Sure, I referred to the one year apple warranty. Why not?
And the 2 Years wich you are speaking from is in german called "Gewährleistung". This has nothing to do with the manufacturer, only with your dealer. But if you buy a product directly from the apple store (for example in germany), apple is dealer and manufacturer at the same time.
When you buy a apple product from a different retailer like gravis (germany again) then you have the warranty wich you speaking from (gewährleistung) by gravis. And so on and so on.
You should now the facts. There is so much lack of knowledge...
Allright then. The effect is the same. I know about gewährleistung (lived in Frankfurt and Munich for 10 years).
The point here is that your device has two years of protection in the EU, meaning that if it breaks within this period through no external fault (like dropping it, or dropping it into the toilet), than you are entitled to two repair tries and after that a new or refurbished item.
I'm personally not convinced though that this is the reason for the higher prices of Apple products here in Europe.