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I always thought it was BS to claim any sort of water resistance and then deny any form of warranty liquid claim.
Why? Knowing that your iPhone can survive after being dropped in a pool is a feature and as such it may be advertised. Apple has never advertised that the iPhone may be used or should be used under water or in the shower in normal circumstances. Recognizing warranty for water demage would mean that you can go diving in the ocean and then seek a free repair when the product is objectively not designed to be used in this enviernment. Im curious to know if the Italian regulator also imposed fines to Samsung, Xiaomi or virtually all other brands that have some level of water resistence.
 
It's not about the $12M, which you and I know is pocket change for Apple and the cost of doing business, it's more about this seems like a money grab as the watchdog agency doesn't like the testing methodology applied in the USA.

If you read the verdict linked in the article, it is not about the testing methods (which are not particular to the USA, given that IEC 60529 is an international standard). It is about how Apple used the methods in the advertising: by heavily emphasizing the water depth in meters and the duration of submersion, accompanied by pictures and films of iPhones being splashed/sprayed/dipped and lots of happy talk about not having to worry about water any more - but at the same time omitting or hiding all the additional severely limiting conditions behind the title of the standard (the actual text of IEC 60529 is not so easy to access), or opaque wordings like "under controlled laboratory conditions", without explaining what this actually means.

The verdict argues that this type of advertising can easily mislead the average consumer. Maybe there is a bit of a cultural difference: I'm no legal expert, but my impression is that in the EU it is harder to get away with hiding ugly stuff in the fine print - if there are some shrewd clauses in the contract that are likely to deceive or be missed by the average reader, then there is a good chance that they will be declared invalid if it goes to court, even if they are technically correct and unambiguous.
 
I actually made this argument many years ago on this forum and was mostly chastised for it.

I don't understand how someone can claim water resistance, and even give specific parameters, but then deny all water damaged warranty claims. In my eyes, one shouldn't even be marketing water resistance at all if they reserve the right to deny water damage.

Before I get chastised again, I get it. There's no tangible way for Apple to know whether you dropped the phone a mile deep in sea water or you dropped it in your kitchen sink while doing the dishes. The problem is, the burden of proof really shouldn't have to be on the consumer. They could just... not advertise water resistance.

I also get that other companies make similar claims. I don't support those either. And I'll never justify one company's problematic actions with those of another.
Being 'chastised' by the newer group of kool-aid drinkers' is common. I used to be that way about 30-years ago. 👨‍🦳
 
They could have just watched all the youtube videos of people throwing them into rivers and lakes and fishing them out after an hour. No saltwater though. Trust me on that one - you need a cap over the lightning connecter. I mean...it will recover eventually with lots of distilled water cleaning but not a good idea.
 
Cue the Apple shareholders with their cognitive dissonance, whereby you can claim water resistance and deny warranty claims because of liquid damage.
How can they know what you did? How can they tell the difference between someone who goes diving for three hours and forgets their phone is in their pocket and someone who gets splashes on their phones. In your version they are forced to stop water proofing phones because there is no benefit they can advertise to consumers.

The water protection is great. You can watch plenty of youtube videos of testing. Its real. I even wash my phones in water now without any worries (just not salt water).
 
Well. Im terms of money grab you should probably be more concerned what your own regulatory institutions did regarding CDO and CDS that lead to a global market crash worth BILLIONS of profit to American financial organizations, that eventual lead to the European financial crises for distraction.

Stop lecturing your allies. Your are in no moral higher ground to do so.

We just don’t have enough data about this situation yet you seam quick to judge the Italian regularity agency, country even, over an Apple issue. It’s ridiculous.

As said, this is not the path! It’s a crazy path to follow! Don’t you think?

I'm not Apple's lawyer, but do you know if this Italian agency also imposed fines to virtually all smartphone manufacturers that advertise certain degree of water resistence in their products?
 
How can they know what you did? How can they tell the difference between someone who goes diving for three hours and forgets their phone is in their pocket and someone who gets splashes on their phones. In your version they are forced to stop water proofing phones because there is no benefit they can advertise to consumers.

The water protection is great. You can watch plenty of youtube videos of testing. Its real. I even wash my phones in water now without any worries (just not salt water).

