Apple Changes Stance On Water Damage Policy

tekgoblin writes "It appears Apple has changed its stance on whether an iOS device is actually water damaged. If you remember when the 13-year-old girl sued Apple in December, it was because her iPhone's moisture sensors had gone off and Apple voided her warranty. Those sensors have also been triggered by simply exposing the phone to low temperatures. Now Apple says that if the moisture sensors are red but the customer disputes and says no liquid has come into contact with the device, the warranty may still apply."

Awesome!

[MrEricSir]

This will save me a lot of money on dry cleaning.

Not Always Right

[RobertB-DC]

I know the cell phone companies (including Apple in this overgeneralization) are a bunch of greedy so-and-so's, but a quick perusal of the stories at (The Customer Is) NotAlwaysRight.com will show why the Water Damage excuse is rather valid.

Such as, the borderline fraudulent:

Why Contracts are a Gazillion Pages Long [notalwaysright.com] ...

Me: "Thats right, but there are conditions, one being that the phone cant have any liquid or physical damage. I need to check for that."

Customer: "Fine, here."

(When I open up the phone, it stinks of alcohol.)

Me: "Sorry, this smells like it has alcohol on it."

Customer: "Oh, well, I dropped it in the sink and I know you wont fix it if it has water damage, but I didnt have any ethylated spirits, so I soaked it in vodka for 2 days to dry it out."

And then, the just stupid:

Beefed-Up Technology [notalwaysright.com]

(I was a customer at a cell phone store, observing the following exchange.)

Employee: "Im sorry sir, but your phone has water damage, which isnt covered by the warranty. You will have to purchase a new phone."

Customer: "Thats ridiculous! I havent gotten the phone wet!"

Employee: "Have you used the phone in the rain? Sometimes, thats all it takes to get the internals wet enough to damage the device."

Customer: "Well, yes, but that doesnt make any sense! Cows are in the rain all the time and they dont die!"

Employee: "..."

Me: *interjecting* "Sir, cows arent electronic devices."

Customer: *storms out*

(Fair warning, though... My Ghostery plug-in shows a whopping 18 web-watchers on that site. No wonder it won't come up on my phone. Or maybe it's the water damage.)

Re:Escape clause

[interkin3tic]

In other words, nothing has changed; it is still at their sole discretion if they wishes to honor the warranty.

Or maybe someone realized that nothing works 100% of the time and maybe they shouldn't deny 100% of the claims where the sensor is red and the language is reasonably updated to reflect that.

Or to be even more cynical so as to be more of a karma whore, this undoubtedly means that apple updated their TOS to where if you send your phone in for warranty repairs, they'll keep it if it has water damage. They're trying to encourage more people to send in their phones so apple can put them in pillow cases and beat baby seals to death.