Italy’s antitrust authority said on Monday it had fined Apple 10 million euros (US$12 million) for “aggressive and misleading” commercial practices regarding iPhone water resistance.
Apple’s iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max are rated IP68 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes) under IEC standard 60529 for water resistance and are protected against everyday spills.
The regulator said in a statement the company advertised that several iPhone models were water-resistant without clarifying they were only so under certain circumstances.
It added that the company’s disclaimer, saying that its phones were not covered by warranty in case of damage from liquids, tricked clients, who were also not provided support when their phones were damaged by water or other liquids.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s disclaimer stated that iPhones damaged by liquids were not covered by warranty. Somehow, Italy’s antitrust authority believes customers were “tricked” when their iPhones damaged by liquids were not covered by warranty. And, that’s worth a $12 million fine. Makes perfect sense.
Apple made several times the amount of Italy’s pissant fine in the time it took you to read this article.
Surely even you can see that saying both that the phones are water resistant and that the warranty doesn’t cover for water damage is at best confusing? Like many Americans you have a phobia about all things European and a belief that your companies should be allowed to do what the hell they like with no limits.
If the iPhone is damaged by water, then the user has exposed it to water outside of the specified “water resistance,” and therefore that damage is not covered by the warranty.
Like many Europeans, you seem to have a hatred of all things American, and a belief that people should never be responsible for their own stupid actions.
Not to mention an execrable command of the English language.
“Not to mention an execrable command of the English language”
Lol, let’s wait with Americans critisizing non-english speakers ability to speak english until the Americans ability to speak another language themselves is at least somewhat on par with that…(in a few thousand years or so).
I mean, at almost 60 I’ve seen many outrageous remarks, but an American complaining about non-Americans ability to speak a non-native language is a new one for sure!
Agree with the rest of your post though.
With all due respect, he is making an argument about what certain words mean in English (and not mentioning anything at all about other languages). It is certainly possible that the expression was “misleading” in another language, but that was not the assertion; the poster took issue with a concept expressed in English which, for someone with a reasonable command of that language, is quite clear, and used that issue as a springboard to make ad hominem attacks against Americans in general.
I promise not to go to Italy and make insulting attacks against Italians based upon legal concepts expressed in Italian; I would be outside my competence to do so – just as he appears to be in English.
(And, at almost 65, I’m tired of Europeans and others sniping at us for speaking so few languages in our country. I’m all in favor of learning other languages – I’m conversant to varying degrees in 4 other than American English – but insulting us is not the way to convince us.)
I agree with you about his ad hominem attack, and consider it both baseless and tasteless. But I do not think that that was based on the meaning of certain words. Resistance and damage have full parity with other languages (mine being Dutch). I get the image of a lazy, selfish consumer. Nothing lost in translation I think.
There simply are differeces between peoples. Touching upon those should not be insulting by itself, neither intended nor perceived. On a general level, Americans do are somewhat less informed about things outside their country than is the case with some other peoples. But on the same general level, Americans are also more entrepeneurial, more self-reliant, more pursuant about their dreams and ambitions. And very much more tending towards initiative. On the whole I prefer the strenghts of Americans above those of us Europeans.
It should be possible to batter around a bit with factual differences and oddities if in good spirit. Life is short.
It is water resistance except when it isn’t. And anything that damages the phone is not covered by warranty. That is meaningless BS then, not a warranty at all.
Water resistance has long had a clear business meaning. Lots of products specify water resistance, like outdoor clothing. No one expects water resistant clothing to be rain proof. That would be water proof clothing. It’s easy to understand that water resistance doesn’t mean your product can survive any kind of water damage. It resists.
It’s hard to believe that many iPhones would be damaged by consumers. Just because it’s water resistant, it doesn’t mean you have to go swimming with it. Are consumers deliberately dunking their iPhones in water just to see how they’ll hold up in water? I don’t see why anyone would take the chance of dunking their smartphone in water to “test” its water resistance. I guess only iPhones are failing the water resistance test as I don’t see any lawsuits against the dozens of Android smartphone makers for exaggerating water resistance.
Perhaps because for those that do claim damages, they don’t meet as much resistance in claims as they do with Apple?
Is there actually a ‘line’ defined by a standards group about where water resistance ‘ends’ and waterproof ‘begins’? (e.g. a set time under water, water pressure, etc.) Where would constantly being doused with sweat come in?
In legal parlance, “waterproof” means “will not be damaged by water under any circumstances, without limitation,” a condition impossible to achieve at our current level of technology.
Thus the term “water-resistant,” which describes the tests that the device has passed and under which the manufacturer is confident that no damage will occur. Exceeding the boundaries of those tests may result in damage, and such damage is not covered by warranty.
I see, so the claim for damages will depend on how accurately Apple can determine whether those boundaries were exceeded to deny warranty coverage. This then leads to how well Apple can convince Italy’s authorities that those boundaries were exceeded. I don’t think Italy actually has a case unless there were actual past or pending claims that may fall into the gray area and denied.