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Apple Working On Tech To Detect Purchasers' "Abuse"
Toe, The writes "Apple has submitted a patent application for technologies which would detect device-abuse by consumers. The intent presumably being to aid in determining the validity of warranty claims. 'Consumer abuse events' would be recorded by liquid and thermal sensors detecting extreme environmental exposures, a shock sensor detecting drops or other impacts, and a continuity sensor to detect jailbreaking or other tampering. The article also notes that liquid submersion detectors are already deployed in MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPods. It does seem reasonable that a corporation would wish to protect itself from fraudulent warranty claims; however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community."
Well I guess this could make sense, I know people that really abuse the vendors by returning products that have been used in non-warranty covered conditions and I have always known that I am indirectly paying for them when I buy a new product.
> however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting
> what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond
> the tinfoil-hat community.
The line is thin, but I guess if different agencies or companies want to spy on people, they won't tell us in advance anyway.
Problems could arise in case the "abuse detection" device malfunctions and falsely report abuse by the consumer.
As stated in TFA this is already done anyway, I don't see public pressure stopping this.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
... as the abused get smarter, the abusers also get smarter at an equal or quicker pace.
What happens when the sensors themselves get hacked?
What about companies that abuse their customers with unrealistic and draconian EULAs?
however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices
That is the mistake right there, the article is talking about sensors inside of Apple's devices. What you thought you owned that device you bought from Apple? That's not what Apple thought, they are just allowing you to use it, as long as you give them money and don't use it in any way that they disapprove of.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
AKA - dropped in toilet detector. Couldn't they just smell the fecal matter on it?
Yes, but will it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI
Please patent it, Apple. Then I can buy my cell phone from someone else and know that this technology isn't included.
Simple devices offer ways to tell if a package has been dropped or turned upside down, but how do they prove that the event didn't happen before the device was in the hands of the customer. If they tell people to check them when the receive the device, then people are more likely to try to defeat them.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
This will hardly make Apple products cheaper since it will lead to higher hardware prices.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You mean I can't fuck my iMac anymore?
They can include whatever sensors they want. And I can buy whatever I want. There's no way I'll buy a smartphone that doesn't allow me to install software of my choice. This walled-garden crap is making me look to the HTC Hero, or whatever new Android phone is on the horizon.
I'm working on technology to not sell shit to dumb asses, while still remaining profitable.
recorded by liquid and thermal sensors
I can get those already. Common in the shipping industry.
detecting extreme environmental exposures
How is this different than a thermal sensor? Common in the shipping industry, but not everywhere depending on the environmental element they are testing for.
a shock sensor detecting drops or other impacts
I can slap one of those inside any old box now. Apple puts it inside a laptop and it's a patent?
and a continuity sensor to detect jailbreaking or other tampering
Now, this *really* has been done. Permanent adhesives on a holographic label? Anyone? anyone?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Those "submersion detectors" it work really well, right up until the local weather calls for 100% relative humidity. I've seen RIM deny multiple replacement requests due to triggered sensors.
Apple would probably make money in the end through decreased support costs, but all the same I'd be a lot less inclined to get AppleCare if I felt that there was a significant risk of wear-and-tear getting interpreted by this sensor as "abuse."
I can't argue twice here, haha. I'm already in heated debate on MacRumors. :D
It must be worth it, but it seems that it's a rare bit of abuse that hurts the internals but leaves the exterior shell and windows etc on the product free of teltale signs. That would rule out:
High-G impacts - which require a hard surface to stop the motion of the unit very quickly. This would leave a tell-tale blemish on the case.
Imersion in liquids - This would leave dried residue unless it's immersed in de-ionized water or other pure substance that wouldn't leave any residue. With no residue, the unit may not be damaged when it dries out.
Jailbreaking sensor - BINGO! This is the real money maker.
The only reason to include these things is to improve product reliability (nope), customer satisfaction (nope), profit (yup). And I don't see a whole lot of profit increase in anything but preventing jailbreaking.
Sheldon
1. A system for detecting consumer abuse in an electronic device, the system comprising:
one or more sensors configured to detect an occurrence of an abuse event;
abuse detection circuitry configured to receive indication of the occurrence of the abuse event from the one or more sensors and to generate a record corresponding to the occurrence of the abuse event upon receiving the indication;
a memory device configured to store the record; and
an interface configured to facilitate communication between the electronic device and an external device.
Not saying this is necessarily new, more to attempt to keep the discussion on track.
Normally, shock sensors like this are placed on the outside of shipping crates or pallets. If I am going to shell out money for equipment that can tattle on me with hidden sensors, I will have to have them open the device and prove that none of the tattle-markers are already spoiled.
[
Because Europe is a land where people enjoy having their actions and lives dictated to them under the guise of protecting themselves from themselves. Which for the record, is not possible with anything less than handcuffs, force fed tranquilizers, and 24 hour supervision. I'm so glad I'm the age I am in the country I'm in, knowing that very soon I will be dead and shortly after my country will end up just as FUCKED.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
I think that the submitter wrongly believes that these sensors are going to report back to Apple over the internet or somesuch. Hence the faux concern.
I can see why Apple would want things like submersion/heat/shock sensors to be included to counter warranty fraud, but going as far as continuity sensors to detect jailbraking and whatnot is wrong. The phone is yours when you purchase it and you should eb ablet o do what you want with it. The sensors are only a small part of the overarching issue of Apple trying to exert too much control over their products. With any luck Steve Jobs will die soon and someone will have the balls to take the company in a new, not control-freaked, direction.
Apple gets forgiven for everything, but if Microsoft even hinted of this they'd get flamed.
Had Apple won the PC wars of the 80's they'd be a far greater satan than Microsoft ever tried to be.
Corporatism != Free Market
I can see the economic rationale for going this route but the "hip & cool" aspect of Apple stuff is going to be diminished by it. I want innovation and technical progress that lowers the price, increases the functionality, is ergonomic and looks cool as hell. It is for that reason I buy Apple products. This crap on the other hand doesn't help me that much if at all. It might lower the price a few pennies but it'll make it that much harder to make a warranty claim too and so there goes a big chunk of good will down the tubes. I hope the few pennies they save with this equals what stand to lose. Sheesh.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
The biggest problem I see with this is that these sensors won't be 100% accurate. Very few things in this world are.
But manufacturers will almost certainly treat them as if they are.
So let's say you have a faulty moisture sensor in your laptop and the laptop fails through no fault of your own - it goes back and you get a rude email a week later saying "You let it get wet. Go away."
Obviously you can take the "sue the bastards" approach, but let's be real here, they're going to stand up in court and say "There is a moisture sensor in this unit which was triggered, therefore it got wet". How do you prove that in your case the moisture sensor was faulty without spending a small fortune?
Apple has been having a hissy fit over jailbreaking for a while now. This is the natural evolution of the failure of their fearmongering about random text messaging and malfunctioning cell towers. How do you sell overpriced software? Force people to pay for it. Outlaw the alternative.
Is it just me, or is Apple more Evil than Microsoft these days?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
> "...however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community."
Seems someone has overlooked that fact that certain cars have had their computers ratting out crash info to dealers and insurance agencies for years now....speeding? Didn't hit the brakes?
Get off Apple's back unless you want to pay for abusive users yourself....jack.
For a minute I thought they meant violating some terms-of-service buried in the 10th page of a click-through agreement I had to click though after getting the device home from the store.
As long as "abuse" is defined as common-sense, "this voids just about every consumer-grade warranty known to man if you do it" kinds of things that's fine.
Oh, just make sure it doesn't record more than it needs to. An indicator that permanently changes colors when it experiences a 20G shock is fine, a log of when that happened and how many times is overkill. Bonus if the indicator is visible through the product's packaging, so you can return it unopened if the shipping monkeys abuse it in transit to the store or your house.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm getting tired of this. As an aged millionaire I have few pleasures in life other than making toboggans out of top of the line macbook pros. I don't need apple telling me what I can and can't do with my property. I'd sue them, but I'm also eccentric and don't have a phone to call a lawyer.
Just stay out of my damn business Apple!
This could reduce the prices, because there is less fraud. Only if the detectors are cheap however.
Jailbreaking sensor - BINGO! This is the real money maker.
The only reason to include these things is to improve product reliability (nope), customer satisfaction (nope), profit (yup). And I don't see a whole lot of profit increase in anything but preventing jailbreaking.
No, the summary is wrong (as usual). The tamper detection circuitry is for physical tampering - adding or remove chips, etc. Software jailbreaking won't trip it.
If they are actual sensors (like a thermometer) and not just sensors that detect if you have gone past a threshold they should allow developers to use the info that they gather. Cause it would be kinda cool to have a thermometer and a moister sensor app.
