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Jdhommert

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 8, 2016
182
167
I've had a Series 2, 4 and 6 for 2 years each. Never a sapphire display. Cant tell you how many times I SLAMMED my watch into a metal door frame or latch on the frame, against a metal stair railing, against a porcelain sink...you name it. Many times as soon as I hit it that hard, I KNEW the watch was shattered. Look at the watch and it's fine. Never cracked a watch screen. Been so surprised how durable the screens are.

went to the pool yesterday and before I got in the pool I decided since Apple won't warranty a watch from water damage that's advertised as the watch for scuba divers.....I just put it in our bag with towels. Bag was on the plastic chair, didnt throw the bag or anything into the bag. Went from bag to charger to my wrist. I look at my Ultra watch this morning and the screen is cracked.

How in the what the absolute mother......the *only* thing I can think of it was pretty hot out yesterday, and it sat for an hour or so in a hot car (under towels and in a soft bag) I still cant fathom how just being in 90* temps would cause a Ultra screen to crack.

$500 to replace the screen from apple
 
Think you’ve answered your own question.
90* is not too hot, but burying inside a a bunch of towels inside your bags and letting it bake for “an hour or so” (I’ll take that to mean 2+ hours, it gets hotter than 90*.
No different than it being 90* out but the inside of your car with the windows rolled up it’s much hotter.
 
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More than likely, you banged the face against something previously and it weakened the integrity of the screen without you knowing.
I know thats how most of these posts go, or thats the why most of the time. It's been a long long time since I hit it against something and it didnt get hit at all yesterday
 
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Think you’ve answered your own question.
90* is not too hot, but burying inside a a bunch of towels inside your bags and letting it bake for “an hour or so” (I’ll take that to mean 2+ hours, it gets hotter than 90*.
No different than it being 90* out but the inside of your car with the windows rolled up it’s much hotter.
Covering it in the bag that was in the shade is better than it being out in the sun all day

If this thing cant take being outside in the shade when the high for the day was 90 degrees...?
 
The hit could have been days ago or even longer.
Ok, to clarify I havent bumped it in several days/weeks and it was in a bag with towels all day not moving

I just cant get my brain to make logical sense of this, which is the biggest frustration lol
 
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Ok, to clarify I havent bumped it in several days/weeks and it was in a bag with towels all day not moving

I just cant get my brain to make logical sense of this, which is the biggest frustration lol
Like I said, if the integrity of the screen was compromised previously, you wouldn't have known it unless there was a visible defect noted. The heat may have made it even weaker causing it to visibly break. What I posited is very logical. The other logical explantation is that the screen may have been defective to begin with, although you don't have any way of proving that possibility.
 
Why don’t you have Apple Care?
And you are correct that they won’t warranty water damage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the thing wet. Multiple water damage indicators have to be triggered for them to consider it water damaged, so you don’t run into trouble using it in a swimming pool unless you do other damage too.

Maybe other experience varies, but when Apple has asked me about getting wet, I’ve always said, it’s never been in a situation outside of its rating. Always covered.
 
The screen will crack under stress, might have been an impact days/weeks ago and the heat, who knows?
Sapphire is not indestructible, and fwiw on my S4 SBSS I got scratches in the sapphire…

I always get AC+ on my AW, I bang my watches all the time, when I mountain biked I had some crashes… accidents happen so for me AC+ is worth it
 
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Good luck getting AppleCare to cover it.

I’ve gotten AC+ on my iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches for this exact reason. Fortunately never had to use it for accidental damage before…until this year. It was actually my spouse who put a deep scratch in my iPhone 13 Pro when taking it traveling.

I was like, no big deal, that’s why I invested in AppleCare for all these years. Made an appointment and took it into the Apple Store. After 25 minutes of being bounced around from table to table like Apple stores do, the guy said that damage wasn’t covered and refused to repair it. This was over a month ago and I’m still livid about it.

So best of luck to you. Apple is collecting AppleCare premiums that keep getting higher and higher with every new model year, and refusing to actually do the work when it comes time to use it.
 
Good luck getting AppleCare to cover it.

I’ve gotten AC+ on my iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches for this exact reason. Fortunately never had to use it for accidental damage before…until this year. It was actually my spouse who put a deep scratch in my iPhone 13 Pro when taking it traveling.

I was like, no big deal, that’s why I invested in AppleCare for all these years. Made an appointment and took it into the Apple Store. After 25 minutes of being bounced around from table to table like Apple stores do, the guy said that damage wasn’t covered and refused to repair it. This was over a month ago and I’m still livid about it.

So best of luck to you. Apple is collecting AppleCare premiums that keep getting higher and higher with every new model year, and refusing to actually do the work when it comes time to use it.
Why was it denied, sounds strange but it happens.
 
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Why was it denied, sounds strange but it happens.
He said AppleCare wouldn’t cover it and if he sent it back they’d write it up as a full cost screen replacement at $329.

I don’t buy that, but it’s futile arguing with them. Not sure if they get commission or bonuses for finding ways to turn away repairs that are covered? He also canceled the appointment on his end (it shows canceled in the Apple support app) so they never sent me a survey.

All I know is that it was the least satisfactory Apple experience I’ve ever had and I doubt I’ll buy AppleCare going forward knowing that I can’t actually rely on being able to use it when the time comes that I need it.
 
He said AppleCare wouldn’t cover it and if he sent it back they’d write it up as a full cost screen replacement at $329.

I don’t buy that, but it’s futile arguing with them. Not sure if they get commission or bonuses for finding ways to turn away repairs that are covered? He also canceled the appointment on his end (it shows canceled in the Apple support app) so they never sent me a survey.

All I know is that it was the least satisfactory Apple experience I’ve ever had and I doubt I’ll buy AppleCare going forward knowing that I can’t actually rely on being able to use it when the time comes that I need it.

If you do indeed have AC+, I'd set up an Express Replacement with Apple support directly. $99 plus a hold on a card until they receive the damaged device back is worth it rather than dealing with incompetent in store reps, IMO.
 
went to the pool yesterday and before I got in the pool I decided since Apple won't warranty a watch from water damage that's advertised as the watch for scuba divers.....
Commiserations. Hopefully Apple Care will sort it out for you.

Not to make light of your issue, but it seems it would have been better to have gone swimming with the watch.

Your Apple Watch Ultra is designed to comply with EN13319. The Depth app works to a maximum depth of 130 feet (40 metres.
link
 
it's mostly because of the flat screen. The curved edges on standard apple watch allows it to be more durable on direct hits vs ultra which is protected on the sides by the frame but has a larger flat plane that can be less durable on hits directly in the middle
 
Ok, to clarify I havent bumped it in several days/weeks and it was in a bag with towels all day not moving

I just cant get my brain to make logical sense of this, which is the biggest frustration lol
You sure someone else didn’t either actually sat on it or dropped the towel and stepped on the Watch etc? Unless it’s a private pool or no one else was around while you used the pool, things can happen
 
I was like, no big deal, that’s why I invested in AppleCare for all these years. Made an appointment and took it into the Apple Store. After 25 minutes of being bounced around from table to table like Apple stores do, the guy said that damage wasn’t covered and refused to repair it. This was over a month ago and I’m still livid about it.

Is that right? Damage is covered but you do have to pay a fee. Did you argue with them and show them their own page? https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone/
 
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I once saw the home/touchID button of my iPhone crack while it was just lying flat on a table in front of me. Afaik it's also made of sapphire. I suspected that temperature difference caused this (brought it from a hot day outside into a climatized room). Of course, Apple said it was my fault and didn't honor the warranty.
 
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if you have this watch why wouldn’t you wear it in the pool? it’s virtually indestructible.
i’ve never had an issue with water with my 4 apple watches.
that’s honestly the least of your issues.
it does sound like the crack could be from something heat related either way
 
I've had a Series 2, 4 and 6 for 2 years each. Never a sapphire display. Cant tell you how many times I SLAMMED my watch into a metal door frame or latch on the frame, against a metal stair railing, against a porcelain sink...you name it. Many times as soon as I hit it that hard, I KNEW the watch was shattered. Look at the watch and it's fine. Never cracked a watch screen. Been so surprised how durable the screens are.

went to the pool yesterday and before I got in the pool I decided since Apple won't warranty a watch from water damage that's advertised as the watch for scuba divers.....I just put it in our bag with towels. Bag was on the plastic chair, didnt throw the bag or anything into the bag. Went from bag to charger to my wrist. I look at my Ultra watch this morning and the screen is cracked.

How in the what the absolute mother......the *only* thing I can think of it was pretty hot out yesterday, and it sat for an hour or so in a hot car (under towels and in a soft bag) I still cant fathom how just being in 90* temps would cause a Ultra screen to crack.

$500 to replace the screen from apple


Sapphire glass is more scratch resistant but less crack/shatter resistant.
 
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Ok, to clarify I havent bumped it in several days/weeks and it was in a bag with towels all day not moving

I just cant get my brain to make logical sense of this, which is the biggest frustration lol

OP, there's no path to a "logical" answer that will satisfy here. Nobody here knows the answer to the post question... apparently including you. If this was a common issue, there would be many thousands of such posts and Apple would probably have been moved- voluntarily or involuntarily- to recall and replace.

Even sapphire is not indestructible. And if Apple made crystals out of a diamond- the hardest natural substance on Earth- they would not be indestructible either. What was Titanic's plates made out of? And how did it fare against frozen water?

And we humans are terrible at remembering- with clarity- what our hands/wrists impact even in the same day. They take incredible beatings but we are so conditioned to that being normal, we stop noticing... unlike- say- a poke in the eye, which is unusual enough that we will remember those. Hands and feet are first defense, the parts of us that touch almost everything in the world first, etc. If you fall, what will hit the pavement first? Likely your hands trying to break the fall. Some crazy comes at you swinging a hatchet and you'll automatically throw an arm up in defense.

My guesses: bag got under a chair leg and someone sat down on the chair. It got stepped on. It got into an odd angle in pool deck grooves and someone serving drinks or just walking through stepped on it. Something else got dropped on the bag. Etc. It was probably already weakened by past impacts and was at its last straw stage (one more impact- even modest- might crack it).

You seem to be playing an imagination game of spontaneous destruction... like you (and others) did nothing at all to it and it simply shattered entirely on its own. You may as well conjure up a gremlins scenario.

That's no defense of Apple, etc- as is so common around here- just basically & directly pointing out that crystals generally do NOT spontaneously destruct and that there is almost certainly a human cause for what happened to yours. You may not be able to recall it and/or it may have been (and probably was) cumulative impacts that led to this incident, but the cause was most likely you. Against prior generations of watch with glass screens, whatever caused this break didn't hit them in the same way. That's just luck.

Glass can be quite strong too. Think of all the times something hit the car windshield with no damage... and then the rare times where a seemingly little something hits it and you get a chip/crack, leading to replacement. The same bad luck broke your watch crystal. Replace and it may not happen again for the rest of your life. Or it might break again in a week or two. Replace that windshield and you may never get a broken windshield again... or the new one might get cracked on the drive home from the shop.

Sorry for your experience- and the cost of Apple repair will probably be shocking- but that's just bad luck.
 
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