate reduction in repair costs versus the possibility of a problem a year or three down the road. Many ambitious execs are perfectly fine with that; they're hoping to be in a new position anyway in a couple of years, so it may be the next guy's problem. And really, Joe may not have a problem at all; as this article makes clear, having to sue the company wasn't enough to keep the guy from buying another Apple laptop. That's not a great incentive for anybody to change behavior.
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  Well that's not a good way to run a company - it's basically designed to be customer hostile.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
    Capitalism!
  - 7y ago
rasz 7y ago
>seems... stupid? Not when even the CEO lists repairs as one of bigger growth concern https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-investors-people-bought-fewer-new-iphones-because-they-repaired-their-old-ones https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-invest...

deleted 7y ago

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radcon 7y ago

Everyone should be required to watch Louis Rossmann's videos before buying a MacBook. Apple has probably scammed people out of hundreds of millions of dollars just by using fake excuses like "water damage" to avoid fixing things under warranty. For example, a computer Apple said had "been in a bathtub" when it was really just a manufacturing defect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2r-g8EaTfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2r-g8EaTfY FWIW, my experience with Dell has been the complete opposite. I complained about a couple issues with an Alienware laptop (processor whine, low battery life) and they had a tech at my house the next day with replacement parts. Probably the best service I've ever gotten on any type of product.

oflannabhra 7y ago
I just don’t like Rossman. I’m sure there are solid technical criticisms that he makes, and I personally agree that Apple is too draconian re: repairability (both in design and policy). However, I absolutely cannot trust someone who has such a financial incentive, or as deep a history of twisting facts to make Apple look bad. Beyond that, there is something entitled about earning your entire income repairing another company’s devices while also demanding they make proprietary parts and knowledge available to you. I wish there were a critic of Apple’s repair policies that had less of an agenda than Rossman.
- groovybits 7y ago
  > deep a history of twisting facts to make Apple look bad. Can you provide examples?
  - oflannabhra 7y ago
    1. In 2016, Rossman claimed that Apple was filing suit against him, and was seeking to shut down his YouTube channel. In actuality, one of his videos had shown a schematic, that Rossman illegally obtained, and Apple requested that the schematic be removed from the video. [0] 2. In 2016, Rossman claimed that Apple had a 4 Gigabyte memory chip buffer on their webcams. He speculates that this is due to a nefarious intent on Apple's part. In actuality, it is a 4 Gigabit (512 MB) chip that acts as a buffer. [1] 3. In 2018, Rossman claimed that Apple had contacted Customs and Border Protection to have his import shipment of Apple batteries seized. He claimed that they were genuine OEM batteries, maybe scavenged from old devices. [2] In actuality, the devices really were counterfeit. Rossman had contracted an OEM manufacturer to build batteries to Apple's original spec, which bore Apple's logo, most likely without Apple's knowledge. [3] [0] - https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/12677-free-speech-under-attack-youtuber-repair-specialist-louis-rossmann-alludes-to-apple-lawsuit https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/12677-free-speech-un... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3-j_RaX74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3-j_RaX74 [2] - https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw [3] - https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossmann_admits_to_using_parts_from_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...

jedberg 7y ago

Maybe it's because I live in Silicon Valley, but my repair experience with Apple has been quite different. I took my six year old laptop in for a recall on the video card, which required a logic board replacement. They did that at no charge. In the process, they broke the power unit, so they replaced that and my six year old battery, both at no charge. They also replaced the top case at no charge while doing the second repair because they said they damaged it during repair. I never even saw the damage or had to complain. It took three weeks, but in the end I basically had a new laptop, except the screen.

reustle 7y ago
3 weeks without my income source is rough
- aardvark291 7y ago
  If it's that vital, you should have a spare, or perhaps rent or borrow one.
  - nostalgk 7y ago
    To be fair, it is a bit tougher when Macs are so expensive. When my PC breaks, I have 4 other options I can count off the top of my head. When my Mac breaks, I only can afford to have one spare, and even that is more of a matter of lucky circumstance.
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      Before I could afford MacBooks, I bought old ThinkPads off Craigslist and put Ubuntu on them. I could find ways to do most things. Nowadays it's a lot easier.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      Hell, a Raspberry Pi will do in a pinch... I mostly just need a terminal, I can spin up a beefy Hetzner server to work on for a few days for $1.