When my headphone jack started failing I investigated the issue on-line. I found several similar cases on line and thought this would be a breeze to get fixed on my warranty. It was a well known issue with the sensor inside the iPhone detecting whether the headphone was plugged in. So I sent in the phone for repairs but apparently the water sensor on the docking connector was slightly "not white" (translated: they believe that the water sensor is triggered) thus rendering the warranty void. The repair service log showed me that the repairman used less than 2 seconds deciding that my warranty was void, even though the phone was working perfectly - except for this error with the headphone jack. This "2 second job" gave 3 alternatives for me online: 1) scrap the phone, price: free 2) return the phone unrepaired, £70 service fee 3) repair phone (new phone £550) I chose alternative 2, it was the only real option for me. Adding more sensors/detectors is probably great for Apple. But they need to inform and disclose this in their user manuals, clearly visibly in your warranty. I didn't find out about the water sensors until after it was repaired. The problem with these sensors is if they are triggered without you doing anything wrong to the phone, and this mean that if a sensor is triggered and you get a hardware error not at all related to the sensor being triggered you will not be able to have your device fixed because the warranty is void. Another important aspect is that any sensor could also be triggered BEFORE you even open the box. WTH are you supposed to do if the phone is pre-broken. How can you check your sensors is not triggered?
The sensors and logging infrastructure must cost money
Who in their right mind would pay the inevitable higher price that a device with such sensors would have?
Oh, wait... We're talking about Apple here...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I'm skeptical their products would get any cheaper no matter how much money they save. People have shown how much they're willing to pay, why charge less?
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
It won't lower the price. That is set by external market forces--supply and demand. The company's goal is then to minimize their costs to improve their margins. This will get them a few extra pennies of profit. You, as a consumer, will only see a benefit if you happen to be an Apple stock-holder.
I hope these dont work like the submersion detection on my ipod touch does..
live in mississippi, walked outside with it in my front pen pocket and broke a sweat, it went red. Of course the ipod still works, but the warranty is now void because it was somewhere with the temperature above 80 degrees.
I don't work for Apple, but the company I do work for also has manufactured laptops in the past. Not so long ago I took a call from an individual that wanted to complain that his unit was now under warranty, and a third repair would not be covered. He'd already had the motherboard and hard drive repaired under warranty. The kicker is that *all* of the problems started only after he dropped the unit off a table, which "would never cause this kind of problem!". So at the time I took the call, he had already received free repairs twice by lying about damage he caused, and then had the audacity to complain about not receiving further repairs for failures resulting from the same drop incident, and threatening never to buy products from the company again because of it. There's nothing you can do about bad word-of-mouth negative advertising from an idiot like that, but Apple's plan may at least prevent wasting money on unwarranted repairs that a parasitic individual lied about.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
... wait until the Face Crime app is part of the standard install. That will bake your noodle.
...as long as they install a BS detector on their phone system to help the consumer determine if they're getting the run around.
Pretty much unless you live in the American Southwest or the Sahara (or a similar extremely dry enviroment), there is significant risk.
Even moderate climates such as upstate New York have enough humidity in the summer to indicate a false positive on the LIS after a year or two - it happened to a friend with her Samsung phone. Never submerged, but the LIS was red anyway.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Don't buy Apple products?
I'm a bit surprised at the negativity towards Apple, lately. Every day for weeks, there seems to be a story about how Apple is screwing its customers or developers. That's fine; I really don't like them or their products. But I wonder if there is now a buzz-driven backlash against the company?
I suppose that a company that lives on trendiness, is particularly vulnerable to trends, as well. I would have thought that corporate management at apple would understand that the moment Apple begins being viewed as 'corporate' by American hopsters, their rapid ascension would come to a screeching halt. They need to loosen up a bit... or at least SEEM to loosen up. I know they won't ever open up their hardware, but they need to do something to stop the flood of stories portraying Apple as a vicious, tyrannical censorer of applications and information. The easiest way would be to STOP being a vicious, tyrannical censorer of applications and information.
however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community.
IMHO, as long as devices don't "phone home" and the data is kept in the device until the *owner* submits it for warranty repairs there is no foul. If we get lower prices (or a delay in a price increases) and/or longer warranties then the tradeoff seems reasonable. Of course I'm biased, I worked in tech support long ago and I am a bit familiar with the -- hmm how shall I put this -- the "opportunistic" nature of a non-trivial number of consumers. :-) To be fair I think that owners should be able to see the current sensor logs, Settings | General | About on an iPhone for example, if for no other reason than to verify the devices state at the time of purchase. While in a manufacturing facility I've seen s person spill a box of hard drives onto the floor and perform a couple of did-anyone-see-that head swivels as they picked up the drives.
1. Put abuse detectors in device ...
2. Connect detector to self destruct
3.
4. Profit!
Drop and liquid sensors have been used to detect abuse for years. For instance, very low tech ones, stuck on packages, so you know if the shipping company dropped it or got it wet. So what's actually new here?
Their first claim is laughably general:
1. A system for detecting consumer abuse in an electronic device, the system comprising:one or more sensors configured to detect an occurrence of an abuse event;abuse detection circuitry configured to receive indication of the occurrence of the abuse event from the one or more sensors and to generate a record corresponding to the occurrence of the abuse event upon receiving the indication;a memory device configured to store the record; and an interface configured to facilitate communication between the electronic device and an external device.
Any "black box" type device is prior art; the only change is the application to consumers. Hardly a patentworthy innovation. In fact, I believe some car black boxes have _already been used_ to deny warranty claims: http://blogs.internetautoguide.com/6296914/auto-repair/nissan-gt-r-warranty-claims-being-voided-by-black-box-data-proving-racing/index.html
Sorry, Apple. Nothing novel here.
Personally I don't mind these devices being used to detect abuse, provided they are reliable and that their data is evaluated critically rather than just being used to say "NO". But color change liquid intrusion sensors notoriously aren't reliable, changing color in the presence of humidity. Thermal sensors could be tripped by whatever caused the failure rather than by abuse. And tamper sensors... well, "breaking this seal voids the warranty", when breaking the seal is required to perform some service or upgrade, isn't kosher under Magnussen-Moss, regardless of how high-tech the seal is.
however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community
Which is a discomforting potential invasion of privacy?
All of these happen today. Your letter to your senator is WAY TO LATE.
Conveniently, they are replaceable(no endorsement of that particular vendor is implied.)
Makes me wonder how long it'll be before somebody gets brought up on the consumer electronics equivalent of insurance fraud charges for using one of those...
You can open up your device and check the sensors yourself, I'm sure there will be instructions.
And that by doing so, you'll void your warranty.
You could ask them to check and prove to you that they aren't already triggered when you buy it, but they're just going to pretend like you disappeared and look at the next frothing-at-the-mouth Apple fanboy that has cash in hand and doesn't care about the protection devices.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I wasn't aware "hip and cool" meant dropping your laptop down a stairwell and then claiming the broken hinges were a manufacturing defect. Seriously this does not influence the hip and cool aspect, and is really not even newsworthy.
Going back to the mid-90's increasing numbers of cars and trucks have have some sort of "black box" tech. Why not your phone?
http://www.crashforensics.com/automobiledatarecorders.cfm
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/Cars/Problems/studies/record/chidester.htm
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
What about option
4. Raise holy hell
If you sweat a lot, or talk on the phone with wet hair, this can happen.
My wife's phone borked this way, but we just swapped out the SIM card after a few unlocked phone purchases from Woot.
If Apple or any other company uses this technology against their customers, I predict many phone batteries will "catch fire". It can't be too hard to make a Lithium-Ion battery go up in flames. Hell, it seems to be hard to PREVENT them from exploding.
So instead of hair-drying a wet phone, customers will cause the battery to go nuclear and then take the smoldering mess to the store demanding a replacement.
Short of building the sensors into an airplane black-box type device (which might hurt the phone's portability a bit) it is unlikely any of these sensors would survive a fire.
I had a Motorola Q that started smoking one day while it was charging. The battery was so hot, I couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds. The case started melting, and I'm sure if I hadn't been there, it would have caught fire.
The Verizon guy replaced the phone, no hassle, no questions.
-ted
To increase profit. The goal is to maximize (unit's sold * profit per unit) not just (unit's sold) or (profit per unit).
In theory if you lower the price you can attract more customers. This is offset by a loss in profit per customer. In the real world not everyone is willing to pay the same price. You see this most clearly with coupons. People who are not willing to use coupons are charged more because not as price sensitive. EX: I could not care less if my lettuce cost's 10% more so they charge me 10% more.
This is only scary because it is being implemented "electronicly."
If the iPod/iPhone had a strip inside that turned blue when exposed to moisture or red due to excressive temperature, or tore when disassembled, no one would bat an eye. Items like this are already in use in consumer and industrial electronics.
