Although only this year Apple introduced a new rule for repairing the iPhone 12, which provides for the replacement of many components from those that could not be replaced before, the company is rather reluctant to repair all other smartphones. The most that Cupertino can afford to replace is a battery, a display or something else, not very serious. If the case turned out to be more complicated, the user is offered to pay extra, and a new device is issued. Another thing is that, in fact, it turns out to be not entirely new, and they want to sue Apple for this.
Few people know that devices that Apple issues for replacement due to a failed repair, if the user agreed to pay extra, very often belong to the category of refurbished. That is, when you are asked to give a “new” iPhone to replace yours, this is not always the case. For these purposes, Cupertino especially contains a warehouse where machines marked refurbished are stored, designed just for such cases. However, there was a group of users who found this fact categorically unacceptable.
Refurbished iPhone instead of a new one
Lawyers of the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple Inc., accusing it of misleading an unlimited number of people by issuing restored smartphones as new ones. Although the company clearly states in terms of service that it reserves the right to provide consumers with products that are equivalent to new ones in performance and reliability, consumers themselves believe that refurbished devices are not really such.
Their position is that refurbished devices, in the vast majority of cases, use already used components. Therefore, a priori cannot be equivalent to the new one in terms of reliability. The display, case, battery, and, of course, complete accessories are replaced with new ones, and the motherboard, on which all the hardware of the device is hung, remains the same, which means that it has less residual resource than the new one. Accordingly, according to users, Apple is simply cashing in on them.
How new iPhones differ from refurbished ones
In fact, the claim’s content makes sense since Apple is actually saving on new components by installing those that have already been used once in refurbished smartphones. Another thing is that, firstly, devices that someone handed over to the store immediately after purchase are often included for restoration. And, secondly, Apple absolutely accurately checks the operability of all components that are reused. Therefore, there is no doubt that all the parts that have migrated from the old gadget to the new one have no problems.
But in favour of the fact that the restored devices still differ from the new ones, two facts testify:
- Apple deliberately designates refurbished devices as refurbished, writing this on the packaging and generally using other boxes for such devices. This is a worldwide practice, and Apple is not the only manufacturer doing this. And if refurbished devices are truly equivalent to new ones, why don’t companies just put them in a new box and sell them as new?
- One of the components that Apple can reuse is solid-state drives, which have a limited life and tend to wear out. Most likely, Cupertino monitors this and does not put completely worn-out memory modules into restored devices. Still, the very fact of the finite resource of an SSD can leave unpleasant sensations.
Personally, I don’t see a big problem in issuing refurbished devices instead of new ones. But the very fact that someone can get a new iPhone instead of an old one, and someone – a refurbished one, can really raise questions. After all, when we buy them in a store, Apple allows us to choose and even pay 15-20% less for a device marked refurbished, and when we request a replacement due to non-repairability, we are not given such a choice. This is not fair, to say the least.