Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I thought all the parts that receive wear and tear were new parts?

- New case
- New screen
- New battery
- New buttons
- New connectors

Basically the only thing that could be "used" is the PCB inside? Something that doesn't suffer wear and tear at all?

I think the wear and tear part used to be the case, but isn't anymore. Currently, at least for ipads, the refurb website states new battery and outer shell. I doubt the connectors, buttons, and screen and brand new.

Second, the PCBs are sometimes repaired, and the repair is not done well. Watch this video for some examples, showing good boards versus "refurbished" boards.

I have had great luck with refurbished products from Apple in general, albeit mostly with Macs. However, there are undeniably risks.
 
How can do many people go through so many iPhone replacements?

I have 4 family members who all have iPhones. Since our first phones (iPhone 3GS) I have purchased a total of 18 iPhones (all brand new, and the latest verdiin). For the first couple years I gave my kids our 1 year old iPhones and bought new ones for my wife and I. Then I'd sell their 2 year old phones. Recently I just started to buy everyone in the house a new phone - we're all on the 6S (kids) or 6S Plus (wife and I) and I sell the 4 old ones.

I have had 3 iPhones replaced with refurbs for the home button issue (under warranty). I've had 3 more replaced under AppleCare for damage (1 bent iPhone 6, 1 smashed iPhone 6S and one damaged 5S). The refurbs lasted until we sold them (wife still has the 6S).

With 6 flawless replacements on 18 iPhones I guess I must be the luckiest person on Planet Earth. Based on comments here I should have gone through at least a dozen more refurbs before getting any that actually work. Think I'll go buy some lottery tickets tonight.
 
They are solid state devices. There is no appreciable wear and tear.

You might be able to argue that flash has wear and tear, but the lifetime of the flash memory inside the iPhone is so long that you'll never reach it even in many years of heavy usage.

Also, I'd much rather get a refurbished replacement right away than to have to wait days for my own phone to be repaired. Both times I've had hardware issues I walked out the same day with a working phone with minimal hassle. Dealing with a loaner that I have to bring in again days later is not my idea of good customer service.
So we should be able to buy and sell used SSD's at retail price because there is no wear no and tear? I don't think so.
And why would you wait for days to get your phone repaired or replaced with a refurbished one, when there is a perfectly good "Brand New" one available to be exchanged?
Sounds like your making excuses for Apple when customer satisfaction should be the main concern here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Demo Kit
"What that phrase means is 'new' as refurbished devices can never be the equivalent to new in performance and reliability."

Which just plain isn't true. I've been stung by refurbed stuff before, but never by Apple's refurbed stuff. In fact, the only times I've ever had to take advantage of AppleCare at all, it has been with brand new devices.
 
To be fair, class action suits are not about compensating the individual members of the class. It never has been, and never will be. Instead, they're about leveraging the large number of members to force a change in behavior. That's especially important when the damages on an individual basis are limited to the point that it would be far less expensive to maintain the behavior in question and just settle the random suit that comes along.

Class action suits in particular are especially complex, time-consuming, and expensive to litigate. Those expenses, and all of the significant risk involved, are shifted to the lawyers rather than the class members. The only alternative to the lawyers walking away with a percentage of the final settlement is not filing suit in the first place. When you consider that, for instance, most of the most significant environmental successes at court have been the result of class action suits, it becomes readily apparent that such an alternative isn't desirable.

Contingency fees give people unable to pay for the costs of litigation the ability to access the courts. Without them, they'd be unable to afford legal representation. I'd rather some lawyers "get rich" than the poor be unable to seek justice and compensation. Thankfully, the legal system agrees. It might suck to sign over ~30% of a settlement, but you're still better off than if you were never able to file in the first place. And there's a good chance you'd probably wind up paying the same or more on an hourly basis anyhow. That said, there are checks in place to prevent abuse: contingency agreements have been successfully challenged in court on a number of occasions for being 'unreasonable.' If the lawyers involved can't justify their fees, there's a very good chance that the courts may modify the agreement on that basis. Between that and the threat of sanctions, most reputable law firms are pretty cautious with their fee agreements.

That said, this is a pretty ridiculous case at first glance. There's nothing to suggest that companies have to replace used devices with new ones under warranty. Repair, yes. Replace with new, no. This is little more than a nuisance suit, getting headlines because it's a class-action.

What you said makes perfect sense when dealing with, say, a pharmaceutical company where a drug caused health issues for users or a car company skimping on safety.

All the class action lawsuits against Apple appear to be nothing more than a money grab by lawyers.
 
I agree that most of these lawsuits result in $20 or less for consumers, but the one good that might come from it if the plaintiffs are serious is that Apple should be prohibited from doing this again or reword their contracts to not mislead people. Way back, I once returned 3 Apple Displays in a row to Apple, dead pixels, and they kept replacing them with displays refurbished displays with dead pixels just in a different place. After the 3rd return, I guess they realized I meant business and finally gave me a pristine one.

But it's all Apple Slaves to the Machine here, so most of the responses here are as expected.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Demo Kit and DanJBS
The funny thing is you never really get much with class action lawsuits anyway. Maybe $20 at most. It's not worth all the hassle.

It's the lawyers who get rich, and I'm sure helped instigate this.