The problem is how verbose the technical method is (e.g. does it record with GPS where the temperature spiked, or what kind of moisture tripped the sensor) and how it is used or could be used. My only concern however apple does do it, that it stores minimal information and that the documentation clearly state what tolerances the sensors are looking for and if tripped, what the result will be (e.g. Leaving the phone above 120F for over 30 minutes will trip the sensor and invalidate the warranty.)
The advantage to the technical method is the device could warn the user that they are coming close to voiding the warranty before they do (e.g. a countdown when the temperature is too high).
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
. . . would be for them to design products that better withstand extreme temperatures, water immersion and shocks.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Pretty much unless you live in the American Southwest or the Sahara (or a similar extremely dry enviroment), there is significant risk.
My most significant Mac problems while living in Tucson were cpu temps climbing far too high, and the steady collection of airborne particulates and/or 'dirt' collecting inside the Macbook. Popping out the battery would reveal a lining of dirt/dust/stuff around the battery bay (or whatever they call it). And I mean, I could do this every week. Easily.
Reply to That ||
I provide AppleCare service and normal wear-and-tear don't even catch my attention. I don't kick a repair for scuffs, scratches, dents, or dings. But I've been brought:
--A MacBook that was "dropped a little." The hard drive had impacted so hard that you can hear the parts rattling around in it (I still have it);
--An iMac (Aluminum) with display problems. I opened it, found evidence of a liquid spill, and the customer's daughter confessed that her boyfriend threw a beer at it;
--A MacBook whose "case had cracked"... someone to remove the top case without referring to a manual and ripped the bottom case from its fasteners on the frame;
--A wireless keyboard that "wouldn't work." Turned it in for testing and, as it heated, water came oozing out of the battery bay.
All these people expected these incidents to be covered under the AppleCare warranty. If I'm brought a machine that isn't working due to a defect in manufacturing or the failure of an Apple- covered part, I'll do everything that needs to be done to get it fixed and the customer doesn't pay a dime (but if you've installed third-party drives or memory to which a problem is attributable, tough luck, Chuck).
But if it's drowned, dropped, or ripped apart, Apple is under no obligation to pay for user carelessness. Period.
My buddies kid was told not to bring his iPod to the beach. The Apple warranty dept verified... he did. The submersion detection strip works ;)
Until someone buys an iPod that fell off a truck on the way to the store, takes it home, realizes it's broken either right away or has it break somewhere down the road, tries to return it and is told "sorry, the sensor says you dropped it."
Another scenario:
-Person puts iPod in backpack with clothes and other soft objects.
-Person drops backpack from shoulder/car/whatever and iPod senses it's been dropped because it's based on G-force, not impact
-iPod breaks because of hardware failure later on within it's warranty lifetime.
-Rep tells person "sorry, the sensor says it was dropped."
The water detector and heat detector I understand because those can't really have any platonic causes I can think of....but the "drop sensor" has trouble written all over it. In my opinion at least.
Do you have sweaty hands? If so you triggered it.
Did you ever talk on the phone while your face was sweaty? Triggered it.
My inexpensive Samsung has a sensor above the battery, but visible just by opening the battery cover.
Oh wait...iPhone...no cover to open.
Oh please.
We all know Steve Jobs will just backdate his stock options to exploit any profits' impact on stock price, ultimately negatively affecting all other stock holders.
So they can sell more. It's called supply and demand. Supply curve shifts, optimal price and quantity change.
3 paragraphs into the article, loading the 4th page view I gave up. Can't say as I've seen a site try and jam more ads into one page than that place, a top banner, both sides, and a failing bottom banner as well. I will say this as a support tech, apple is good, I don't like the hardware personally but you work with what the paying customer has and wants, but I've never had issues with Dell either, maybe it is being a partner instead of a general public caller that makes the difference. My experience with Gateway however has never been good, they are ridiculous about parts and shipping.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I have to wonder how many people out there actually abuse the system. Anyone who gets bored of their device likely isn't looking for a replacement of the same device. They're looking for something totally new and chances are it wouldn't come up within the warranty period. I don't quite see this being the issue with electronics so much, except for perhaps someone keeping a computer or game console running in an unventilated cabinet or going for a swim with a phone in their shorts.
There are far bigger opportunities for abuse in cars than electronics. Routinely people beat on their cars, breaking something and then expect the automaker to honor the warranty. Take the transmission failures on Nissan GT-Rs. Some owners did multiple hard launches with their car, taking advantage of launch control, and it resulted in the transmission breaking. So they got upset when Nissan began refusing to honor their warranties. The argument inevitably is, if they didn't want people driving the car that way they shouldn't have offered that particular feature. So what happens? They do what Audi did with their dual-clutch transmissions in the US, which is remove launch control and force an upshift at redline. Then people piss and moan about that.
With automotive black boxes it's very easy to paint a clear picture of what was going on before the moment of failure. There are several data points that can clearly show how the owner was driving the car. And in this case that data can also be potentially used in favor of the driver.
My concern with Apple's idea is that it will be used to track how people are using their device. This technology allows Apple to ensure that their devices are used only in a manner they deem fit. Jailbreak your iPhone and Apple will know. They could just decide to not honor the warranty, but I have a suspicion they'll be a lot more draconian than that. I expect Apple will remove questionable apps or just completely disable the device.
Speaking of companies with integrity, however, a few months ago my father got some decent speakers from Polk Audio. While setting up his equipment for the hundredth time, puts in this audio CD. He ends up on a track playing sound at maybe 16kHz. For whatever reason a synapse fails to fire and continues raising the volume thinking no audio is coming out of the speakers. Suddenly he hears a pop come from one of the tweeters, followed by a second pop from the other speaker. He calls the company, explains what happened expecting he'd have to pay for new tweeters. They send him two new ones free of charge. That was unexpectedly nice.
I wonder what the new technology will "say" about Apples exploding battery problem?
"Your i(insert product here) warranty is void because of excessive heat, and exposure to excessive concussive force"
I think he meant that it's unlikely this will make customers less willing to pay so the optimum price won't change.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I guess this is how Apple will explain why their iPod exploded; and wash their hands on selling poor quality control product.
What do Apple fanboys care of warranties and such crap? If they wanted a computer and bought a Mac then they definitely have the money to replace one!
The warranties have to be sensible around these things too. My mother had one (a Nokia maybe?) that she dunked and killed. The warranty explicitly did not cover water damage.
But it did cover loss.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
(but if you've installed third-party drives or memory to which a problem is attributable, tough luck, Chuck).
Do you use the Nintendo policy of "if it's there it's at fault" or do you actually check if it was at fault?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"... however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community."
Yeah, then next thing you know they will start building in GPS sensors that track where you are or maybe sensors that detect nearby devices and download their user information so they know who you are meeting with. Who knows, maybe someday they will even track what web pages you are looking at.
Lets hope that day never comes....
Back when I built PCs we used dabs of hot glue to identify when a component had been removed. It was just as simple to booby trap the chassis so we could tell it was opened. We had a warranty clause that damage due to corrosion from humidity was not covered, that needed nothing special to identifiy. In laptops we experimented with the kind of disposiable schock detectors used in shipping packages.
Our difference to Apple was we'd often repair things anyway that were damaged or just outside warranty. This company never charged for extended warranties either. It's also long out of business.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
... and my experiences with AppleCare providers and Apple's genius bar itself have always been exemplary. However, my concern is not whether you or other service providers will unfairly judge my problem as user abuse, it's that these judgment calls may be taken away from the care provider and instead, through this automated sensing, allow (or force, through policy) servicepeople to skip a thorough examination and dismiss claims because the abuse sensor was triggered, in a sort of first-pass firewall fashion. I don't know that Apple will do this and I sincerely hope that they won't, but the technology seems as if it would be very well-suited to that end.
Yes, by all means tell ME when I'm subjecting my laptop or phone to unsuitable conditions, or doing something to it that might violate the warranty.
Everyone assumes that this patent is for a secret recording device. Didn't read the patent, but if it is then they're shooting themselves in the foot. The real benefit to the consumer of this idea is that the sensors in the device can alert you to damaging behavior. Kind of like the old warning that you used to get when you shutdown your Mac using the power switch instead of the Shutdown menu. The ideal way to do this is to throw up an alert that says, "Hey, you did something stupid that could break your computer. Maybe you should be more careful."
The last thing any company should want is a "he said, it said" situation where they have to call their customer a liar. Unless the accelerometer and other sensors are independently certified and recalibrated (like an odometer), this technology should be advisory at best.
Having just been denied a completely legitimate warranty claim from Lenovo who "thinks" I let my laptop's LCD screen "got wet" somehow and has now voided my extended warranty I paid extra for, I for one see a perfectly persuasive reason to get a Mac next time.
Self Defense.
Competition.
