Apple changes policy on liquid damage to iPods

I have visited the Apple Store in Southampton today. Only two of my iphone water sensors had changed colour, one inside and one outside, yet they refused to repair this under guarantee saying that they only needed to see that one sensor had changed colour inside not both.

This is a complete contradiction to what Apple have told the BBC Watchdog Programme.

It seems that Apple's word cannot be trusted.

Very disgruntled.

BBC Watchdog investigated iPhone liquid damge back in June.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2010/06/iphone_problems.html

I use the iPhone while working out. Getting a shuffle brings me back to carrying two devices, which I don't want to do.

let's say your headphones come in contact with moisture. sticking the plug in the jack might trigger it - but "incidental" contact with water should be permissible.

should be pretty easy to figure out if water was splashed on it, or if it was dropped in the pool.

it could be a result of some kind of settlement

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100420/1242449116.shtml

The complaint states, "As a result of Apple's improper application of the Liquid-Damage Exclusion, Apple sells [devices] with the intent to exclude them from the warranty coverage Apple promises consumers it will provide -- even when consumers pay extra for Extended Warranty coverage -- simply because their Liquid Submersion Indicator has been triggered, without any attempt by Apple to verify whether the Class Devices actually have been damaged as a result of submersion or immersion in liquid."

Rather Apple mistrusts its local tech support, resellers and carriers. In Poland when you return iPhone for any reason they return it after regulatory 14 working days with a note: phone has water demage. They take no other action, everything is filed as water demage. That's it. End of story. Basicly you're boned.

This policy change wasn't done now, but in June. At least in Europe.

Also, it does not require verification of the internal liquid indicators on iPods as these are not possible to open in any normal way. The liquid indicators must be verified on iPhones though.

And it is not required for the internal LCI's to be triggered. It is only required that some evidence, other than the external LCI's, is present. Evidence can be corrosion or something else. Internal LCI's are one kind of evidence of liquid damage.

The reason for the policy change is probably not that Apple doesn't trust the external LCI's, but that they got an enormous amount of criticism from customers who think Apple just put the external LCI's there to fool people.