Rubber gasket came out of my Digital Crown today.

Commom sense says keep it dry. They will replace it.

 

they would probably cover it as that seems like a manufacture defect, and you are within 1 year. The problem with in store (your only option since you do not have AC+) is they will send it off for repair.

 

Just curious - Sport or Stainless?

 

Are you supposed to get something different with AC+? Because I have it, and when I had a defect with my watch, they still told me to come in so they could ship it off, and I had to wait for a week before receiving a replacement watch.

 

Yes. Applecare+ has express replacement if you call the applecare+ number. They will overnight you a new watch and let you send the old one back.

 

is there any truth that innards of the crown are different between sport and stainless?

 

Yes. The mounting brackets for each are different with the one for the Steel version being out of a stronger material.

 

Why couldn't they just give you a replacement right there??

 

It's ridiculous that they can't replace that on the spot

 

Just a theory but I'm guessing it's to create a barrier that only those really needing something would go through. Those with issues that could be ignored by most people are less likely to game the system if effort is required.

 

I don't think anyone apart from people who read websites like MR are going to know whether it will be replaced on the spot or not, so I doubt it's to stop people wanting excessive replacements.

Just seems like poor customer service to me.

 

And this is why Apple doesn't rate their watches for water resistance beyond IPX7.

 

No, this is simply a case of manufacturing defect. A defective watch will fail regardless of the water resistance rating.

 

This isn't the first gasket that's reportedly popped out, and what about all the ones that aren't properly set, but don't pop out? What it suggests to me is a lack of focus on the manufacturing side. There's also crowns and backs coming off where the glue is failing. Apple is having enough trouble getting the watches out the door at volume to worry about random water tests the line, to ensure every watch is assembled to protect against whatever IPX8 rating they might want to certify for. And that's why I'm suggesting they backed off the rating and played it safe for this first gen launch. Obviously if the gasket popped out and the watch were rated for 300m, this would still be a manufacturing defect. The question I'm posing is how sure is Apple that this gasket popping out is a very rare occurrence, of no real concern, and not part of a larger manufacturing problem that they didn't have time to address?

 

When you sell a product in the millions, there's liable to be many thousands of units with some sort of manufacturing defects and they'll of course be overrepresented on this forum. If it were a widespread issue, we can usually tell from the many more posts reporting it like the crescent moon camera issue on the iPhone 6/6+, the iPhone 5 units arriving from factory full of nicks and scratches, and Antennagate. The number of posts reporting defective rubber gaskets and the back of the Watch case falling off hasn't quite reached that level.

 

Let me put it to you this way ...

I had a friend who bought one of the first Mercedes SUVs off the assembly line. He had a few warranty issues for which he took his truck in, and every time, they did about 2 or 3 other things he had reported no problems with. One time, they replaced the entire transmission under warranty, which he was having no trouble with, and which was totally unexpected. If he hadn't closely reviewed his work order, he would have never known, because they didn't tell him. This is not uncommon behavior for an auto maker. They issue internal recalls, which are quietly handled under the radar, before they become an issue, to avoid unfavorable public impressions during a product launch. And I make specific mention that it was a Mercedes due to the reputation of quality, reliability, and integrity, it shares along with Apple. That truck in particular is an apt comparison as it was a brand new first year, unique model, assembled at a brand new dedicated plant, using local labor. And I know Apple does this as well, addressing internal recalls when a unit is sent in for repair. The original Macintosh had one such recall which added a resistor array to the logic board, but only if a customer brought it in for other service, there were no customer notices otherwise.

My point is, where there's smoke there's fire. Who knows what other sorts of problems Apple may be aware of with the watch that may or may not appear over time? And who knows if Apple intended to original give it an IPX8 300m rating or not, but these manufacturing defects were too common to risk it? To me, this particular problem, isolated though it may be now, suggests yet another reason Apple may have given the watch a much more conservative IPX7 rating despite the fact in many casual anecdotal tests, the watch seemingly performs quite well. Yes only a few are coming out, and that may be all that ever do pop out. But how many would pop out, or otherwise fail if subjected to greater pressure from wearing in the water?

As for reported defects, while we don't know how many watches have been sold to date, we can be sure it took about 3 months before any significant volume were in circulation, and even now, it's unlikely the number of watches in circulation is any more than a small percentage of new iPhones sold. So I would argue there hasn't really been enough watches sold for any problem "gates" to materialize. Let's see where we are after the holidays (but even then, I would still assert, most of the likely potential problems have been mitigated by limiting its abilities).

 

But we already know what a widespread issue looks like when it comes to the AW, namely the numerous posts from members expressing shock that Apple isn't stocking white box replacements for the Watch (unlike other iDevices to date) and that they have to send their Watches off for repair. It's in fact consistent with the level of reports we get regarding widespread issues with other iDevices, and the number of posts reporting the rubber gasket coming out of the digital crown pales in comparison to that.

 

Again, the rubber gasket coming out is the worst case scenario. Let's say in all failures of the gasket, only 2% come out. But that doesn't mean it isn't otherwise compromised, or prone to it. If the gasket doesn't come out, and the customer doesn't get the watch wet, then the consumer may never know they have defective gasket.