6 ms·

I remember fondly when I had an iPod, the one time I had an issue with it (can’t remember what, honestly), I just walked into an apple store and probably 5-10 m

by atty 5y ago

I remember fondly when I had an iPod, the one time I had an issue with it (can’t remember what, honestly), I just walked into an apple store and probably 5-10 minutes later walked out with a new device, free of charge, no questions asked (after they tried resetting it once) I’m sure someone in these companies has made a spreadsheet that shows permissive repair and replacement policies cost $X million a year, but it probably doesn’t take into account that the experience with the iPod directly led to me purchasing multiple iPhones and Macs.

Gigachad 5y ago
Similar experience with the airpods. They stopped pairing right. Walked in to the store, they ran through some basic tests, plugged their diagnostics tool in, then handed over a new pair and it was done all on the same day.
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
I used to abuse new iPhones, and before the warranty ran out claim that the battery life was not up to scratch. They always replaced my phone. Once I got a new phone when the damage was clearly my fault but I played dumb anyway. I am still buying Apple products. So jokes on me.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > I used to abuse new iPhones, and before the warranty ran out claim that the battery life was not up to scratch. Oh, so, fraud.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Nope. They have a utility to test the battery capacity. They check your claim first and someone decides.
    - ovao 5y ago
      I’d imagine someone decides either based on the results of the tests not aligning with expectations (in which case —- cool), or because they’d rather not come out to a customer with a hard ‘no’ on a replacement, and essentially comp it as a courtesy. I wonder if in your case it’s simply been the latter. Retail is hard. Perhaps less hard for Apple, but I wonder to what extent the retail store employees end up paying for stuff like this.
      - mulmen 5y ago
        In a previous life I worked at a Sears. Back when that was a thing. I was in lawn and garden during springtime. People would come in and buy a fully loaded top of the line lawn tractor. A week later it would be back, covered in mud and grass clippings, clearly having been through hell. Inevitably they were not happy with it. Probably because their pasture was now mowed. I moved to electronics in the winter. Same story around the Super Bowl but this time big screen TVs. It was easy to tell. Customers who just went straight to the big ticket item without any questions were obviously not interested in a long term purchase. But we just ate it. The shitty thing was I got paid commission. Those returns got clawed back in my next paycheck. I think Apple at least has the decency to pay their retail employees hourly.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      Character is who you are when no one is looking.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  I've been on the other side: Dealing with returns and warranty claims at scale, albeit at a much larger company. You're not alone. A lot of people will invest a lot of time into lying, playing dumb, making threats (think people with a lot of Twitter followers threatening to broadcast how terrible your company is unless you give them exactly what they want) and other manipulative tactics to abuse warranty claims. Ultimately this is why we had to become more strict about warranty claims. When half of your warranty claims are coming from people angling for free upgrades or demanding full-price refunds after many years of service (some of whom tried to demand to keep the hardware and get a refund), you quickly become numb to it. I guess companies like Apple can absorb the lies for a while, but eventually you have to make a choice between padding your margins to cater to the warranty abusers or becoming more strict on warranty claims.
  - GianFabien 5y ago
    The author's point is that he was careful and the request for warranty repair was not some abuse attempt. Of course deceitful demands for warranty should be declined. Even Apple will not honor warranties in cases of obvious abuse and lies.
  - gutitout 5y ago
    Apple understands something many retailers have lost. The way you deal with the customer when they’re not happy turns you into a lifetime customer. And if it doesn’t it’s a small price to pay. Costco, Nordstrom, Marine Layer, etc. To me this is a winning strategy. Even if it’s 1 in 5 or less.
    - lmm 5y ago
      It's a winning strategy for high-margin luxury goods, not for everything.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      If that one warranty-abusing user convinces 2-3 others to buy the same product and they don't abuse the warranty, the company is still making more money.
- rob74 5y ago
  ...and that's why companies that don't have Apple's generous profit margins have to be extra careful with their return policies. Or, more generally: this is why we can't have nice things.
- ji23ii23jjj3 5y ago
  WOW. Thank for the tip! I will also do the same and abuse warranty to get new devices.
rexf 5y ago
Over time, Apple got strict about replacing their Lightning charging cable and wired EarPods (headphones). They would regularly wear out for me. In earlier iPhone generations, they would replace your EarPod headphones without a hassle (or wait). Later on (as Apple got more popular and Apple store genius bar lines grew longer), you had to make a reservation and they would only consider replacing it after checking the cable's (discrete) serial number.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Sounds like another reason why they pushed to get rid of cables and ports, risk of damage and warranty claims. I mean it's a win-win for them because Apple devices get a reputation for being reliable then (which is counteracted by things like butterfly keyboards). I mean wireless charging is a solution for a problem many people run into, dust / lint buildup in the charging port.
spideymans 5y ago
Gosh. I hate Apple’s right to repair BS, but to this day Apple remains the only consumer electronics company that has provided a consistently positive technical support experience for me. It’s so hard to step out the Apple ecosystem when these other manufacturers have consistently screwed me over with repairs. I’m specifically calling out Dell, Samsung and LG here. All were utterly terrible experiences. Dell was the absolute worst though. They sold me a $1,700+ XPS notebook that months later had a non-functional trackpad, and they refused to do anything to rectify the situation. With an investment that large I need certainty that I can get support, and thus far Apple is the only PC OEM that has provided that. If anyone can suggest non-Apple OEMs that at least provide a competitive support experience, I’m all ears.
- _nalply 5y ago
  An alternative to have a company fix your expensive gadget is to do it yourself. I think about the Framework laptop. In your situation even if the company declined payment (then I wold be disappointed), I would have sucked it up and ordered a new trackpad and installed it myself. It's not the same but at least the consequences would not be so distastrous.
  - LilBytes 5y ago
    Yeah agreed, can't wait till they're available in Australia.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    How does the battery life compare to my M1 MacBook Air? How does the performance compare to my Air? How bad is the fan noise compared to my fanless Air?
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      Worse in every way I'm fairly sure. Framework shipped their first product in 2021. Let's give them a bit before comparing them to an extremely matured product from one of the richest companies ever. If they survive long enough to make a version 5.0, it'll probably still be worse than the MacBook due to the lower level of integration, but modularity is a definite perk. Edit: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-lightweight-modular-laptop-delivers-on-its-promises/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-light... Actually the CPU looks decent.
kevinmchugh 5y ago
The math here depends on the retail presence and the margins that Apple already has. You don't want to be without your phone or laptop for even one day if you can avoid it. This customer experience doesn't happen without you being able to get to an apple store.
tempouser87 5y ago
I took my unbootable mac mini under warranty , they repaired it without any charge. 2 months later same issue but warranty was finished. Repair estimate was half of the device price!(In India). This was not the first device whose repair cost so much. Really Apple devices are very good as long as you have warranty. If not for iOS development, i would not be buying it.
FlyingAvatar 5y ago
After several years of use, I wanted a battery replacement for my 1st-gen Retina Macbook Pro, so I brought it to the Apple Store. The device was old, but still supported, though far outside even the Apple Care window. I was told they they should normally be able to do this replacement, but they didn't have replacement batteries available. After mentioning I could just leave the device with them until the stock became available, they went off into the back for a few minutes. When they returned, they said they would accept my years old Macbook as a return for its original purchase price and I walked out with a brand new Macbook Pro essentially for the cost of the tax. I cannot imagine getting this service from any other computer vendor.
tooltalk 5y ago
I guess Apple could do that b/c the wholesale manufacturing price of iPhone/iPod is usually less than 1/3, or even 1/4, of the retail price.
agumonkey 5y ago
I'd be curious to see if they voluntarily bootstrap brand love through these wonderful (really) tactics only to gradually remove the rate of free swaps. I have heard a few stories of "we can't fix nor replace that device, but you can buy a new one for 10$ less than market price".