harry8 7y ago

Apple are just vile. Is there a dimension in which they are not just an utterly vile company? This is apple innovation all over. The fraudulent pretence of quality and honesty wrapped in shiny. But at least they're not selling their surveillance data about you you never willingly agreed to provide like google do, right? They're storing it and keeping it and can sell it as soon as it suits them, but they're not right now as far as we know. So we're paying them not to be the product just like we pay them for quality hardware and good service. The fact we're paying them for it doesn't count for much. iPod customers found out how paying apple not to be the product works when sync deleted their collection. No not me, not you, but people we know who aren't stupid had it happen, you remember, loads of people found out they were product like that. Just buy everything from apple, then when it doesn't work, pay more, and more and more because user friendly and "microsoft are actually worse" and google as though that would be a defence if it were true and maybe it is. ugh.

rinchik 7y ago
This is just an emotional speculation with no substance. Apple is the best there is at the moment, incomparable to G or MS (which explains the success). "They're storing it and keeping it and can sell it as soon as it suits them" - mr Nostradamus, thank you for your version of Les Propheties, your rant makes no damn sense.
- forgivemyQs 7y ago
  Apple is the best? At what? I've never heard this. I've thought people are forced to buy Apple products due to proprietary software.
  - avgDev 7y ago
    Apple is probably best at extracting cash from their consumers while selling older hardware.
- harry8 7y ago
  Perhaps not? My point is we put and awful lot of trust in Apple and they are almost always unworthy of it as soon as you scratch the surface. Like right here in this article. Right now surveillance tech is something that some are worried about. Maybe not you but it's a current concern repeated around here. Right now some think Apple are ok because you pay them so you're not the product. That's repeated here on HN often. I disagree with that. Because Apple have shown, in my opinion, that they are as vile as they can be to customers to enhance their profit. You don't have to agree. Perhaps neither of us are subject to a reality distortion field either.

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

Re water damage: Louis Rossmann had a video up where he was repairing someone Mac. He was looking through his microscope while narrating, showing us what he sees. Said something like, "Oh, there is it. No water? Riiiight... People lie. People lie all the time. If Mother Theresa could get away with lying, she would."

oldtkme9393 7y ago
Right before Sprint bought Nextel, dooming both companies, I worked in what they called a “repair store”, taking apart phones and replacing bits and pieces (rubber keypads, boards, displays, most of the gadget) We saw this all the time: my phone never got wet. Crack it open with the ol’ spudger, find a blue-green mess. Had one lady bring hers in smelly like pee: her cat. Had another pull it out of her cleavage: full of salty crystals and moisture. I never went off that stupid paper, since the moisture of the PacNW air during rainy season is enough to set them off. But yeah people treat their expensive, sensitive gadgets like shit
- ubercow13 7y ago
  Is the moisture in the air in humid places enough to actually do damage too, though?
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    The last time I was in an Apple store I was in Seattle getting a MBA battery replaced. The Apple employee told me there were indications of water exposure but no apparent board damage, so the humid Seattle air was probably to blame. Thankfully for me, they didn't refuse to replace the battery because of this. But that experience leads me to believe those water indicators are considerably more sensitive than the electronics themselves. If I had gone in there complaining about some weird issue instead of simply wanting a new battery, would the lack of apparent corrosion on the board still lead that Apple employee to conclude that the board wasn't water damaged?

jammygit 7y ago

I hear this about Apple support a lot lately. 10 years ago, I heard only good stories. Has something changed?

Traster 7y ago
Yes, 10 years ago Apple was undergoing massive growth and establishing itself as a premium consumer brand where customer service was a differentiator. Their revenue is levelling off now as the markets they're in mature and they need to continue profit growth. They do this by raising prices (see the iPhone 6,7,8,X dance) and reduce their costs to expand their margin. Lowering repair costs is now a key part of their strategy in a way that it wasn't 10 years ago.
- sah2ed 7y ago
  Not only that but iPhones are generally more durable now than when they first launched in 2007 allowing Apple to justify their need to raise prices. A more durable phone reduces the incentive to upgrade to a newer device every 18-24 months like was the case with iPhones from 10 years ago — like the iPhone 3GS — it offered a compelling reason to upgrade because it was released with much faster hardware specs than the iPhone 3G before it. The pace of hardware improvements: 2G -> 3G -> 4G cellular speeds; camera pixel count increases; faster processors etc, has reduced considerably.
  - ssvss 7y ago
    I found that the screen in the newer 2018 ipad pros get scratched easily compared to ipad 3. Haven't dropped the ipad pros yet, not sure whether the screen will survive, but have dropped the ipad 3 multiple times and the screen was much durable.
awakeasleep 7y ago
Yes. 10 years ago, an 'Apple Genius' was a relatively skilled role, and was permitted decision making discretion. In 2011 Apple Store employees went on a strike, and due to the skilled labor nature of the role, Apple was not able to quickly hire replacements. Apple had to cede to some labor demands. Ever since 2011, Apple has been putting a TON of energy into removing the skill from the Genius position. 1- Removal of troubleshooting from the role. Almost ALL genius work is now following a flow chart on the iPad, without involvement of the brain. People that have been hired in the past few years have no understanding of what is going on beyond the iPad workflow. 2- Removal of discretion from the role. A genius's ability to help you is now based on advocacy. Meaning, if they feel sympathy for you, all they can do is ask their manager to make an exception. 3- reducing the scope of the role. Stores have been reconfigured in a way that makes figuring out whats going on more difficult, and reduces the ability to find a workspace or access tools. 4- probably incidental but the scope of repairs possible has decreased, too. When your choice is to replace the screen, top half, or bottom half of the laptop there isn't much to think about aside from where the screws are.