The point of class actions is to punish the company that is harming or deceiving the public somehow. The individual payout was never Congresses intent when it allowed such types of cases. Essentially, consumer protection is difficult and expensive. Congress decided it would be more efficient to allow individuals to bring suit on behalf of entire classes of aggrieved people rather than various government agencies trying to do the same. If it protects consumers in the end, which there is a lot of empirical evidence that shows class actions do, then why is bad that the lawyers get paid for their work?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Demo Kit
I thought all the parts that receive wear and tear were new parts?

- New case
- New screen
- New battery
- New buttons
- New connectors

Basically the only thing that could be "used" is the PCB inside? Something that doesn't suffer wear and tear at all?

People are either idiots, or greedy. I'm gonna vote for the latter mostly.

The PCB has a flash chip that has limited writes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Demo Kit
"equivalent to new in performance and reliability"

Refurbished devices are "equivalent to new in performance and reliability" because any weak parts are replaced. I encourage people to buy refurbished when they are available. They are actually better than new in many ways.
 
I don't blame them, this "equivalent to new" thing that companies do is pretty lame. If I buy a new device, and a week later the device turns out to be faulty due to manufacturer defects, I expect a brand new replacement. Hopefully they win and companies stop doing that crap.

If your phone turns buggy or malfunctions after a week, either you're doing something wrong or there is a manufacture error. Either way, both carriers and Apple have a 14 day return policy in which you can "exchange" the device without needing to use AppleCare. Just because you don't know the options available to you, do not blame Apple
 
I thought all the parts that receive wear and tear were new parts?

- New case
- New screen
- New battery
- New buttons
- New connectors

Basically the only thing that could be "used" is the PCB inside? Something that doesn't suffer wear and tear at all?

People are either idiots, or greedy. I'm gonna vote for the latter mostly.

Agreed. From my experience, the refurbished iDevices even get a better quality control than the ones that come fresh out of the factory.
This whole accusation of "failing to provide replacement devices that are "equivalent to new in performance and reliability" is ridiculous.
But hey, it's America, your legal system surely is entertaining and sad at the same time ;)
 
Only had one problem with a refurb iPhone. Also had one problem with a new iPhone. I tend to think refurb is fair.

Create AppleCare++ with a new price of $499 and then provide a new phone... This one gives you a brand new phone.
 
I don't know, it sounds frivolous at first, but there can be a difference between new and refurbished, that may not be immediately apparent but will cause problems later. For example, let's say the Touch ID home button is rated for 10,000 presses before failure. The previous owner already pressed the button 7,000 times (but of course you don't know that). So for now, when they give you the refurbished phone, everything appears to be working perfectly. But a year later, you then add another 3,000 presses and the part fails. And at this point you may well be out of the warranty/AppleCare+ term, and you now have to pay to replace a part because it was already partially worn. The same could happen for a battery that's not quite as good as brand-new, a touch screen, internal wiring that may come loose over time because of vibration/jostling, glue that comes loose from exposure to heat over time (maybe the previous owner liked to go to the beach and left their phone in the sun), and so on.

Now legally, Apple is probably protected by the legal speech in the agreement, but I have some sympathy for the typical consumer who isn't good at parsing 30+ pages of legalese feeling somewhat deceived.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DanJBS
I've purchased refurb Macs before and have had an excellent experience with them. I've also had to replace various iOS devices under AC+ in the past with no problem.

However, I recently took my iphone 6s plus to the apple store because it literally died one morning and could not be revived or even recognized. Complete logic board failure. They issued me a "new" one, which was a refurb. Not even 24 hours had passed before the "new" one overheated to such a point that it shut down due to excessive heat which I could definitely feel. By the second day, I received the temperature warning four times so I brought it back to the store. Apparently it was running at 120C (!). They issued me yet another "new" one, which seems to be working fine so far.

So maybe it's possible the QC for refurb devices have lowered recently?
 
  • Like
Reactions: DanJBS
A refurbished device tends to be in the iPhone and iPad cases a water damaged device that has gone under some form of repair, and these devices are not as strong and some component are fragile and in any case the flash storage is degraded as they is so many read or write cycles for flash storage. If you ever drop a refurbished iPad in most cases it will brake due to no protection surrounding on most of the vital chips in it as it was scraped off during the PCB repair were a new iPad would survive 100% a drop on it's back. Apple refurbished replacements are poor quality, but what you don't know can't hurt you is Apple's view and that is just not on. Apple should repair the item or replace with new, it is Apple's fualt they made it so hard to repair their own stuff, Apple you are IDOTS

You are completely wrong. The terms and conditions clearly state that Apple may replace your device with a refurbished part. Just because you are ignorant and don't read what you are agreeing to, does not mean that Apple is at fault. Clearly you don't understand how repairs and refurbishing happens. If a device is liquid damaged, they would not repair it and then put it back into their replacement inventory. Circuitry is so difficult to repair especially when you are talking about liquid that it is more beneficial for them to replace the entire board as opposed to pay technician labor fees trying to figure out where exactly and what exactly the damage is. Specifically in the processor, the circuitry is at the 10nm level. Do you really think Apple has a technician sitting over microscopes trying to find small disconnects and breaks in the links?
 
Only merit I can see to this is if they received replacement devices that failed very soon after the replacement. By most accounts this is a rare occurrence. So, "equivalent to new in performance and reliability" is accurate and defensible. Are these people claiming their replacement devices were noticeably worse than the original?
Even so, the replacement devices are covered for 90 days so those can be replaced too at no cost including devices that were originally out of warranty.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.