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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."
Even cheap cell phones have submersion detectors these days to prevent people from turning in phones that got dropped into water. Although 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)
Some companies are really good about returned items even with obvious misuse. I'll never buy any watch other than a citizen again after my last one got replaced. I sent the half of it that I could find back with a letter telling them it stopped a rifle round and thanked them for making such darn good watches and within a week I had a brand new one that I never even asked for. Plus never having to worry about batteries or time zones is a MAJOR plus for me. I just wish they made one with a vibrating alarm so I could use it in the field.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Many companies already include such devices in their phones. The one you have already may have passive water immersion sensors ... little stickers that change color if they get wet. I know for a fact that a number of LG and Samsung models have these, just inside the battery compartment. Google "cell phone water sensor" for a flavoring of what's already out there...
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.
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?
I have never had a problem with Apple taking care of equipment I've purchased from them.
Many years ago, I packed my laptop in a briefcase that was filled to the brim. It's the only time I had ever travelled that way, and it will be the last. The case was initially snug, but after receiving more paperwork on the job, the briefcase became too full, and when I closed the lid, the external pressure cracked the LCD in several pieces. Apple replaced the screen at no cost to me, though I wouldn't have held them to doing so, and I didn't misrepresent what had happened.
A few months ago, my MacBook Pro failed to boot. Had been shutdown properly and unplugged, but on attempted restart failed to do anything. I tried the various resets I remembered, googled for other options; no joy. Dead computer. I suspected the drive was OK, and I really didn't want to lose the work I had been doing; so I removed the hard drive and installed it in a G4 tower, moved all my files over, then reassembled the laptop. Naturally, one of the tiny exterior case screws fell into the carpet while I was reassembling, never to be seen again.
The computer was, I think, obviously clean and well taken care of; but the missing screw was probably enough to void the warranty, even without any fancier patented sensors installed. Certainly suggested the computer had been opened. Even so, Apple replaced the motherboard without question under Apple Care.
Anecdotal - of course. But it's my experience, and I'll keep going to Apple until such a time as they make it not worth my while.
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.
Apple is already happy to deny warranties based on any circumstancial evidence.
They denied a warranty claim on my wife's iBook when its hard drive got click-of-death and simply gave up. They claimed that we had spilled coffee into the laptop, and attemped to document this via "brown dots" on the metal shield on the bottom of the laptop's inner-metal liner [i.e. the exterior side, not the logic board side].
I asked them how they figured one could spill coffee against the forces of gravity from the bottom up into a laptop, and furthermore how this would prevent a hard drive from spinning up properly.
The apple store employee was livid that I would dare to question his judgement, but no matter how I pressed the issue, he simply responded with "our warranty doesn't cover your mistakes.". Never mind that hard drives are a known failure item on computers; it just happens sometimes and you get a replacement and life goes on. Not so with apple.
The actual convesration was considerably more demeaning towards me. I was reasonably tempted to commit physical assault against the guy, and it was only the fact that the conversation transpired over a phone that probably kept me out of jail.
Essentially, fuck apple.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
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