You probably shouldn’t keep washing them. Over time the protection degrades. Simply washing them can cause damage.
 
I actually kind of agree with this. When my pristine condition iPhone 11 Pro Max had a speaker go out on it the first thing the Apple employee did was to check for water damage. When I asked what he was doing he said he was checking to see if water had gotten inside the phone as it wouldn't be covered under warranty.

When I said "I thought the phone was water resistant" he said "It is, but if water gets inside it it isn't covered." Seemed a little strange to me. If you aren't going to cover water damage then don't market your phones as water resistant.

I asked if the same applied to my watch and he said yes, which to me is baffling. You literally show people swimming in your ads with the watch on but aren't going to cover it if water gets inside the watch.
It’s an interesting issue. Apple can make a phone water proof down to 30 meters, but if someone takes it down to 100 meters, and it fails, how would Apple know that the phone was taken down that far. A seal could fail at 1 meter, and it should be covered under warranty. But there would be no way of knowing the reason for water ingress. Was it a failed seal in minor water or a phone that had been submerged greater than the allowed limit.
I’ve also seen a video where they took an iPhone 12 to 30+ feet for an hour and it came up working fine, and I take my phone in the pool all the time. So I believe most iPhones from the factory are as water proof as they say, but dropping the phone even once can break the seals that cause it to be water proof.
 
Ahhh water resistance is a really good feature of phones. Never had any water resistance problems on my iPhone, despite me sometimes splashing/ lightly submerging it in water (eg to wash it)
I found Apple's marketing to be quite modest and iPhone water resistance is actually better than they advertise
Except you have not immersed phone anywhere near the claimed depth or length of time. Up to 30mins at 6m. And other folk have had failures within those paramaters.
 
Your post? Yes, it would appear to be.

Hey you know that “17 hours of video playback” battery life Apple claims. Yeah, it’s not going to result in practical 17 hours of video playback for everyone.

What a stupid comment.

You sound like a person that complained about the antennagate of the iPhone 4 just because everyone else complained about it even though you and everyone else never really had any day to day practical issues with it.

Just another apple baseless bashing. Not point in arguing with you. 👋
 
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I was chatting to a phone repair chap a while back and he said that phones are basically glued together. Add a bit of warmth like using them at beach on a hot day and then go i water and zap! Dead phone. Sony's phones that were heavily advertised for use in exactly such conditions had a lot of failures because of melting glue.

If I accidentally leave camera on and put an iPhone in pocket, it gets really toasty. Which isn't good for glue.
 
No it's not. I fell down while swimming this summer and my iPhone only briefly went in shallow water and would not charge for days before being ok. I almost junked it as I thought it might be hopeless. So these waterproof claims are seriously bogus. And we're not talking meters here either. I'm talking only splashing inches into the water and that made it fail! to charge anymore!

And guess what the solution was? Spraying more water on the connector and then putting it back in the tray of rice! HAHA!
sounds like you tried to charge when the port was wet. non issue.
 
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Hey you know that “17 hours of video playback” battery life Apple claims. Yeah, it’s not going to result in practical 17 hours of video playback for everyone.

What a stupid comment.

You sound like a person that complained about the antennagate of the iPhone 4 just because everyone else complained about it even though you and everyone else never really had any day to day practical issues with it.

Just another apple baseless bashing. Not point in arguing with you. 👋
Lots of strawmanning and personal attacks going on here.
 
No, it’s idiotic to claim and advertise water resistance and then void warranty for water damage caused by contact with liquids at limited depth and for short time.
no, that’s reasonable. there’s no accurate way to tell if the phone was submerged for longer than what is rated. everyone would be filing fraud claims
 
The only idiotic thing is the mere €10m they have been fined as it should have been much more, you can't go and advertise water resistance and then not covering water damage in your warranty.
Either one or the other.
no, if it’s rated for 30 minutes under water but someone left it under for 40 minutes, they would file a claim and apple will have to pay for it.

warranty rules make sense.
 
Did you read this bit?

"highlighting water resistance as a feature, while at the same time refusing to provide post-sales warranty assistance if the ‌iPhone‌ models in question suffer water damage."