by atty 5y ago

Gigachad 5y ago

Similar experience with the airpods. They stopped pairing right. Walked in to the store, they ran through some basic tests, plugged their diagnostics tool in, then handed over a new pair and it was done all on the same day.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

I used to abuse new iPhones, and before the warranty ran out claim that the battery life was not up to scratch. They always replaced my phone. Once I got a new phone when the damage was clearly my fault but I played dumb anyway. I am still buying Apple products. So jokes on me.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
> I used to abuse new iPhones, and before the warranty ran out claim that the battery life was not up to scratch. Oh, so, fraud.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  Nope. They have a utility to test the battery capacity. They check your claim first and someone decides.
  - ovao 5y ago
    I’d imagine someone decides either based on the results of the tests not aligning with expectations (in which case —- cool), or because they’d rather not come out to a customer with a hard ‘no’ on a replacement, and essentially comp it as a courtesy. I wonder if in your case it’s simply been the latter. Retail is hard. Perhaps less hard for Apple, but I wonder to what extent the retail store employees end up paying for stuff like this.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      In a previous life I worked at a Sears. Back when that was a thing. I was in lawn and garden during springtime. People would come in and buy a fully loaded top of the line lawn tractor. A week later it would be back, covered in mud and grass clippings, clearly having been through hell. Inevitably they were not happy with it. Probably because their pasture was now mowed. I moved to electronics in the winter. Same story around the Super Bowl but this time big screen TVs. It was easy to tell. Customers who just went straight to the big ticket item without any questions were obviously not interested in a long term purchase. But we just ate it. The shitty thing was I got paid commission. Those returns got clawed back in my next paycheck. I think Apple at least has the decency to pay their retail employees hourly.
- mdoms 5y ago
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Character is who you are when no one is looking.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I've been on the other side: Dealing with returns and warranty claims at scale, albeit at a much larger company. You're not alone. A lot of people will invest a lot of time into lying, playing dumb, making threats (think people with a lot of Twitter followers threatening to broadcast how terrible your company is unless you give them exactly what they want) and other manipulative tactics to abuse warranty claims. Ultimately this is why we had to become more strict about warranty claims. When half of your warranty claims are coming from people angling for free upgrades or demanding full-price refunds after many years of service (some of whom tried to demand to keep the hardware and get a refund), you quickly become numb to it. I guess companies like Apple can absorb the lies for a while, but eventually you have to make a choice between padding your margins to cater to the warranty abusers or becoming more strict on warranty claims.
- GianFabien 5y ago
  The author's point is that he was careful and the request for warranty repair was not some abuse attempt. Of course deceitful demands for warranty should be declined. Even Apple will not honor warranties in cases of obvious abuse and lies.
- gutitout 5y ago
  Apple understands something many retailers have lost. The way you deal with the customer when they’re not happy turns you into a lifetime customer. And if it doesn’t it’s a small price to pay. Costco, Nordstrom, Marine Layer, etc. To me this is a winning strategy. Even if it’s 1 in 5 or less.
  - lmm 5y ago
    It's a winning strategy for high-margin luxury goods, not for everything.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    If that one warranty-abusing user convinces 2-3 others to buy the same product and they don't abuse the warranty, the company is still making more money.
rob74 5y ago
...and that's why companies that don't have Apple's generous profit margins have to be extra careful with their return policies. Or, more generally: this is why we can't have nice things.
ji23ii23jjj3 5y ago
WOW. Thank for the tip! I will also do the same and abuse warranty to get new devices.

