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Apple Patent Applications: Tamper-Resistant Labels for Hardware, Accelerometer-Based

Both of these are just dumb. The first one explains why Apple is going for non-replaceable batteries in EVERYTHING. To keep the owner out and make reasons not to honour AppleCare.

The second one is probably just to cover themselves if someone else comes up with a practical use for shake navigation. Clearly this isn't practical, but they probably want to own the concept of using the accelerometer for the interface.
 
I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks. Hi, how are you doing...now that the pleasantries are out of the way. :D:D

I was reading a thread here a couple days ago about Apple's licensing with regards to if it's lawful for them to limit what hardware it runs on. A poster had made a point about how they may be able to put whatever they want in the EULA, but if Apple gets enough shares of the "PC" market, anti-monopoly attorneys may take notice as they did with Microsoft. I've read on Windows forums about users being confused as to why Windows no longer comes with many of the applications. These apps are free, but have to be downloaded separately... this of course can be traced back to the whole Internet Explorer fiasco of years past. The reason I bring this up is because a counter-argument was that Apple can do what they want and if you don't like it, you can pound sand. That may be true in the short term, but once you have more and more of a market (like Microsoft did) some anti-monopoly lawyer is going to slap you with a law suit and challenge your "doing what you want".

I promise, I'm trying to make a point and the above is relevant.

We have the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act which was established many years ago. Many have heard of it, but most have heard about it in the context of car companies. This Act covers anything with a warranty. How it's been used in the past with car companies is it basically prohibits manufacturers from denying warranty coverage if a repair was made by someone OTHER than them and even prevents the manufacturers from denying claims when NON-FACTORY parts are used. All of this is of course contingent on said parts/repairs not being what caused the covered product to fail. For example, if I install an aftermarket air cleaner on my car and my differential goes out, they can't void my warranty on the differential. If I come in with sand in my engine, that's another story. In addition they can't void the warranty on my alternator just because *I* was the one that installed that air cleaner and was "poking around" under the hood unless they PROVE I did something to damage something that failed.

Apple may be able to pull BS and deny some warranty based on us "poking around under the hood". It's however just a matter of time before someone sues them under Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act and have them PROVE that you replacing your hard drive or upgrading your memory caused something else to fail. I think under Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act opening up the case just to look and not touch should be lawful and this Act should make those security stickers unlawful.

Mike
 
john0879 said:
Two years just like HP, Gateway, and Dell, right?

Not that I wouldn't like a two year warranty, but you need to do some basic research before making statements like this.
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Yeah, Dell will send a person to you house in person to deal with warranties on there Ultrasharp and business line computers and they come standard with three years of this service. As far as support goes in that regard, apple should take a page out of Dells book.
 
john0879 said:
"I think Apple hardware should have at least 2 years of warranty FOR FREE, just like any other electronics product, by the way."

Two years just like HP, Gateway, and Dell, right?
Not that I wouldn't like a two year warranty, but you need to do some basic research before making statements like this.
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Asus has a very nice warranty included with many of their laptops (eg, the popular UL30A) which covers two years, plus accident coverage for the first year. Of course, the appeal of that just proves the point that such warranties are rare.
 
wait, so.. huh!!! Is the flicking navigation something like what the palm pre does or is this different. To me it sounds like the pre navigation or even the iphone going through apps? Oh and this tamper device, is it suppose to kill the device when bent out of shape or just show proof that it's been tampered with?

K
 
blackhand1001 said:
Yeah, Dell will send a person to you house in person to deal with warranties on there Ultrasharp and business line computers and they come standard with three years of this service. As far as support goes in that regard, apple should take a page out of Dells book.
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That's correct: Dell has indeed sent a person next day and replaced my faulty video board for my 1400USD worth laptop, and that happen after 1 year and 1 month even if my warranty was for 1 year only.:cool:

Aside this, my MacBook is now since 1+1 weeks away from me (I handed in twice as first time they have replace it with the same kind of faulty part) as I had to give it back to Apple to replace the screen/LCD. I've spent already 200USD for going back and forth to their Service Providers for 4+2 times (for the last 2 times I had to cross the border to HK as the local SP did an extremely poor job), and my AluMB is still away... :mad:
Pretty expensive to replace a faulty screen under AppleCare, huh?

Anyways, it's a long story, but at least I have an AluMB, so I can replace the HDD and the battery by myself if I want to.:)
 
My e-machines circa 2001 computer (currently serving as a mac mini table) has this "tamper evident label" on the back. When the sticker is peeled off, it changes appearance. Not really new technology.
 
Rocketman said:
So. Why does Apple have MacDraw 2010 for their patent applications but not for their Mac computers?

Rocketman
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:)

I want MacDraw 2010. I'm sure I've got an old MacDraw floppy lying around somewhere. Maybe I can get upgrade pricing!
 