THAT is idiotic.
tell me, how can you tell if a user submerged it for longer than 30 minutes or whatever the phone is rated at?

everyone would just shower with their phones then claim warranty when it breaks. apple would have no way of checking how long the phone had been submerged
 
I'm not Apple's lawyer, but do you know if this Italian agency also imposed fines to virtually all smartphone manufacturers that advertise certain degree of water resistence in their products?

Have no idea. Do you? It’s not me that is assuming that this Italian organization is corrupt. Don’t you see a pattern on this forum? If any European organization, local or global, fines of finds Apple in non compliance either its because they are bunch of money grabbers and the situation needs to be analyzed and cross referenced with blogs on the subject as well having a deep look on their historical practices. This coming from common American people I suppose.

I personally find this what seams to be a recurrent posture exposed in this forum, dangerous even. It may expose a on going American distrust over anything foreign, including allied countries. Its baseless, if not for the recent Trump propaganda, heck even Canada was in the grab? Let’s be serious people.

Apple should appeal this local decision as well as any decision that don’t fit their goals. I’m sure that any European country is able to judge and deal with this impartially as well as they are familiar and practice western values. Much like I suppose any foreign company would be treated in the US ...

For instance Spotifly just before the IPO was sued in the US over $1.6B over Copy Right violations ... Apple too not long time ago. Every year Apple one way or another is sued in the US, it must be Monet grabbing too?

It’s just business as usual. In Italy, US or any other other country. No one has the moral ground to pass judgement without all the facts in their hand and even than you need to be equipped to interpret them. That is for experts to do.
 
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Wow so you found an Italian product not to your liking (one of the biggest car manufacturers) and think that Italy should for that reason seize its consumer regulations? Rich!
By that standard the US would have shut down their car industry 30 years ago already.
You obviously don't read Consumer Reports automaker rankings. Fiat is near the bottom and has a number of class-action lawsuits facing it in the USA. Alfa has been forced to buy back a large number of 2017-2019 vehicles sold in the USA. One particular dealer that I am in contact with has had to buy back half the Giulias that they sold over the last 2 years. My 2015 Aprilia motorcycle was a disappointment as was my friend's 2016 Ducati.
 
tell me, how can you tell if a user submerged it for longer than 30 minutes or whatever the phone is rated at?

everyone would just shower with their phones then claim warranty when it breaks. apple would have no way of checking how long the phone had been submerged

You didn't read the article beyond the title, did you?
 
Well. ...
If you want to discuss this, PRSI is an appropriate place. Not remotely related to the topic.
Stop lecturing your allies. Your are in no moral higher ground to do so.
Definitional difference between opinion and lecture.
We just don’t have enough data about this situation yet you seam quick to judge the Italian regularity agency, country even, over an Apple issue. It’s ridiculous.

As said, this is not the path! It’s a crazy path to follow! Don’t you think?
The entire thread are opinions based off of a news article. We will have to wait for the updates.
 
Fair enough, but that is exactly why the IP68 claim is wholly misleading, especially when accompanied by advertisements such as the one included in the article. All of that is pretty much at the heart of the Italian charges.
It got an ip68 due to the laboratory tests. There virtually is no other way to test this. For example: are you, the manufacturer going to test 10 meters in the Artic Sea? Atlantic Ocean? Hot Springs? Dead Sea?
 
Idiotic is your remark. If Italy had did tests and consider the marketing information as well as customer support not in line, there should be consequences. Apple or any other company. This site is about Apple, of course it covers Apple issues.

Never seen a forum whose user are so pro company and less pro user / customers of the company as this one. It seams that any observation not in line with the company modus operandi is idiotic. I wonder who is the ...
apple has rated 17 hours of video playback for battery life which no one is practically going to get. i guess that means italy should sue, right?

no, what’s idiotic is your accusation. as for me being “pro company”, i’ve bashed Apple for this awful service called TV+ many times on here and everyone accused me of being anti apple. but now you accuse me of being “pro Apple and less pro user” because i disagree with you.

please just stop with these ridiculous categorizations. i have bashed Apple nearly just as much as i supported Apple.

no point in arguing with you it sounds like, so i’ll end it here 👋
 
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