rexf 5y ago

Over time, Apple got strict about replacing their Lightning charging cable and wired EarPods (headphones). They would regularly wear out for me. In earlier iPhone generations, they would replace your EarPod headphones without a hassle (or wait). Later on (as Apple got more popular and Apple store genius bar lines grew longer), you had to make a reservation and they would only consider replacing it after checking the cable's (discrete) serial number.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Sounds like another reason why they pushed to get rid of cables and ports, risk of damage and warranty claims. I mean it's a win-win for them because Apple devices get a reputation for being reliable then (which is counteracted by things like butterfly keyboards). I mean wireless charging is a solution for a problem many people run into, dust / lint buildup in the charging port.

spideymans 5y ago

Gosh. I hate Apple’s right to repair BS, but to this day Apple remains the only consumer electronics company that has provided a consistently positive technical support experience for me. It’s so hard to step out the Apple ecosystem when these other manufacturers have consistently screwed me over with repairs. I’m specifically calling out Dell, Samsung and LG here. All were utterly terrible experiences. Dell was the absolute worst though. They sold me a $1,700+ XPS notebook that months later had a non-functional trackpad, and they refused to do anything to rectify the situation. With an investment that large I need certainty that I can get support, and thus far Apple is the only PC OEM that has provided that. If anyone can suggest non-Apple OEMs that at least provide a competitive support experience, I’m all ears.

_nalply 5y ago
An alternative to have a company fix your expensive gadget is to do it yourself. I think about the Framework laptop. In your situation even if the company declined payment (then I wold be disappointed), I would have sucked it up and ordered a new trackpad and installed it myself. It's not the same but at least the consequences would not be so distastrous.
- LilBytes 5y ago
  Yeah agreed, can't wait till they're available in Australia.
- scarface74 5y ago
  How does the battery life compare to my M1 MacBook Air? How does the performance compare to my Air? How bad is the fan noise compared to my fanless Air?
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Worse in every way I'm fairly sure. Framework shipped their first product in 2021. Let's give them a bit before comparing them to an extremely matured product from one of the richest companies ever. If they survive long enough to make a version 5.0, it'll probably still be worse than the MacBook due to the lower level of integration, but modularity is a definite perk. Edit: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-lightweight-modular-laptop-delivers-on-its-promises/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-light... Actually the CPU looks decent.

kevinmchugh 5y ago

The math here depends on the retail presence and the margins that Apple already has. You don't want to be without your phone or laptop for even one day if you can avoid it. This customer experience doesn't happen without you being able to get to an apple store.

tempouser87 5y ago

I took my unbootable mac mini under warranty , they repaired it without any charge. 2 months later same issue but warranty was finished. Repair estimate was half of the device price!(In India). This was not the first device whose repair cost so much. Really Apple devices are very good as long as you have warranty. If not for iOS development, i would not be buying it.

FlyingAvatar 5y ago

After several years of use, I wanted a battery replacement for my 1st-gen Retina Macbook Pro, so I brought it to the Apple Store. The device was old, but still supported, though far outside even the Apple Care window. I was told they they should normally be able to do this replacement, but they didn't have replacement batteries available. After mentioning I could just leave the device with them until the stock became available, they went off into the back for a few minutes. When they returned, they said they would accept my years old Macbook as a return for its original purchase price and I walked out with a brand new Macbook Pro essentially for the cost of the tax. I cannot imagine getting this service from any other computer vendor.

tooltalk 5y ago

I guess Apple could do that b/c the wholesale manufacturing price of iPhone/iPod is usually less than 1/3, or even 1/4, of the retail price.

agumonkey 5y ago

I'd be curious to see if they voluntarily bootstrap brand love through these wonderful (really) tactics only to gradually remove the rate of free swaps. I have heard a few stories of "we can't fix nor replace that device, but you can buy a new one for 10$ less than market price".