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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
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:35PM (11 children)
I'm having trouble here understanding the problem here.
I have a 2-year-old laptop, and it's running fine. It had a 2-year warranty. So the company warrants that it will last for a minimum of 2 years. However, when I bought it, I expected it would last for 4+ years. The same can be said for my LG phone, my Motorola Bluetooth headset, my car, my refrigerator, and countless other things. However, those are expectations, and if my Bluetooth headset were to break today I'd be upset, but not surprised given its now out of warranty.
I fail to see the contradiction between having a warranty, and having an expectation that a device will last longer than that. The only potential issue I see is if this were a case of false or misleading advertising, in which case we'd need metrics about the failure curve of iPhones. If the average is 2 years or longer, I don't see much of a case here... as Apple said, those who had problems between the 1 and 2 year timeframe are just unlucky.
If you want a phone to be guaranteed to last 2 years, then buy one with a 2-year-warranty. It seems unreasonable and unfair to go to a manufacturer and say, "I'll pay for barebones plan, but expect premium service." If you want it, it's entirely expected that you should pay for it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:44PM (5 children)
If you want a phone to be guaranteed to last 2 years, then buy one with a 2-year-warranty. It seems unreasonable and unfair to go to a manufacturer and say, "I'll pay for barebones plan, but expect premium service." If you want it, it's entirely expected that you should pay for it.
That only makes sense if the manufacturer only claims that the device will reliably last 1 year. If they're making public claims and advertisements that their device is "the most durable device" and will last many years, then a 1-year warranty is intellectually dishonest. In short, I think a case could be made that companies should absolutely be held to their marketing claims; otherwise they're getting away with false advertising.
Moreover, these phones are typically sold with 2-year contracts. I don't see how that should be legal; if you're buying into a 2-year plan that includes a device, that device should be expected to last 2 years minimum. If they only want to warrant it for 1 year, then they should only be allowed to sell them in 1-year plans. (Or, the carrier should be required to warrant the device for the full 2 years as part of their plan.)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday September 13 2017, @06:09PM (2 children)
And hence this court case.
Their advertising claim caught up with them.
Every automobile manufacturer learned to state warranties in measurable turns (miles, months, etc). But Apple just made some casual statements about durability based on the average age of similar devices. The court case is to determine if this amounts to a warranty extension.
Does expectation actually count as advertising? That's an open question.
I suspect it does not equate to a warranty because the statement was not based on similar devices, and was in terms of "expectations" and never stated anything close to a promise.
Batteries have a limited charge/discharge life expectancy. You can run through much of the expected battery longevity within a year of charge to max, use aggressively all the time till exhaustion, rinse and repeat. The phones these days are sealed, and batteries are not user serviceable. The electronics may be good for 10 years. But they can hardly warrant one part and exclude another while at the same time voiding your warranty if you open the phone to replace the battery.
I would say that they couldn't offer much longer warranty while using this battery technology in a sealed device while imposing no built in limits to usage.
So I could make the claim that their warranty is intellectually and legally honest, while their "protected speech" gushing about their product is clearly NOT.
Turn's out its NOT the "best thing ever".
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:59PM
This is why I am concerned about the Galaxy 8. I go through 1.5 batteries worth every day. Which is why I carry a spare fully charged battery to swap in. What do Galaxy 8 users do?
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:06AM
Any company of Apple's size is employing manufacturing engineers. They're looking at each component and performing complex analyses on each part to both bring the cost of manufacturing down, and balancing that against warranty costs. Plus of course the reputation cost of having a Samsung, err, I mean lemon.
You could go to any of these companies and people in the know would be able to tell you their design parameters. The fact that Apple has them, and the fact that they're designed to last more than a year, are both such obvious facts that anyone with any manufacturing knowledge or common sense would probably not even consider them to be worth mentioning.
I still stand by the fact that essentially saying "we design our phones to last at least three years but we only guarantee our phones to last one" is an entirely logical and defensible position. Then again I am neither a lawyer, nor a Californian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
Okay, then let's consider the following failure curve.
1 year: 5% of devices have failed
2 years: 10% of devices have failed
3 years: 20% of devices have failed
4 years: 50% of devices have failed
5 years: 80% of devices have failed
6 years: 100% of devices have failed.
So how would you warrant and advertise this device. In my mind, I think it would be reasonable to say "we provide a 1-year warranty for this product, but we expect it to last 3 years or longer."
However, it sounds like you would say that that is false advertising and subject to a lawsuit. So how would you sell it? Keep in mind you are also trying to maximize profits for your company, so offering a 6-year warranty is great customer service, but will make you go bankrupt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:09PM
Assuming that is the failure curve for the device under normal and/or expected use, you wouldn't. You'd fire the design and engineering teams that produced such a shoddy piece of junk. That curve is just shameful and I really hope you pulled it out of your ass because it's shit.
If that is a real-life failure curve, PLEASE tell me what product it is so I know to never, ever buy it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:26PM (3 children)
How is it a premium service expecting a phone, or pretty much any electrical device, to work atleast 2 years (unless it's mishandled, that's a different thing)? Fridges cost less than an iphone and they are expected to work a lot longer.
Why don't you smell what you are shoveling.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:42PM (2 children)
And toilets outlast fridges by decades.
Anvils are usually good for 200 years.
Put some electronics and a limited life-cycle battery into something meant to be carried around by careless humans and you have the worst possible working environment.
Post back after you've carried your fridge around every day for a year.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @06:20PM (1 child)
Why don't you come back after you learn to read.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:19PM
I doubt that constant/normal use would count as mishandling.
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(Score: 4, Funny) by frojack on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:27PM
Pretty much exactly how I see it.
The warranty protects you against defects in "materials and workmanship", and a few other things that are specifically mentioned. (With due regard for the LONG list of exclusions).
It should cover things like "you're holding it wrong" or "you're bending it wrong" - both afflictions suffered by iPhones over the years, as well as fire in the pants Samsung fails. There are implied assumptions about suitability for purpose etc etc that have been added by legislation in some places.
Its unusual for have a purely electronic device just fail with no abuse. Its expected to have a battery fail. Its expected that some memory devices may degrade.
Cell phones are an odd combination of various MTBF items.
Once its in your hands, its pretty much your responsibility to take care if it.
You have far more influence over the device life than the manufacturer, it was in their hands for mere weeks. In yours for years.
I don't know what this "power user" of which apple speaks is. I rather suspect it is a teen age girl.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.