random facts about the iPhones in Apple Stores

[tymaster50]

Phones are not refurbished, they are sent back to Apple in cupertino, they inspect it, work on the phone to figure out what was wrong, they strip the parts and use the ones that work, then they are used in another phone

They have a separate shipment for whitebox phones, trust me they won't run out, well at least where I live. You have to have a very good issue to where they will actually replace the phone, they run a diagnostic test where they test battery, wifi connection, screen quality, etc... or a sympathetic Genius that will push the rules a little.

They receive a shipment about once or twice every 2 weeks of about 10-50 phones depending on the size of the store, they then ration it out to selling a few phones for walk-ins everyday and the rest for online reservation, once those phones are gone they are officially "sold out".

The iPhones they use in the store are set-up in a way where it is the same number of Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon phones all around.

iPhones are the most popular product in the Apple store

They keep their shipment in the "back-room" where some Genius workers stay, running shipping logs, operations, doing tests, and monitoring the store.
iPhones are started to be protected by locked lightning/30 pin security connectors to prevent theft.

The way they have signal reception and no carrier name is the SIM card is taken out, they restore it, and the phone will say phone not activated. That way you can see how much signal the phone will have without having to pay for cell service.
I know these are useless I just thought it was pretty cool to know. Correct me if I'm wrong on any

 

[expergo]

This is all correct.

 

[Wuiffi]

Interesting stuff. As there is no apple store in Austria, I didn't know some of those facts!

 

[Daveoc64]

Phones are not refurbished, they are sent back to Apple in cupertino, they inspect it, work on the phone to figure out what was wrong, they strip the parts and use the ones that work, then they are used in another phone

To a large extent, that's exactly what refurbishing a device means.

The real difference with Apple is that they remanufacture their devices.

What they actually do is to take a broken device, replace whichever part was broken and then replace both the battery and the external casing. This gives the impression of a new device, while keeping the costs down.

With a refurbished product, the company will replace whatever is broken, but the rest of the device will be unchanged and consequently could be in bad shape. It might have cosmetic damage or the battery could be quite worn out.

AFAIK they don't send the devices to California. There is no need in the vast majority of cases where the problem is already well-documented. They only tend to do that when a product is new and they're trying to collect data on potential problems.

 

[kingdLo]

Just want to add the apple stores get shipments everyday of nearly everything. My few times delivering there each was over 300+ boxes of product, all in discrete white boxing. None ever had a product definition and all would say AI as the recipient.

 

[tymaster50]

To a large extent, that's exactly what refurbishing a device means.

The real difference with Apple is that they remanufacture their devices.

What they actually do is to take a broken device, replace whichever part was broken and then replace both the battery and the external casing. This gives the impression of a new device, while keeping the costs down.

With a refurbished product, the company will replace whatever is broken, but the rest of the device will be unchanged and consequently could be in bad shape. It might have cosmetic damage or the battery could be quite worn out.

AFAIK they don't send the devices to California. There is no need in the vast majority of cases where the problem is already well-documented. They only tend to do that when a product is new and they're trying to collect data on potential problems.

the genius guy told me they are sent to Apple in cupertino for inspection.

 

[tymaster50]

Just want to add the apple stores get shipments everyday of nearly everything. My few times delivering there each was over 300+ boxes of product, all in discrete white boxing. None ever had a product definition and all would say AI as the recipient.

that store must have been super busy

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

To a large extent, that's exactly what refurbishing a device means.

The real difference with Apple is that they remanufacture their devices.

While true, they still call it "refurbished." So it's refurbished in Apple's language. Refurbished products on the Apple store attest to this.

 

[kingdLo]

that store must have been super busy

Freehold Mall, NJ. Store is always busy

 

[tymaster50]

Freehold Mall, NJ. Store is always busy

because it's like the only one in 20 miles lol I live in piscataway so there are 2 apple stores within 20 minutes (bridgewater and edison) there is also one i think in woodbridge mall.

 

[zbarvian]

That's pretty interesting.