If your product costs (including warranty fulfillment) are lower than your competitor's, you can sell at a lower price while still maintaining profitability. This means that you can underprice your competitors, thus getting a larger market share == more sales == more profit.
Keep in mind that in the long term, for an ideal free market, sale price approaches marginal production cost.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I bought their AppleCare after I had my iPod 1.0 replaced 3 times because of defects in the screen. It would get a burn mark after use and little bubble appeared. So, 6mos later I go into the store after the same issue arises for a 4th time, bubbles and burn marks and they told me that I broke it and they would not cover it after looking inside the headphone jack.
What!!?
Well, I bought this AppleCare plan I told em. They told me that was worthless and my warranty was now void. I demanded a refund of the AppleCare. They said no.
I wasn't the only one mistreated by these people, someone brought a laptop in with a cracked screen and the AppleCare and they were told it would cost 800dollars to fix.
I spent hours on the phone to get resolution and I was hung up on. I never got a refund of my useless AppleCare warranty and I switched over to an Android set on an alternate carrier and have been much happier with the service and support since.
The warranty covered loss? Are you sure it wasn't insurance that covered the loss?
This is Apple though. They don't even bother TRYING to undercut their competition on price and they do just fine. They have very loyal customers and, even at a severely inflated price, they're still collecting converts. Their stuff is expensive and locked in, but it's solid hardware (from what I've heard) with a lot of popular features (also from what I've heard). Of course they want to maximize profit, but their strategy doesn't seem to be minimizing MSRP.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Apple refused to repair my MacBook, which had 2 years of AppleCare left, citing a censor which showed evidence of liquid damage (despite my computer never having come into contact with liquids). They pointed out to me that the sensor can be triggered by high humidity, but nonetheless wanted to charge me 75% the cost of a new, better laptop to repair it. Then they sent me the laptop back with screws missing and not even booting as far as when I sent it to them. When I pointed this out in a letter, they told me "it was returned in the condition it was received."
Of course, as a result, my new desktop, laptop, and MP3 players are non-Apple products. And this type of technology can no doubt be useful and help reduce fraud. But when used blindly or by organizations with questionable support quality, it can become a way to get out of contractual obligations and avoid the cost of actually standing behind extended warranties.
Thanks again, Apple.
-puk
If it detects a heat-based failure due to abuse, it voids your warranty. If it detects a heat-based failure due to battery explosion, it automatically files a gag order with the courts.
People have shown how much they're willing to pay, why charge less?
Larger market share, perhaps? Even Apple's products are subject to competition.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
In any case, devices with cases that cannot be opened undetectably have been with us a long time as have those devices that you stick on the inside of a box to detect rough handling.
Squirrel!
They need to tie these sensors into the system info so that their status can be detected at purchase. Who's to say the sensor wasn't tripped during shipment, or shortly after installation, or it wasn't put in right at all?
People need to be able to see the status of the sensors at purchase time, and sign something that says they verified that all the warranty sensors weren't tripped. If Apple and others don't do this, then they're opening themselves up for a big class-action lawsuit for denying warranties when it can't be proven whether you violated the sensor, or it was violated before you purchased it.
Wonder Woman should have patented this technology a while ago
Not when AppleCare is sold by the store employees as a coverall. Then Apple has to own up to it. Many a customer becomes furious after they learn the 300 dollar AppleCare plan doesn't cover a cracked screen when the DellCare plan they had on a previous system did.
"I sent the half of it that I could find back with a letter telling them it stopped a rifle round and thanked them..."
How can you post that, and not tell the story?! Goddamn, man !
Or something like that.
I can see part of this during the warranty period if that is really what its for ( which i honestly don't believe for a second ), but once that is up all these 'devices' should be disabled completely and automatically.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have one that took a quick swim and yet works fine other than rebooting any time I type the word "economist" into a text message with auto spell on. (a samsung SGH A117)
That has nothing to do with the water; it's a known feature of these Samsung devices. They just don't want you to find out about articles published in The Economist discussing the bribery scandals.
How clear are Apple's guidelines? Do you know if they differ if the customer brings the item to a company store?
Apple Care once covered repair on an MBP for me that had been infiltrated by driver ants, causing it to overheat. They declined to replace one that had been driven over by an HMMV though, and here I thought the new aluminum chassis were supposed to be super strong.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
The challenge is that Dell does fix it. Stupid things happen, even to smart people. When you are talking about a laptop, they need to take abuse and the cost is (was) such that a manufacturer should make repairs.
I'm a big Apple fan, but you can tell they breathe a sign of relief when something hits the end of the AppleCare window. $300 to replace an iBook keyboard! Four quick screws and a tug, $60 keyboard module... and they try to make it more attractive to just buy a new one.
Everything in balance, but you do get the whole slippery slope issue going quickly on this one.
If Apple continues to offer their widley acclaimed customer service, then let them continue as long as they make products enough people want to buy. If they rely too heavily on these sensors and start denying legit warranty claims, then they deserve to have their image tarnished in the eyes of consumers. And image is very important to Apple.
Personally, I don't think Apple's going to be getting much more restrictive on their warranties. They probably just figure it's a bit of CYA when they deny claims to the worst offenders who try to be cute and turn around and sue them.
In any event, I don't own any Apple products, so I don't have much opinion of them either way . . . but I'm baffled by how vehemently people on Internet forums dislike them sometimes. Don't like them? Don't buy their stuff. There are plenty of alternatives available.
I've had companies take defective products and send them strait back because they wouldn't take the time to fully test the unit. That's why I take a taser and let it arc across ports and components on boards. Then I say it was working fine until today. Now it won't come on.
Conveniently, a fresh one looks very similar to the shinyness of generic sticker material or white nail polish or white out depending on the surface texture.
Just a thought.
This gets me wondering about when I used the Boot Camp beta to install Windows XP on my MacBook Pro (late 2006 model) in the summer of 2007. The beta Boot Camp drivers overclocked the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 by 200%. Should that have voided my warranty? On one hand, the beta wasn't provided with any guarantees. On the other hand, it was provided by Apple. I'm not sure that any damage was suffered from that (it works find today) but it would be hard to show a GPU fail wasn't related. Any thoughts?
You're probably right, but the money saved won't go to waste. It will probably materialize as an extra $1/hour for some lucky engineers or managers, or extra health benefits. That's one of the advantages of competition over government - the constant pressure to reduce costs and thereby inprove efficiency which benefits not just that company, but also society as a whole.
My only concern is that these sensors might be abused.
For example I have some Lights of America CFLs that died after only one year of use. If these sensors were inside the base, I could easily imagine the LoA company refusing to replace the bulbs because "you had them in a hot area" even though I did not. Yes they died of excesive heat, but I used them in a prescribed manner - in my dining room. They died due to manaufacturer error not user error, but I can easily foresee the manufacturer blaming the user anyway.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I ran into an issue with this as well. I lost a 500$ smart phone because they wouldn't replace it. At the time I worked for a beer distributor, which meant constantly going in and out of coolers all day. Condensation formed inside the phone because it wasn't sealed, and set off all of the water-spill stickers. However, the phone worked fine. It wasn't until the earpiece eventually failed because of poor soldering that I had to take it in. Then they wouldn't repair it. I can only imagine that going in and out of air conditioned environments would also wreak havoc on such systems.
most retail users are used to paying for "extended warranties" that are also "damage insurance" if they're paying $300 for it. With Apple's higher prices you only get the 1 year warrant and the extra money adds ONLY warranty and support... they offer no option at all for damage insurance.
Even with the iPhone they didn't allow AT&T to offer the standard insurance plan per month charge every other phone carries.
Apple really doesn't want to repair things. That's partly a way to keep business inventories down by always pushing the new stuff, but they also step on outside repairs by making things have many non-standard parts so the only way to repair is to cannibalize other broken devices because nobody else makes parts that quite fit.
That said, I'd say macbooks are probably the most populous machines out there except for Dell business laptops. Except that there's too many small variations in model years unlike in the Dells so you can only "transplant" parts from the exact same model year rather than a 2-3 year line.
From what I saw at the Apple Store recently, people are not only willing to pay more, they are willing to plunk down their cash for a computer they haven't even seen.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
It's also not a commodity, which makes a big difference. Direct competition is impossible due to copyright, hardware and software patents, etc.
But even with loose competition, it could make a difference to price, depending on the cost savings, unit price, unit sales, etc.
Consider this example:
A: Cost to produce $WIDGET is $900. Cost of warranty service is $100/unit. Total cost here is $1000.
B: Now reduce cost of warranty service to $25/unit, but increase production cost to $905/unit. Total cost is now $930/unit.
Now, let's make an arbitrary demand curve, with price points at ($1500, 1000) and ($1450, 1100) [axes are price and unit sales).