gregschlom 7y ago

In my opinion the main takeaway here is that in both cases the OP was able to win their case thanks to the diagnostic of a third party repair shop - precisely the kind of business that Apple is trying to kill with its unrepairable products

widowlark 7y ago
This is super concerning

la_barba 7y ago

Apple pulled the liquid damage bullshit on my ipod. The device wasn't worth much so I declined and got a el-cheapo sansa. Apple is also trying to shut down independent repair, so in the future, there might not be a third-party repair shop who can expose Apple's lies..

laurencerowe 7y ago

This is very different to my experience. Around 10 years ago the battery on my Macbook Pro began to expand and come apart. There had been a replacement programme but it had expired about a year previously. I took it to the Apple Store (Oxford St I think) where an employee took a new battery out of its box, gave it to me and sent me on my way. I guess everything having to go away for repair now means there's less opportunity for store employees to do the right thing nowadays.

Circuits 7y ago

I can't help but wonder why the OP continues to purchase Apple products? Why fight this battle if you don't have too?

La-ang 7y ago

Apple stinks inside and out. I'm dazzled to learn this is their practice towards consumers who contribute to their large profits. As I have dumped Rotten Apple long time ago, these stories reassure me all along that there is no need to go back :D

crazygringo 7y ago

Just a counter-anecdote, but I've only had good experiences. Just yesterday I picked up my out-of-warranty MacBook Pro whose battery was starting to show problems after 3 years... turns out it was originally a faulty battery and they replaced it for free -- the whole top case including the keyboard. Last year my out-of-warranty iPhone had battery swelling so it was unsafe to swap the battery, so for the $29 price of a battery replacement they gave me a brand-new iPhone. Fraying cable on earphones? Replaced them for free as well a couple of years ago. Lost the rubber buds at another point? I stopped in, they just gave me an extra pair no charge. Maybe being in NYC has something to do with it? But service at the Apple store has been so far above and beyond any other company I've ever dealt with, it's been a no-brainer to pay the "premium Apple tax" in the long run for me. I wonder how much discretion managers in stores/countries have to be generous or stingy, though, or if they explicitly have different internal policies around these things.

HNisCurated 7y ago
Considering the Apple tax is 2x the price, why not get a regular product and replace it with a new product when it breaks? Maybe the product doesn't break, and you save money, and don't have to deal with Apple. Or the product breaks, and you get the latest and greatest instead of a year old referbished.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

w0mbat 7y ago

> There's no need for LIQUID CONTACT, or WATER DAMAGE > to trigger the 'sensor' but just humidity, caused > for example, by taking the laptop from a well-heated > room outside, in the winter. This is backwards. Water condenses on cold objects in hot humid rooms. In Winter the condensation would happen when you take the laptop inside, not outside.

mnm1 7y ago

Yet another reason I don't plan to buy any Apple computers ever again, especially laptops. They used to have fantastic service. If the logic board was faulty under warranty they would honor that. This humidity sensor seems to be there specifically for Apple to pretend like there's water damage when there isn't so they don't have to fix their shit hardware. And not honoring their replacement claim and misdiagnosing the problems are likely intentional too. The hardware is garbage and the support is abysmal. I don't care how great osx is, it's not that great considering the above facts. I would expect similar treatment and winning small claims cases in the US is much harder. Then you have to actually collect the money yourself. And we have no consumer protection laws. Fuck Apple. If this is the kind of company they run, a fashion company that makes shitty consumer electronics, I have no interest in wasting thousands on their garbage.

bigbaguette 7y ago

Good on him for taking the time and energy to get through it. Apple is still waging a war on its own customers. They wouldn't replace a faulty magsafe charger that suddenly died and that was still under warranty. The "genius" (that term is so ridiculous) at the store claimed that accessories were not covered, which is very very wrong under European laws. He then left me waiting and went asking his manager. This took a good 20 minutes and when he came back, the employee was adamant that the only way out of this was to pay 100€ for a new charger. I had to pull law excerpts, raised the tone of the conversation and started making a fuss. Then the mood magically changed when the other customers started noticing the argument and I left with a brand new charger. This was a terrible customer experience.