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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 13 2017, @03:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the planned-obsolescence dept.

Over at Vice/Motherboard is an article on the expected lifetime of apple phones, based on the proceedings in a class action lawsuit over problems with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices.

When it released its iPhone 7 Environmental Report a year ago, Apple wrote that it "conservatively assumes a three-year period for power use by first owners," which is "based on historical customer use data for similar products."

Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of iOS, iPad, and iPhone Marketing, told Buzzfeed last month that iPhones are "the highest quality and most durable devices. We do this because it's better for the customer, for the iPhone, and for the planet."

But in court, Apple argues that it is only responsible for ensuring the iPhone lasts one year, the default warranty you get when you buy an iPhone.

The case in question is related to problems with the touch screen, as the soldering connections to the controller IC fail. However this failure only occurs after months of normal usage.

In that court case, currently being litigated in California, the plaintiffs attempted to argue that "consumers reasonably expect that smartphones will remain operable for at least two years when not subject to abuse or neglect because the overwhelming majority of smartphone users are required to sign service contracts with cellular carriers for two year periods."

Apple's motion to dismiss in that case noted that the plaintiffs' phones broke more than a year after they were purchased, which is after the warranty expired. If your phone breaks after the warranty is up, well, you're out of luck, Apple argues.

Arturo González, the lawyer representing Apple in the case, wrote in the motion [...] that it is "not appropriate for courts to rewrite the express terms of a warranty simply because of a consumer's unilateral expectations about a product."

More background on the case from last October in Fortune


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by julian on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:52PM (2 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:52PM (#567534)

    So let's say this was true for computers. You bought an 8-bit computer in the 1970s with a Zilog Z-80 CPU and 8k of RAM. It still works today in 2017, *exactly* as well as it did in 1977!

    Are you still using it? I doubt it. Can't even get online (maybe some BBS but not the www).

    Your phone might work after 5-10 years of gentle use, but you're not going to *want* to use it anymore after that long.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:49AM (#567675)

    That all depends on how locked down/bug brother/think of the children the new phones are.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:52AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:52AM (#567744) Homepage
    My phone's from 2009, and I still use it exactly as I did back then, as a GSM phone and a remote terminal to my home network, so I don't need a faster processor or more RAM. I'm on the 2nd one, and I have 3 more spares, so I expect I have another 12 years of the same usage pattern ahead of me.
    --
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