For A, total profit is $495,000 when selling at $1450, and $500,000 when selling at $1500. So the seller will price at $1500.
For B, total profit is $570,000 at price of $1500, but $572,000 at a price of $1450. So the seller will price at $1450.
Note that if the new unit cost is now $950, the seller is still better off selling at $1500... the change in total profit is dependent on the shape of the demand curve (the price-sales relationship), the change in cost, and the price.
I'm making up the figures, of course... but even for a company like Apple, with a very strange demand curve that may be somewhat inelastic wrt price, there are price points where Apple will make more money if they can reduce both their costs and their prices. It's not so simple as I've described, but even for Apple, who has pricing experts on their staff (or as contractors), there are places where reduced unit costs result in greater profitability at a lower price.
As for strategy, minimizing MSRP doesn't always yield maximum prices. All the marketing, branding, advertising, etc, is to change the shape of the demand curve so that Apple will sell more units in addition to the price impact on units sold. Even with all that stuff, if Apple can raise unit profits by lowering prices (without long-term negative impact), they'll do it. Lowering unit costs is one way they can increase profits at lower price points depending on the shape of the demand curve.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
...however the idea of sensors inside your portable devices detecting what you do with them might raise eyebrows even beyond the tinfoil-hat community.
Allow me to remind you about iPhones and what they do: they make calls, they use GPS, and they can be tracked from a website. Sensors that determine that you dropped your iPhone in water or hot lava are not what you should be worried about...
Apple: "He's at the beach! SAND IN THE IPHONE - WARRANTY VOID!"
Me: "Oh snap, he stole my iPhone and took it to the beach - he's gonna void the warranty!"
That doesn't really make sense. So if you drop it in the river, don't retrieve it. Just tell them you lost it.
What you are missing is that Apple is not selling steak, it's selling sizzle. When you can walk into an Apple Store and all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden, you begin to understand that the standard Apple consumer has no idea what a computer is beyond some kind of fancy interactive TV set.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
I'm not missing that. All of Apple's marketing and branding has changed the shape of the demand curves for their products. That's a function of their marketing success, and the gullibility of potential buyers. That does not mean that economics does not apply.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
In a simplified world without brand names (luxery goods whose selling point is exclusivity), with infinte access to infinitly patient capital (otherwise many businesses cannot be started), without any fixed costs (otherwise selling units at marginal production cost is a money loser... and this implies no recouping/paying off of startup costs, hence no startup loans either, which means see point two), intellectual property protection (without which good luck getting R and D funding), perfectly rational actors, etc.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Our sensors indicate that you were unfaithful and touched a Windows PC today.
your warranty is voided
I told my girlfriend about this article and she responded with:
"why dont they just make a computer you can drop?"
I have to agree with her. What would I rather pay for, durability or the manufacturer's ability to tell me to get bent when it breaks? I suppose if apple didn't have to respond to phony claims they might eventually pass those savings on to us, but I'm not holding my breath.
ESPECIALLY one with all touch-sensitive input that you never need to open to change the battery . . . I mean, something like that -- you could never surround it in an unbroken skin.
Oh wait...iPhone...LIS visible from outside without dismantling.
There is a huge technical community who both likes iPhone but hates the control of device by Apple and they really know what they talk about.
For some people, that Dictionary app rejection served as the last drop.
Right after the "control like it is 1984" stories, some idiot at Apple files this patent. I am sure there are like 100 media professionals who checks Apple patents daily.
I know SJobs is back, he is good enough to attend concerts even, who is responsible for this? It is not Steve Jobs. SJobs is both a control freak but a genius in PR.
For example, OS X piracy costs Apple too but just by not having "activation", they save millions of dollars from support calls and gain amazing PR value which MS still couldn't understand. They send out "We trust you, unlike the other guy". I know people (switchers) pirated OS X upgrade and felt guilty about it ending up buying the original DVD when they figured there is no "serial number" involved.
And this one of several reasons I'd hesitate to ever buy AppleCare. I have always assumed that any failure would be attributed to third party parts (which I'm bound to install, based on the insane upcharge for getting RAM from Apple), and it's not like I'd have any very reasonable recourse. The value of extended warranties is always dubious, but in this case the policy is far too vague to be worth the money.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
They did introduce a quick-release power connector, Magsafe, that pretty much solved the problem of laptops taking a tumble because someone tripped on a power cord. Good design that prevents accidents usually works better than detecting abuse.
Doesn't this infringe on a blackberry patent?
I know RIM has sensors built into blackberry devices for shock and liquid/moisture determination.
This "2 second job" gave 3 alternatives for me online: 1) scrap the phone, price: free 2) return the phone unrepaired, ã70 service fee 3) repair phone (new phone ã550) I chose alternative 2, it was the only real option for me.
I hope that you paid those £70 with a credit card, and then disputed the charge. By default, credit card companies rule in favor of the customer, and then the onus is on the seller to prove that he is right.
Come to think of it, you should really have chosen 3, and proceeded similarly. Companies which rip off customers in this way deserve no better.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're probably right, but the money saved won't go to waste. It will probably materialize as an extra $1/hour for some lucky engineers or managers, or extra health benefits. That's one of the advantages of competition over government - the constant pressure to reduce costs and thereby inprove efficiency which benefits not just that company, but also society as a whole.
Dream on, little one.
If Apple doesn't want you to have a particular application on your iPhone, you can't have it without breaking the law. In effect Apple can arbitrarily make something illegal.
Could they be working up to this kind of control on their other products?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
You know, I'm really fed up with hearing stories like this, and believe me, I've heard a bunch. Those things have too many false positives. The only way to reliably detect submersion is with a circuit, not a dot. Moisture detectors that work chemically are a complete joke and are wrong more often than they are right, but the cell phone companies keep using them because nobody has had the balls to file a class action to demand that they stop doing lying to consumers about their warranty rights.
My advice? Sue. Seriously. Ask for ten grand because the company maliciously caused pain and suffering through illegally refusing to honor a warranty claim. The only thing that will force the cell phone manufacturers to honor their warranties is a lawsuit, and it's about damn time that somebody stood up to them and said "No, you will not abuse your customers this way."
Posting anonymously because I work at such a company.
When the warranty sensors fail, will they be repaired under warranty?
Trust me, they will fail for someone, somewhere, sometime. I'd hate to be them.
Oh well, they're the ones who bought Apple products anyway.
Oh man, I have some similar stories from the bench...
-Some bozo with his daughter and a cracked Macbook screen. She swore up and down that it "just happened" and her daddy refused to believe his precious snowflake would lie.
-A guy who left his Macbook in the back of his truck. It opened up and broke in half thanks to other heavy items and some rough road. Literally. The screen was smashed and snapped off the body. He was surprised that Applecare wouldn't cover it.
-A Macbook Pro that was just flat-out disgusting. Grime, crud, scratches, dents, and more. The screen was having issues, possibly because of an alarmingly large dent in the back. The keyboard reeked of coffee. Yeah, there was no coverage on that one.
-A Macbook Pro with several keys popped halfway off, which isn't entirely unusual, but they keys had chipped edges, which is. The bottom was bent upward right around the optical drive, and pretty noticeably, too. Problem: The keyboard and DVD drive don't work. Gee, I wonder why?
-A woman with an iBook G3 (about 7 years old at the time) that had died. She was incredulous that Apple wouldn't cover it, I kid you not. I told her to take it up with Apple because I didn't want to deal with that crap.
-An iMac that was absolutely FILLED with cigarette ash, nicotine stains, and other assorted grime. It was truly disgusting and reeked like ass. It most likely overheated and roasted itself. Turns out that Apple classifies that as abuse and the guy was out of luck. Don't smoke like a chimney around your computer.
I don't have any stories as dramatic as those with people trying to filch Apple, but man, you deal with some real tards in this business.
Having expensive products is also one of their characteristics. You obviously don't understand how different things would be if everyone could afford a Mac, if a Mac is no longer a cool item for the cool kids. Their customers have the feeling that they're getting what they pay for, like better support, better usability, better longevity...
It's also part of their marketing strategy. Together with their reality distortion field and actually improving their products, they've made their products become desirable even in the eyes of non-techies. This does not appeal to most open-source fans, I bet. But they've proved that there is a market for such products, and a big one at that. Personally I think it's more like a cult following.
But Apple products becoming affordable for the masses ? In your dream.
Yet another run-around the consumer so that they can sell products with a "warranty" then fail to live up to it.
Scenario: 1 month into having my iPod, It suffers a light drop to the floor from the couch. Nothing is wrong with it - but the "drop sensor" records it as exceeding the impact tolerance. 6 months later, the battery fries itself and no longer works. I mail it back - guess what? WARRANTY DENIED for a totally unrelated occurrence.