If Apple ensure that the RAM and HD of all their computers can be easily replaceable (as they seem to be doing), plus graphics cards and other PCI-E stuff in the Mac Pro, I don't see a problem with this.

I think it's fair enough that Apple don't want you pulling apart your iPod Touch to replace the battery, or pulling out and replacing CPUs. If you screw things like that up, it's not their fault.
 
blackhand1001 said:
Yeah, Dell will send a person to you house in person to deal with warranties on there Ultrasharp and business line computers and they come standard with three years of this service. As far as support goes in that regard, apple should take a page out of Dells book.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that Dell doesn't offer warranties of more than 1 year and I agree that Apple could learn something from Dell as you stated. However, not all of Dell's computers (or other products) come with a warranty that is better than one year.

baryon said:
I think Apple hardware should have at least 2 years of warranty FOR FREE, just like any other electronics product, by the way.
Click to expand...

The statement I was responding to implies that all other electronic products come with at least 2 years of warranty coverage.

I'm not a big fan of people making blanket statements like this without doing some basic research. A quick, two minute search confirmed that HP, Gateway, and Dell are at least three companies, probably out of many more, that only offer a one year warranty on at least some of their products.
 
Vulpinemac said:
Ridiculously-short 1 year warranty? When nearly every other similar product has only a 90-day warranty?

Show me any other equivalent electronics product that gives you a free 2-year warranty out of the box.
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Where I live, ASUS laptops have 2 year warranties, plus it's international. It seems like warranties in the US often are only 3 months. That's crazy. Here in New Zealand, 98% of products have a warranty that's 1 year. We also have a special law that says that a product that is sold (not for commercial use though) should "last the typical lifespan". Which means if a washing machine dies before 5 years of use, we can get it fixed for free (although we may have to take it to the disputes tribunal first - cost ~$30).
 
Ah, lovely. More attempts from Apple to keep you from replacing your own iPhone or iPod Touch batteries (or you Mac notebooks for that matter; don't expect to upgrade your own ram or anything much longer).
 
"Unauthorized opening of devices?" Are we buying these things from Apple, or just renting them?

flopticalcube said:
Apple has been making more and more of their devices less user-serviceable. It will get to the point where no one will be able to do anything without paying Apple to do it for them. Its kind of sad really but it does chime with Steve's original vision of the Mac as a computing appliance.
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Oh, well, that makes it all okay, doesn't it?
 
rwilliams said:
I wonder if they would use this on the unibody notebooks, since they don't seem to be too keen on regular folks replacing their own hard drives, memory, and batteries. Their current stance is that only Apple authorized people should do these things, correct?
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Why should they be keen on folks running mac os on non-apple hardware (hard disks count as hardware) ?
 
CQd44 said:
Doesn't Apple use Seagate hard drives?
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Maybe. But once they put 'qc pass' label on it, it becomes Apple hardware. But when non-authorized upgrade happens, newly inserted part doesn't become Apple hardware.

Also this seems to be an awful lot of lock-in if they restrict user upgradeability.
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99% of users wouldn't care.
 
newb16 said:
Maybe. But once they put 'qc pass' label on it, it becomes Apple hardware. But when non-authorized upgrade happens, newly inserted part doesn't become Apple hardware.



99% of users wouldn't care.
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I'd say 80% wouldn't care. I know enough people that like to upgrade their own stuff.
 
Apple appears to have been taking an increased interest recently in addressing circumstances which could result in a customer voiding their warranty due to misuse of or unauthorized access to the internals of their devices.
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More patronizing is just what Apple's customers need.
 
Anyone else notice this doesn't look remotely like the iPhone 3Gs?
Looks more like the Palm Pixi from the back.

Anyway, it's better having solely Apple fixing Apple products and not a Third party. At least if something goes wrong Apple will be able to fix it. Those Third Party companies are sketchy!
 
daxomni said:
Speak for yourself.

I opened up my MBP to replace Apple's slow and tiny HDD with something faster and larger and yet I still expect them to fix my laptop if it fails due to their own poor workmanship. Well I did, until I read about how Apple (dis)honors their warranties here on Mac Rumors and realized that Apple only fixes unblemished notebooks that never get scratched or dinged from actual use in the real world.
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Just one counter example from my personal experience. I upgraded my Macbook Pro to 4 GB myself some time ago. Recently it stopped working so I brought it to an Apple Store. The serial number indicated the MBP was from a batch made with potentially faulty graphics chips. When I said the memory chips were not from Apple they said those chips would have to be tested to insure they weren't faulty. The memory chips were fine and the repair (replacement of the motherboard with 4GB which I assume were mine) was done as free warranty service. So if someone claims upgrading your memory chips voids your warranty, I'd have to say that person does not have all the facts.
 
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