That may be true. But it didn't. Apple's software update caused it to break. That's like me throwing a pebble at your house, shattering a window, then saying "not my fault. Yesterday's storm weakened it. That window was going to break tomorrow."
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iOS 16 bricked my phone. Apple made me pay
- Thread starter Jonnywhoops
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My 12 PM also got bricked by this update.
The OLED screen was replaced by a repair shop; I think Apple intentionally bricked the device as it detected the screen wasn't married to the phone.
So you’re defending apple because every iMac you’ve owned in the last decade has been faulty?
Apple's update bricked the OP's phone. Apple is totally to blame.
I guess the positive is you get a brand new iPhone 12 Pro for 450 bucks. Perhaps you can then sell it for more and put that money towards a 13 or 14???
I think it's pretty murky for Apple to say it was going to break therefore it's your fault! Unless they can prove that something was broken inside the phone I feel like the Genius is seeing if they are able to do this and have the customer pay. I'm not saying the OP should or shouldn't pay. It's a complicated issue. But I'd push this further up the chain because without Apple checking the phone at least, I feel like they've just said it and seen if they could get away with it without any resistance from the customer.
I think it also depends how you spoke to the Genius and if you were rude or angry with them. I'm not saying the OP was this either. I don't know the specifics.
What I do believe is that they look to see if you have AC and if you've got a long history of purchasing Apple products. That not all customers are treated equal.
All this postulating is based on nothing except my own personal situation and of those around me.
I think it's pretty murky for Apple to say it was going to break therefore it's your fault! Unless they can prove that something was broken inside the phone I feel like the Genius is seeing if they are able to do this and have the customer pay. I'm not saying the OP should or shouldn't pay. It's a complicated issue. But I'd push this further up the chain because without Apple checking the phone at least, I feel like they've just said it and seen if they could get away with it without any resistance from the customer.
I think it also depends how you spoke to the Genius and if you were rude or angry with them. I'm not saying the OP was this either. I don't know the specifics.
What I do believe is that they look to see if you have AC and if you've got a long history of purchasing Apple products. That not all customers are treated equal.
All this postulating is based on nothing except my own personal situation and of those around me.
To be fair, I have seen this happen before to Macs. You do a software update. The Mac dies. You dig into it, and sure enough it was a piece of hardware that was probably on its last legs and just couldn't handle the stress of the update.
The fact that the phone worked for a bit after the update, suggest it wasn't bricked during the update....which, suggests to me anyway, it probably wasn't the iOS update that did it.
That said, keep all receipts. If this turns out to be a widespread issue (and it will if iOS 16 is killing phones), you will probably be able to get a refund on any repair work down the line.
I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. Apple tried to tell me something similar when macOS Big Sur was bricking certain MacBook Pros. The Apple Store employee claimed it was a logic board failure that coincidentally happened during the update process. It was an older laptop, so it almost made sense...
But in reality, it was due to a botched firmware upgrade that was included in the 11.0 release. Some members here on the MacRumors forum discovered a workaround that allowed the system to boot and complete the software update. It ran perfectly fine after that, as long as a specific component was disconnected from the logic board. Apple pulled the update for the affected models and then quietly fixed it in 11.1, allowing the laptop to function normally once again.
Apple does a lot of things right, but they have a bad habit of trying to sweep issues under the rug or deflect blame, sometimes at a very high cost for the customer.
But in reality, it was due to a botched firmware upgrade that was included in the 11.0 release. Some members here on the MacRumors forum discovered a workaround that allowed the system to boot and complete the software update. It ran perfectly fine after that, as long as a specific component was disconnected from the logic board. Apple pulled the update for the affected models and then quietly fixed it in 11.1, allowing the laptop to function normally once again.
Apple does a lot of things right, but they have a bad habit of trying to sweep issues under the rug or deflect blame, sometimes at a very high cost for the customer.
The reports of devices that got so hot doing the update that the flashlight got temporarily disabled even after the update's completion makes me think the installation was pretty hard on the hardware (in some cases at least).
Also an attorney. What? What facts are missing, it's right there in in the service report? It's not that uncommon that an update bricks a device. If your argument is "something doesn't add up" you probably have to elaborate on that. How would a consumer even prove that the issue is not a manufacturing problem? It doesn't have to be a common issue with all devices, some of the millon of devices produced will have hardware-related problems. Now I understand that Apple doesn't have to anything since consumer laws in the states doesn't require the manufacturer to really do anything outside warranty, but it's still a ****** practice.
I don't practice in the states, but in Sweden the burden of proof is on the manufacturer to prove that the hardware wasn't faulty from the production line for the first three years. Thank god for that.
On another note, I used to work in retail selling, among other things, apple products. Apples customer service was ALWAYS the worst, routinely denying repairs even if it was blatantly obvious that the issue wasn't the customers fault. It actually kept me from buying their products for years. I've understood that they generally are better in the states, but definitely not world-wide.
if it’s not uncommon an update bricks a device what’s the percentage? The last I remember was iOS 8 was reportedly bricking devices due to a software bug.
But if there were any reported widespread issues it would be all over the news.
Gave me a refurb stainless steel Apple Watch 7 with ten battery cycles in replacement for my existing watch which had over two hundred cycles when all I reported was a discoloured band.