And as an Apple tech, that's my fear as well. Apple's already going this way with their stinking battery diagnostic (and adapter!). Yes, Apple is now checking with said diagnostic to see if batteries are consumed or bad. That much I can understand. If you wear out the battery with 500 cycles in less than a year, then sorry, you've used it up. However, this damned diagnostic also is required to replace the power adapters, I shit you not. Power adapters don't get used up. They work or they don't. In addition, I've seen the diagnostic claim that the battery is okay when it is definitely NOT okay. I recently had a repair be rejected because of that. Even though the battery was showing that it had 60:00 of runtime and over 1200% of it's actual capacity.
That's why I'm worried about this. I guarantee you that Apple will use it to deny claims left and right, even if there is no other evidence of abuse. If those sensors trip for any reason at all, you're done.
vaguely remember some story about a certain type of BMW M3 with a semiautomatic gearbox that occationally
blow up the engine. Owners always claimed it was the special gearbox that killed the engine. BWM wouldn't
always accept the claim.
Some of the hackers that reverse engineer the engine management code, found that it stored certain kinds of events
like hitting the revlimiter, high revs with cold oil etc.
I have an iPhone and am an avid snowboarder and mountain biker. Knowing what I would put the phone through I picked up a ruggedized cover for it the day I got it (a silicon wrap with an acrylic backing that covers all 4 corners, and a screen protector).
In the 8 months that I have had the phone I have:
- Dropped it down a ski run, helplessly watching it slide on the cover on its back down about 500 feet of vert. It got some snow on the data port so I made sure to power it down and dry it out.
- Kept it in the top pocket of my pack on a back country trip in the middle of a storm with temperatures reaching -12F so that I could track our progress using the GPS.
- Had it in the top internal pocket of my camelback when I endo'd in a rock garden at 18 MPH on a singletrack trail, rolled into the fall and skidded to a halt on my shoulders.
- Dropped it from chest height to the pavement once, had it slide off the roof of a car to the pavement once, and dropped it onto conference tables at least twice.
Throughout all of these events the phone has worked just fine. As I write this it sits on my desk in front of me, which is where I left it after uploading this morning's GPS track and answering 2 text messages.
What I'm getting at is that I'm sure I tripped just about every warranty-related sensor the phone has long ago, but it did not seem to affect anything. But since they've been tripped, I wonder if they will work against me should an actual warranty-covered problem arise, with no way for an Apple tech to know if one had anything to do with the other.
I've seen what one of these "sensors" on cells phones does for detecting water. It amounts to a special sticker which changes color when it gets wet! Problem is in finding a replacement sticker when yours turns color and they refuse to believe that you did not get the phone wet! I've seen these things change color from high humidity where they don't completely turn just a little bit--- but enough that some jerk think its any hint of discoloration is enough. Never leave it in the bathroom if the room gets full of steam. I bet that long periods of use and mild moisture eventually push the thing to the debatable range; although, but that point the battery is worn out and a replacement costs as much as a phone so....I wonder what realy humid areas of the world do to it.
So does this mean next time I put my apple keyboard in the dishwasher they are not going to give me a new one someday when it breaks? I'm not stupid, I turn off the laptop 1st. ;-)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ah..... The Idea Hamsters at Crapple have given birth to a new public-relations crapplet.
Next thing you know, we'll be getting warnings from apple to the tune of:
"By purchasing this product you agree to allow Apple to track the movements and environments of this device. You also understand that you are only purchasing a license to operate the device, and that any damage caused is the responsibility of the purchaser in whole. You agree to hold Apple free of responsibility, as you are purchasing a license to operated the device, and not the device itself, which remains the property of Apple Computer in perpetuity. By purchasing the following license and taking possession of the device(s), you further agree to not disclose any manufacturer defects and/or problems that are encountered while in possession of said device."
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
But if it's drowned, dropped, or ripped apart, Apple is under no obligation to pay for user carelessness. Period.
Wow. I thought that was the major selling point to buy the AppleCare protection. Doesn't seem worth it then -- to buy Apple hardware at all -- since Dell and the rest will give you a three year warranty included in the sale price.
If they were REALLY thinking different they would apply a coat of water seal to the innards so that getting wet wouldn't be such a big deal. It probably wouldn't cost any more than the immersion detectors.
I don't expect them to survive outdoor use in a typhoon or a sandstorm like a Toughbook, but they could at least try to put as much effort into making it survive a rough day at Starbucks as they do to void the Warranty if it gets wet.
and "abuse detection devices." All of them say whatever the huckster wants them to.
This is just a dodge to allow Apple to dodge their warranties.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
somewhat amusingly, the 'sensor' to detect if a cellphone has been immersed in water is often just a sticker with a coloured 'spot' on it that changes colour if it gets wet - it's usually in the battery compartment.
not very high tech - but it works.
more info - plus photos - here:-
http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/17/the-tell-tale-part/
I personally find this interesting as it essentially states that Apple doesn't trust the end user. Now read my logic before you mod me troll.
A company rarely researches something without a reason, so Apple has obviously seen enough loss from warranty replacement to try to find some way to shift the blame from themselves to the consumer for a product's failure. They have also apparently justified this by seeing a large percentage of these replacements being approved by inaccurate failure descriptions from users. If this is true, the new sensors would be a (somewhat) legitimate countermeasure.
Or Apple could just be looking for a way to shift the blame to the users by just stating, "You broke it, we have sensors that prove it," regardless of what really happened.
Either way, it amounts to declaring war on the end users on the warranty front.
Funny thing though... even in non-ideal markets, prices tend to approach cost + some value N dependent on factors X, Y, and Z.
When there is competition, even in a non-ideal market, reduced unit costs lead to reduced prices. Yes, there are counter-examples, but this is still the case.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Example in a differentiatable product? A product with high fixed costs?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The laws of economics do not state that lower prices lead to more purchasers. Many goods work like that, but not all.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Most economic theory assumes people in the marketplace are rational.
With Apple customers, that assumption, and the economic theory that depends on it, goes out the window!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The challenge is that Dell does fix it
Only if you pay the additional $130+ extra for "Accidental Damage Coverage", have god-like patience, and are fluent in Hindi.
For differentiable products in a competitive market, typically competitors' reactions to pricing changes preserves the monotonic quality of the demand curve. That is, decreased price will always result in increased demand, so it does not change whether this applies to differentiated products as well as commodity goods.
For items with a high fixed cost, it still holds as well... it's just that prices approach some value above the unit cost. This other value is the unit cost plus adjustments... that adjustment is proportional to the fixed cost but inversely proportional to the production volume. For very high fixed costs, the market leads to monopoly or oligopoly as economies of scale work... but a reduction in unit cost, if it allows pricing flexibility, will tend to a reduction in price.
Here's some additional reading if you've got an economic bent...
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/ely.dahan/content/unit_cost.pdf
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I've watched my teenage son kill a cell phone and a 4th gen Nano merely with palm sweat during runs. Apple denied warranty repair/replace for the four month old Nano, based on it's immersion detector. I've avoided same by cupping my cell phone and putting my Touch in a neoprene belt holder.
Luke, help me take this mask off
How?
When a mac fanboy's ipod dies and cant get it fixed under warranty they'll go out and buy another ipod. The fanboy wont even consider alternate devices like an iriver nor even think about considering that Apple products have a high rate of failure.
Apple does not do this. It's difficult for a mac fan to see but they are well and truly behind the bell curve with technology.
This is what Apple sells, the image. This is why fanboys will keep buying Apple no matter what abuses it requires the user to undergo.
No it wont. Apple products are made with the same off the shelf components as Dell, they are made in similar factories to Dell. Apple could already sell their products at a far lower cost, seeing as they don't suffer the windows tax they could undercut Dell. The simple fact is by buying Apple you've already proven that you're willing to overpay.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What, you saw a bunch of iMacs? Those are the computers - that slab of aluminum is all there is. There's nothing hidden under the counter.
The only computer Apple makes that they could conceivably hide is the Mac Mini, and there's no reason to - it's about the size of four CD jewel cases. It's small enough that you might be excused for not noticing it - but no Apple Stores hide them.
This space intentionally left blank.
I don't need to dream. Facts shows that I earn - in real wealth - about twice as much as an electrical engineer did in the 1920s. That's the result of increasing efficiencies and cost-cutting, which allows more money to flow towards the employees, managers, and stock holders.
Prices have also dropped. My namesake the Commodore 64 cost about $1200 (in 2008 dollars) with the actual computer plus disk drive. That was the cheapest computer you could buy, whereas today the cheapest new computer is about $300. One-fourth as much.
Again this is the result of cost-cutting and increasing efficiency which benefits the consumers and society overall.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Bought an automobile in the last few years? Then you're probably already living with this.
