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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:40PM (#567784)

    I view it as an experiment. We're testing one of the underpinning assumptions of the theory of free markets.

    Are people so gullible that it's possible to create the image of a premium product with nothing but marketing and charge for a premium product when the product is actually quite average?

    Is it possible to keep this up indefinitely? How long will the tribalism instinct cause people to reject reports that indicate that the device they paid a premium for is not, in fact, a premium device?

    Disclaimer: My existing belief is that the free market, especially in the age of the internet, should quickly expose premium brands that do not product premium products but charge a premium. However, I have begun questioning that belief of mine.