If it's truly rare, I don't see why Apple doesn't replace affected units for free as a policy.
Of course, even if it was super common, I'd say they should replace them. But at that point I would understand their initial reluctance.
A poster touched on this issue. OP, had your iphone been repaired at all by a 3rd party repair shop? because updates have been known to brick iphones that have non official Apple parts in them.
Also, the best way to know if the iphone is 'bricked' due to an update is to open up itunes on a desktop computer and using a USB cable connect the iphone to the computer, if itunes detects the iphone then the iphone is not bricked just the iphone display is not working. If itunes does not detect the iphone then the iphone is bricked.
Also, the best way to know if the iphone is 'bricked' due to an update is to open up itunes on a desktop computer and using a USB cable connect the iphone to the computer, if itunes detects the iphone then the iphone is not bricked just the iphone display is not working. If itunes does not detect the iphone then the iphone is bricked.
Of course it's not a widespread issue. That would have, as you said, been reported.
But a few of the millions of phones produced will have hardware issues. That's not really up for debate. It's not unreasonable to suggest that if a phone have, for example, a solder flaw that breaks by the heat when updating the software it should be replaced since it's a manufacturing problem.
But had the device been covered under warranty, it would have been replaced for free. OP was outside his warranty. We all know that the UK has better consumer protection laws.
However, if OP purchased with a credit card, they might have had an extended warranty for free.
At the end of the day it sucks. We’ve all have had similar experiences, but it doesn’t make what Apple did wrong. Could they have done him a solid and replaced it for free, absolutely, but we don’t know what transpired.
The work order states the device had cosmetic scuffs. Maybe the OP dropped it and something loosened internally which caused the failure. We don’t know. It’s all speculation.
I will say that in the past, it seems to me that Apple's policies were rather more liberal when it comes to this sort of thing. Plenty of stories on this forum years ago of amazing customer service even when it was clearly the consumer at fault. Not so much anymore.
One of the factors behind the non-USA higher prices besides the strong dollar/weak every other currency is related to the laws in places like Oz and the UK where the effective warranties go well beyond what they do in the USA.
One of the factors behind the non-USA higher prices besides the strong dollar/weak every other currency is related to the laws in places like Oz and the UK where the effective warranties go well beyond what they do in the USA.
Yes. We don’t know the actual percentage of defective phones vs the number of phones manufactured. The rate could be 10%, 1%, .1%, .0001% etc.
Clearly plausible. But the same with all warranty claims.
This happens more so if the firmware is flashed to a new version which I am assuming is the case when upgrading between major releases. Same reason why I never update my BIOS unless something is very broken. All it takes is a minor hiccup during the flashing process and the whole device is dead. OS upgrades will also push the hardware to its limits since so many things happen.
Also, .0 releases are generally unstable so I personally upgrade just before the next one comes out (e.g. recently went to 15.6.1 from 14.8). Tests on my spare SSD for macOS 12.6 still show that OS is not ready to replace 11.7 on my main SSD so I will keep waiting.
There's a lot of variables here at stake and all of them lead to the user getting messed over.
I'm posting this in case it saves someone some time.
Upgrading to IOS 16 caused a black screen of death on my iphone 12 pro max no matter what I did...hard restart, dfu, backup and restore.
I had replaced the screen with a third party screen a few weeks before the IOS 16 upgrade and it was working fine for those weeks.
I had to restore an image of ios 15.x and then everything was fine. I even upgraded to 15.7 after the security fixes and everything is fine.
Something to do with IOS 16 and my 12 Pro Max and that third party screen didn't play well.
Heads up.
Upgrading to IOS 16 caused a black screen of death on my iphone 12 pro max no matter what I did...hard restart, dfu, backup and restore.
I had replaced the screen with a third party screen a few weeks before the IOS 16 upgrade and it was working fine for those weeks.
I had to restore an image of ios 15.x and then everything was fine. I even upgraded to 15.7 after the security fixes and everything is fine.
Something to do with IOS 16 and my 12 Pro Max and that third party screen didn't play well.
Heads up.
This is what I believe is happening to others who say their iphone is 'bricked' after the update. Their iphone is not being 'bricked' it's just that the display does not work but everything else is fine as you proved in your case. When iphone owners take their 'bricked' phone to an Apple store to be checked out just a simple check of plugging the iphone into a computer will determine if the iphone is actually 'bricked' or that the update has disabled the iphones lcd. Naturally the Apple employee is not about to tell the iphone owner that the update has special checking abilities to see if certain items in the iphone are genuine Apple parts or not and if not the update disables them (something to do with have to match serial numbers) so what they do is tell the iphone owner that the phone had an existing undisclosed hardware fault of which the update has exposed and caused the iphone to malfunction.
As I have said in one of my other posts, if people want to check if their iphone is actually 'bricked' or not, connect it to a computer. If the computer detects the presence of the iphone then you know that the update has disabled the display.
I'd have had to go full Karen on them. A hardware issue sounds like a them problem not a me problem... Hope you get reimbursed or get it corrected.
Probably because there is no evidence that their software caused the issue.
It's not a whole lot different from walking into the Apple Store with a working phone, having your phone suddenly die, and then blaming it on the Apple Store.