-Ed Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
If I had mod points... Good post sir. Too bad there will be plenty of anti-apple posts that wont take into account any logic you have presented. Just cause it's cool to be anti-apple.
I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
uhhh... Mac Pro? Or did Apple suddenly cease production?
Oh, right, forgot about the cloaking device on the new generation =).
I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
Or just tell them you lost it, even if you haven't dropped it in water or lost it. And then do it again once you get the new one. Repeat ad nauseam. Profit. (Did I miss a step?)
I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
Do you have any inside knowledge as to when Apple will fix the dual DVI mini display port "issue"?
http://gizmodo.com/5119858/apples-mini-displayport-to-dual+link-dvi-adapter-has-periodic-distortion-issues
Typical comment on problem: "I don't understand why there's still no fix for this. This adapter isn't exactly cheap either. I'm using an Imac 2.93 Ghz with the crapdapter to a 3007wfp Dell 30" LCD and am experiencing the exact problems as everybody else."
My previous generation MacBook Pro worked fine out-of-the-box with my 30" monitor at its native resolution. The new one didn't, I had to spend $100 to get one that "would" (after being sold the wrong adapter by a Mac store genius) and it's STILL screwing up my display periodically.
...the warranty service and parts replacement is literally second to none.
Chuck it in a swimming pool then smash it up, onsite Next Day Fix - no questions asked.
Simple.
As an ex DELL warranty tech I know this happened more often than you would think.
No need for the continuation of anti trust when DELL really cares about its customer base and growth. I recommend them to everyone after committing years worth of teching for them.
... making the products more durable, rather than adding the "fuck you" sensors?
Apple Inc. is one evil bastardization of a once great company.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Apple cheat though. Their customers are brainwashed pod people who make excuses for pretty much any abuse by Apple E.g.
http://www.macworld.com/article/131991/2008/02/ipodtouch.html
The iPod touch software update released at last month's Macworld Expo added applications that already appeared on the iPhone along with other new features. But it also delivered some confusion among iPod touch owners who wondered why they were being charged $19.99 for a software update.
It turns out Apple didn't have much of a choice about charging for the iPod touch January software update, according to analysts familiar with accounting regulations.
"It's an accounting requirement that if you upgrade a device that's not on a subscription, you have to charge," Needham and Company financial analyst Charles Wolf said. "Apple has a choice of what to charge, but they have to charge."
Yeah, he only hits me cuz he loves me. Bwahahaha.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Can you imagine all the cool new possibilities for iphone games if they make this available from applications? Dive down to 100 meters to save Nemo Cooking game where you need to show that you put the owen at 200C for 25 minutes Car wrecking game where you get extra crash bonus if your phone hits certain Gs. Possibilities are endless!
I'm pretty sure the service tech has a good way to detect fakes with high accuracy.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
You're kidding, right? The computers are integrated into the monitors (in the case of the iMac) or prominently displayed next to the monitors.
The "mysterious holes" supply power and ethernet connectivity.
You couldn't hide a Mac Pro behind a counter, they're enormous. I guess you could if you really cared to, but come on - it's pretty obvious the GP looked into an Apple Store, saw a bunch of iMacs, and came away with the wrong impression...
This space intentionally left blank.
Think about it this way: Apple has a warranty on that part just like you do. If you've modified a machine and Apple replaced your cheap-o RAM or bargain-basement hard drive if it's found to be at fault, they'd be Major League Chumps. Although, you'd get screwed, too, because if you upgraded with a non-Apple part, Apple would replace what they sold you. You buy a five-hundred gigabyte hard drive? You get back the three-fifty that was originally installed. You upgrade two gigs of RAM to four? You get back two.
The AppleCare Warranty is actually VERY clear: Any defective part that Apple sold you is fully warranted for three years as long as the defect isn't traceable to customer abuse or accident.
That's it.
And you'd be surprised at the number of people who think that AppleCare covers the disappearance of their iPhoto Library into the trash...
Do you use the Nintendo policy of "if it's there it's at fault" or do you actually check if it was at fault?
I'd be stupid not to check. I always ask if any modifications have been made to the machine. If the original parts are available, I swap them in and test. If you don't have the original parts, you're out of luck. If you do have them and the original parts work, you're out of luck. If the machine doesn't work with the original parts replaced, then the problem is attributable to something else and is covered.
As Apple's representative to the customer, I owe the company and the customer my best effort
Honey, those are the iMacs.
I'm sure you could hide one in a counter - it's the size of a normal midtower/full tower case.
Anyways, I'm not sure what GP was talking about, but I would be really surprised if a slashdot reader had no idea what freakin iMacs were... Not exactly the latest or most obscure innovation from Apple...
I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
At least I have way more room on my desk for the giant pile of empty pop cans and chip bags, I'm totally able to revel in my supreme laziness now, I haven't had to clean my desk for WEEKS!
When you can walk into an Apple Store and all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden
You know, iMacs actually have the computer inside the monitor for real, and not hidden away in some counter?
Technical specification states what temperature and humidity levels are allowable for device. If someone use device outside spec, it his fault. If environment was humid enough to make LSI red, it was humid enough to cause damage to electronic circuits. Read the manual, don't use devices outside spec. If you think you environment is not suitable for device, don't buy.
:wq
Most economic theory assumes people in the marketplace are rational.
With Apple customers, that assumption, and the economic theory that depends on it, goes out the window!
Really? This got modded up as "Insightful"? Maybe some people just looked at their earnings, looked at their market and realized that paying a couple hundred bucks premium every 2-4 years was worth not dealing with the virus/trojan/spyware breeding ground that is Windows, or the usability clusterfuck that is any other desktop Unix-alike? My time has value, time spent fixing my computer, installing anti-virus software or googling for some obscure condition just so some hardware will work or fonts are smooth is time wasted.
You might enjoy it, that's fine.
I also fail to recognize how buying a premium product is "irrational". All of us buy premium products in some area, most of us buy them at all time. Food, furniture, toiletries, etc - not much of what I buy is bottom of the barrel cheapest. Why should my computer be any different? Why should I go for an ugly box with dozens of cables coming out of it, I didn't buy an ugly couch or an ugly shirt, just because it was a couple bucks cheaper.
As much as I am loath to use this term, I'll do it: grow the fuck up, already.
They are going to reduce customer rights and abilities, while at the same time increasing the cost of their products, so unless the warranty claims are enormous compared to the lost revenue from increased costs, then this is a very large intrusion of privacy. Just another way apple is trying to lay down their own law. Only use their products with their proprietary hardware and software, their products with apps only certified by them by their store, allow no customer customization, unless they do it, and so on. How can such an evil company be so popular?
Although, you'd get screwed, too, because if you upgraded with a non-Apple part, Apple would replace what they sold you. You buy a five-hundred gigabyte hard drive? You get back the three-fifty that was originally installed. You upgrade two gigs of RAM to four? You get back two.
That is theft, plain and simple. If I have installed my own property in a device, they are stealing if they don't return it to me.
FC Closer
It wasn't until the earpiece eventually failed because of poor soldering that I had to take it in.
It is possible that the repeated changes in temperatures is what caused the solder to fail, and not any flaw in the actual solder job. Nevertheless, I would agree that this is normal wear-and-tear and should have been covered if the warranty covers normal wear (not likely). As a cell phone though, I would feel they have extra reason to make sure you still have the same or a very similar phone in order to justify charging you for their service plan.
ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
When you can walk into an Apple Store and all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden
Those aren't monitors. Those are imacs.
Sounds like time for a class action to me.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Except that there's too many small variations in model years unlike in the Dells so you can only "transplant" parts from the exact same model year rather than a 2-3 year line.
OTOH dell has a lot more lines running at once.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Those are iMacs. The computer is built in to the monitor.
That's would be an ace warranty claim: the device works, but the abuse sensors are broken. :-)
Insert
but if you've installed third-party drives or memory to which a problem is attributable, tough luck, Chuck
See, that's where the problem is. Attributing a problem to a user installed third-party device is opened to interpretation.
For example, if the machine came with a defective second sata port to which i've plugged in a top-of-the-line western digital hard-drive - and the drive bursts in flames destroying both the drive and the computer... who's to blame? How can you KNOW what caused the problem?
Sure, you could say that if the user hadn't plugged in the extra drive, this wouldn't have happened - and you'll be right - but then why would one buy a machine with these sort of restrictions and limitations?
Why would you bother with a warranty that has that sort of disclaimer attached to it?
Sigs are for the weak.
I saw exactly the same thing at the Boston Computer Museum. Obviously, there's no need to know what kind of computers were running all the displays in a museum, since you have to maintain the magic and illusion of the Black Box.
That's probably why when I went, most of the machines were Amigas, and were hidden in painted wooden boxes. Several name-brand PCs has their cases and keyboards spray painted in brilliant colors. They did have an Atari ST that wasn't hidden from view, though. It was running the gift shop cash register.
