The National goes undercover to investigate some of Apple's controversial business practices including allegations of overpriced repair charges and the battery/slowdown scandal.
Apple under fire for allegations of controversial business practices
- Thread starter swatkats
- Start date
- Status
People should check out Louis Rossmann's channel on youtube. He is the repair technician featured in this video. He is makes videos about the repairs he is doing and the stuff that Apple pulls on a regular basis.
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
Fallout from taking on Apple in that video. Louis has had his spares seized by customs calling it counterfeit.
Apple is eagerly trying to kill the 3rd party repair business though abuse of the law. They don't want 3rd parties repairing their stuff since they would not be able to force customers to spend another $2000 to buy a new laptop when ever they stop working because of design or manufacturing defects or due to minor issue that can be repaired easily.
Few other videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
Fallout from taking on Apple in that video. Louis has had his spares seized by customs calling it counterfeit.
Apple is eagerly trying to kill the 3rd party repair business though abuse of the law. They don't want 3rd parties repairing their stuff since they would not be able to force customers to spend another $2000 to buy a new laptop when ever they stop working because of design or manufacturing defects or due to minor issue that can be repaired easily.
Few other videos
I currently have a iPhone 7 & a 2018 Macbook Pro. I just pray to god that nothing wrong happens to both of these devices.
But then why did I buy Apple products?
Because its the same story for all manufacturers. Once you buy a product and it needs service, they would quote some amount that would make buying a new device cheaper.
At least for Apple Genius bar in the US, there have been many positive cases too where they repaired or replaced out-of-warranty devices or cracked screens for free.
In India that's a totally different story. The 3rd party authorised service centre refused to repair my dead iPhone 5s that was in warranty just because it had a minor dent on its metal frame.
Same happened for my Lenovo laptop. There were white pixels on the display but they refused to repair it under warranty as "company policy needs a minimum number of pixels to be white to be acceptable as a defect".
Before that I lost 20k on motherboard replacement of aa 52k Sony Vaio laptop which again failed after 6 months with the same issue as before. I had to drag them to consumer court but they kept appealing for more time and at last I gave up because I had to relocate to a different city due to my job.
And don't get me started on these cheap Chinese phone brands. One of my friend had to get his micro-usb connecter fixed for his Mi phone under warranty. After being without his phone for a week, the service center returned it un-repaired because "parts were not available". The same was done in 10 minutes in a repair shop for ~Rs. 150.
But then why did I buy Apple products?
Because its the same story for all manufacturers. Once you buy a product and it needs service, they would quote some amount that would make buying a new device cheaper.
At least for Apple Genius bar in the US, there have been many positive cases too where they repaired or replaced out-of-warranty devices or cracked screens for free.
In India that's a totally different story. The 3rd party authorised service centre refused to repair my dead iPhone 5s that was in warranty just because it had a minor dent on its metal frame.
Same happened for my Lenovo laptop. There were white pixels on the display but they refused to repair it under warranty as "company policy needs a minimum number of pixels to be white to be acceptable as a defect".
Before that I lost 20k on motherboard replacement of aa 52k Sony Vaio laptop which again failed after 6 months with the same issue as before. I had to drag them to consumer court but they kept appealing for more time and at last I gave up because I had to relocate to a different city due to my job.
And don't get me started on these cheap Chinese phone brands. One of my friend had to get his micro-usb connecter fixed for his Mi phone under warranty. After being without his phone for a week, the service center returned it un-repaired because "parts were not available". The same was done in 10 minutes in a repair shop for ~Rs. 150.
RakaKaKaka
Galvanizer
I checked the iphone 8 is very hard to repair in a teardown video. good thing i bought a 7 only. It will be the last apple product il get.
The difference from other vendors and Apple is that those other brands at least let people go to third party repair shops to repair stuff that they don't want to themselves. They don't defraud people like Apple does. They don't tell you that it will cost $1400 to repair a device that doesn't need any spares and just has a lose cable. They don't hide or prevent diagnostics. They don't go out of their way to hinder third party repairs.
Chinese brands?? I lost apple 3.5 mm to lightning adapter twice. First time it was not available with online and offline partner stores and had to a long wait for apple to restock plus multiple visits to stores. Second time - it was again just not available. And this isn’t a spare. It is an accessory that is required.
I don’t need an adapter now. Bought an android phone for use with headphones.
Apple made an agreement with Amazon to ban sale of refurbished Apple products in their market place. You will need to become Apple certified in order to sell refurbished products and need to prove that you spend at least $10 million per year on buying Apple products. So you can forget about having the chance to buy refurbished Apple products at reasonable prices.
I would not be very surprised if they soon find some means to attack personal level resale of Apple products. Wait for it.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12...mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool
Newer Mac's will no longer be reparable by third parties. So, if they decide not to repair your Mac Book or decide that they want to make you buy a new one, they can.
blr_p
Pilgrim
Hah, and who will enforce it.
You have a product i want to buy. Mutual consent. Done! in cash. no receipts.
The govt got no tax out of that transaction and you want to tell me apple has more power than them
Warranty is out of the question anyway as it isn't transferable.
It's called right of first sale and apple can't do a thing about it.
[DOUBLEPOST=1542306580][/DOUBLEPOST]
Might be an oversight. I've not found people who are generally pro apple to have any problems with him. In fact they agree with him
Games industry has definitely found ways to discourage or prevent second hand sales through lockouts. It would not be difficult for Apple to do the same and decorate it as a security/safety feature. We can already see how they are locking out third party repairs and passing it off as security.
The hardware is yours, but all the software and firmware is their proprietary property and they have used that to their advantage quite often. They can remove apps on iOS devices with out user consent citing their own ever changing policies. Its also not like they have never bricked their products and passed it off as security feature. They can very well brick a device to unusable stage without physically doing anything to the hardware. I doubt people would pay for something they will brick when by buy it second hand and try to personalize it. They can very well make personal sales impractical and just manage the govt enough to prevent them from doing anything about it.
The hardware is yours, but all the software and firmware is their proprietary property and they have used that to their advantage quite often. They can remove apps on iOS devices with out user consent citing their own ever changing policies. Its also not like they have never bricked their products and passed it off as security feature. They can very well brick a device to unusable stage without physically doing anything to the hardware. I doubt people would pay for something they will brick when by buy it second hand and try to personalize it. They can very well make personal sales impractical and just manage the govt enough to prevent them from doing anything about it.
Onemufc
Herald
Hah, and who will enforce it.
You have a product i want to buy. Mutual consent. Done! in cash. no receipts.
The govt got no tax out of that transaction and you want to tell me apple has more power than them
Warranty is out of the question anyway as it isn't transferable.
It's called right of first sale and apple can't do a thing about it.
[DOUBLEPOST=1542306580][/DOUBLEPOST]
Might be an oversight. I've not found people who are generally pro apple to have any problems with him. In fact they agree with him
Does not look like an oversight to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossmann_admits_to_using_parts_from_a/
blr_p
Pilgrim
ok, there is no over sight there. Gist i got was he imported seconds. What i don't understand is why US customs seized the shipment ?
If the apple logo was sharpied out then there is no question of reselling them as genuine. Here's his video
Trying to repair devices that Apple refuses under some pretext and then having HIS parts seized under another pretext.
How is he misleading customers by trying to repair what apple says cannot be repaired.
Last edited:
^^ I don't think he claimed the batteries are Apple OEM. At least not in the video. He only gave examples of how the batteries may be sourced by the supplier. And he openly agreed too that this could be one possible situation. But the problem here is something else.
Some trademarks like a select type of Windows/Mac/Apple/Microsoft logo can be used on a product just to indicate compatibility without implying that the product was made by the trademark owner. Counterfeits usually refers to products that go out of their way to replicate the packaging and branding to make people believe that they are genuine products made by said company. The letter that he got from US customs clearly states that the batteries in question have the APPLE-WORD-MARK. Apple's own copyright and trademark usage policy (available on Apple website) allows for the Apple word mark to be used on products to indicate compatibility with Apple products. This is fair use of the trademarks and can be done without prior agreements since the policy allows it. The presence of this trademark has been used as the basis to claim that the products are counterfeit, but without any explanation on why. Was there any violation on how the trademark was used? It could just be OEM, sub contractor or non OEM battery with the Apple word mark just to indicate compatibility There must be thousands of products that must be passing through US customs with the Apple word mark on them as mere compatibility indicator. So why flag this particular shipment and all of a sudden after he participates in a exposure story against them? It doesn't help either that Apple has a track record of misusing copyrights and trademark laws in ways that they were never intended to be used.
Some trademarks like a select type of Windows/Mac/Apple/Microsoft logo can be used on a product just to indicate compatibility without implying that the product was made by the trademark owner. Counterfeits usually refers to products that go out of their way to replicate the packaging and branding to make people believe that they are genuine products made by said company. The letter that he got from US customs clearly states that the batteries in question have the APPLE-WORD-MARK. Apple's own copyright and trademark usage policy (available on Apple website) allows for the Apple word mark to be used on products to indicate compatibility with Apple products. This is fair use of the trademarks and can be done without prior agreements since the policy allows it. The presence of this trademark has been used as the basis to claim that the products are counterfeit, but without any explanation on why. Was there any violation on how the trademark was used? It could just be OEM, sub contractor or non OEM battery with the Apple word mark just to indicate compatibility There must be thousands of products that must be passing through US customs with the Apple word mark on them as mere compatibility indicator. So why flag this particular shipment and all of a sudden after he participates in a exposure story against them? It doesn't help either that Apple has a track record of misusing copyrights and trademark laws in ways that they were never intended to be used.
- Status