All the Macs, however, were prominently on display, and there was a 15-ft Apple banner sprawled across the ceiling. Go figure.
That's nonsense. A Mac comes with the Terminal, you can run all kinds of languages on it, and they give you, for free, tons of programming tools. What percent of people learn languages? Probably about the same number as with Windows: not many. Of course, you have to be a bit of a programmer just to run Linux. Have you seen Applescript? Do you know you can actually write simple apps with it? Do you know about Automator?
My point is, a Mac is a real computer. It happens to be well-designed, and all of a piece, hardware and software. And the idea is that granny can figure out how to send an e-mail with only a few pointers. Lots of things can be run very easily and instinctively, and then, if you want to invest the effort, you can control much more of your experience with scripting and coding.
Of course, there are many points in Windows where you can't figure out what to do next, and the instructions seem written by a committee composed of a PR guy, a nerd, and the people who designed the registry. But there are some, especially on Slashdot, who think that weird, quirky interfaces with options you set seven levels of tabs deep make something "a real computer." I think it makes it a real pain.
I have visited official Apple Store once (the one on Regent Street in London), and the products they were selling were clearly visible. Maybe you saw iMacs, which to PC-user look just like a normal LCD-screen.
Are you seriously claiming that Mac-users walk in to a store, and buy computers without looking at them and testing them first? Or maybe you are just dumb enough to confuse an iMac with a screen?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
"Does anyone actually think that these sensors are going to be used in any other way than blanket warranty denials?"
I'm waiting for the health insurance companies to start inserting sensors in their customers so if one engages in any policy-voiding behavior it will be detected.
"sensors detecting extreme environmental exposures" this sounds like an exploding battery would set off the sensors and apple would claim abuse and not give a refund.
What the hell are you talking about? All the computers in Apple stores are on full display, the holes in the counters are for power connections. I can only assume your confusion stems from the iMac, which is an all in one computer, with the appearance of a chunky monitor..
Who's a big brainy Wall Street type then?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Spoken like a man who hasn't been in many Apple Shops. I am very familiar with 2 different shops (in 2 diff countries). The iMacs and their keyboards sit on a table, as do all the laptops, and I am 95% sure Mac Pros are also clearly on display, with the cases on the same tables and counters.
Even if you aren't being disingenous but are merely being thick, consider this:
Apple computers are partly sold on being "pretty" why would they hide all that design for which they are (I'm sure you would insist) price gouging? They are going to show off their key selling points are they not? Take your tired, lazy prejudice back to the linux forum. (The most generous I can come up with is that iPods have trailing leads that disappear under the table and you are confused by that.)
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/30/trickle-down-economics-fails-to-deliver-as-promised/
Ya know it helps if you actually read the articles you link. QUOTE:
"Increases in inequality lead to more growth," the paper's authors wrote. "There appears to be some trickle-down effect in the long run." i.e. The $1/hour increase for engineers/managers that I discussed in my great-great-grandparent post.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Blatently untrue. Oftentimes, sure. Usually, yeah. Always, certainly not. Not only can decreaded price not increase demand, but there are some products which, when price is decreased, demand followed.
Example, if the "I'm rich" app went from $999.99 down to $900, more likely fewer people would buy it. Certainly if it went down to $999 dollars.
Sure, on goods where the demand curve will give them more units. But the decrease in price will not be the same as, nor even necessarily proportional to, the decrease in costs. It could be more, but that would involve a strange demand curve. Much more likely it's significantly less.
But I asked for an example. It's hard to find one. That's because typically cost savings decrease the unit price of a good by less than the quantum in pricing (you never see goods for ****.97). To the degree to which it does decrease the price, it only decreases the wholesale price. Pricing for consumers isn't affected by a two-cent reduction.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
but since the impact of a change in inequality on economic growth is quite small, it is difficult to be sure from our estimates whether the bottom 90% will really be better off or not."
Given what Apple charges for RAM upgrades, you can install quite nice RAM and still make a savings. If you buy a MacBook, they'll currently charge you $100 for 4 GB of RAM, when the same type will cost you only $50 from Crucial, Kingston, or another major manufacturer.
The ambiguity is in how carefully and fairly that is determined. No doubt in many cases it's unclear why the system failed (e.g., with a dead motherboard). Then the question will be is the 3rd party RAM you put in guilty until proved innocent or the other way around. The point is that it's a lot of money to pay for a warranty if you're not sure how you'll actually be covered in practice.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Seems to me he asked a slightly different question: If there are non-Apple parts in the machine BUT the problem is obviously not related to them, do you reject the repair simply for that reason if they can't produce the 'original' parts they swapped out? Not trying to be insulting in the least, only curious.
BMW black boxes their cars so that they know if the engine has been in an overspeed condition. This is easy to do if the owner of a manual transmission car redlines it, and then downshifts instead of upshifts and dumps the clutch. Should BMW cover abuse if the owner blows up the engine? Nope. Same principle here.
(but if you've installed third-party drives or memory to which a problem is attributable, tough luck, Chuck).
Uh, how do third-party drives or memory ever constitute a warranty problem?
What you are missing is that Apple is not selling steak, it's selling sizzle. When you can walk into an Apple Store and all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden, you begin to understand that the standard consumer has no idea what a computer is beyond some kind of fancy interactive TV set.
FTFY
Umm... what Apple store are you visiting? Most of their computers have built in monitors and the mac pros are always proudly displayed because they are gorgeous. I'm suspecting you have never actually been in one.
Except for the iMacs, where you see the computer too. Oh yeah, and the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, where the computer is sitting right there for you to see also.
Don't forget the Mac Pros, which are also sitting right on top of the counter.
Wait, which systems were you looking at when you created your straw man? I forget.
So do what everyone else does with cars/computers/etc. Buy the aftermarket parts, install them yourself, then if you have a problem, swap in the originals if you're worried.
If the problem is still there, it must be something else. If the problem goes away, it was probably the shit parts you bought.
Why is this so hard for people to figure out?
...all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden...
It's called an iMac, retard.
What you are missing is that Apple is not selling steak, it's selling sizzle. When you can walk into an Apple Store and all you see are monitors, with wires running into holes in the counter where the mysterious computers are hidden, you begin to understand that the standard Apple consumer has no idea what a computer is beyond some kind of fancy interactive TV set.
I don't think so Steve. I've never seen this in any Apple store I've been to. The computers are on the counter next to the monitor. Why hide a Mac Pro or a Mini - they look awesome. Or maybe you're confused by the iMac?
As I said, if you don't have the original parts, you're out of luck.
Inferior RAM is the leading cause of kernel panics. And drives are rated by Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF). Buy a cheaply-made drive and it's going to fail more quickly than a better-quality drive. Bad RAM can cause enough data corruption to scramble a hard drive. Parts installed incorrectly can lead to shorts or physical damage.
For instance, if you install a 7200-RPM SATA drive in a machine that came with a 5400-RPM drive, you've exceeded the specs of the machine as sold. If the faster drive isn't supported and something goes wrong, you're out of luck.
apple is under no obligation, but we not under any obligation to buy their overpriced bullshit. this guy talking about the laptop pried apart.... they design them so you cant take them apart. I fix computers for a living. Laptops are designed to get fucked up if you have to take them apart. even if you are qualified..... that way they look like shit and eventually you have to buy another one. you wouldnt have someone trying to get that fixed if you just put the laptop together with a few screws insted of stupid ass plastic clips.... but they sell more computers.....
Asshole.
Those fancy TV sets are the computers - they are called iMac.
Dear All - this is a huge rant about something very simple.
Apple like any other manufacturer has every right to protect itself against warranty claims that are not valid. Scores of others are already doing the same thing.
As a consumer I have every right to buy the products I believe are appropriately priced, built and backed up by warranty.
This is simply a case of technology becoming available - the same advances in technology that bring you these amazing products.
Do you all honestly believe this is just some way to save a few bucks - this company is already one of the top market cap companies on earth. They don't need the petti cash.
It is that simple. No ifs no buts.
No, you won't save any money on the MacBook sticker price because (1) that price is set by market research, not costs, and (2) AppleCare is the "product" that forces most Apple warranty payout, not the MacBook itself.
Will you save money on AppleCare? Not much.
A normal hardware vender sells you primarily hardware, usually bundling windows, but not providing excessive software support. You will get laughed off the line if you claim your extended warranty says Dell owes you help for backing up your hard disk. By comparison, you're buying considerable software support when you buy AppleCare, like some guy explaining how you activate time machine. *But* AppleCare buys you far far less hardware warranty coverage.
Why does Apple bundle their extended warranty & software support contract like this? I see many reasons : nobody would buy the support contract otherwise, users don't understand the difference, gives users a more seamless experience, etc.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell