Nonsense. You are making an assertion: prove it. Where does Apple state, unequivocally, that refurbs given as warranty replacements have new front glass? I don't mean anything about factory certified refurbs that they sell, and which include all items that one would get with a brand-new device. I am talking about what this thread is about: warranty replacements that contain nothing but the device in a black box. (Though I don't really believe it is the case for factory certified refurbs that Apple sells either.)
You can't provide such proof, therefore you are merely speculating.
Aren't you speculating too? Where does Apple unequivocally state that warranty refurbs aren't subject to the same standards as the certified refurbs? And what makes you so sure that the warranty replacements aren't "factory refurbs" - they are given serial numbers in the same format as the refurbs you can buy from Apple, and those serial numbers do have the factory information encoded in them.
When there's no official statement on the matter, one must look at the whole picture. If you can find me a single case of someone receiving a refurb that appears used, then maybe you're right. I've searched - I must have read a thousand accounts by now. To date everything I've read has the same story - they wouldn't know it was refurbished if not for the serial number. The number of similar posts approaches statistical significance. I bet if I took a random survey of 1000 similar posts, I still wouldn't find any refurbs with cosmetic flaws. A sample size of 1000 is enough for an interval to be accurate within a few percentage points for a population of a couple hundred million.
More nonsense. People go into Apple stores and open-and-check what they just bought all the time. And some are returned right then and there. Others are returned the next day. In fact I'd venture most iPhone returns occur very soon after purchase. So for you to make the statement that it is "impossible" for a returned item to be cosmetically perfect is ludicrous.
Compound that with Apple tightening up return replacements for devices that are brought in damaged, and it is very possible--if not probable--for a many returned iPhones to have front glass and/or metal casings in perfect condition.
Regardless, as long as every one of them is checked and tested, with bad parts weeded out, those bad parts won't get back into the supply chain anyway.
The real question is, why is that so hard to fathom???
Michael
How is that even relevant to this thread? This thread was concerned with what happens to iPhones that are exchanged at the genius bar for a replacement (whether it's warranty or not). A couple geniuses claim that the old ones aren't even refurbished. Which is plausible given the apparently quality standards of the replacements - again, I've yet to see a single one with so much as a microscratch, and I am far from the only one. It's one thing for a phone to not be considered damaged (read: no spider cracks), it's another for it to be mint. The replacements are mint. If you don't believe me conduct a study yourself, you'll find the same conclusion.
And let's assume that the day-0 returns are simply wiped clean and go directly into the pool of refurb iPhones. Do you really believe that can account for every single warranty replacement - or even a significant portion of them? Given the sales figures of the various iPhones, I'd have a very hard time believing that there are enough returns to cover nearly all of the warranty replacements. The rest have to come from somewhere.
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Repeating it ad nauseum does not make it so.
If Apple replaced the front glass they would say so. Sans a definitive statement by Apple your conclusion has no more merit than mine.
Michael
There is more evidence in favor of front glass replacement than not. If they didn't replace them in non-extreme cases, it would be impossible for all of the warranty replacements (or even a significant majority) to be immaculate. The probability of that approaches astronomical odds.
And with all that said, I
never once said that this is exactly how Apple does it. All I stated it is plausible, and should not be ruled out simply because "gee, the iPhone is a $650+ device, how can they possibly afford that?". The iPhone is not an expensive device to manufacture - in the best case scenario manufacturing costs are barely 30% of the retail price. General failure rate of consumer electronics is low enough that Apple can afford to allocate a few iPhones for replacement purposes only (let's say for every 100 iPhones sold, they allocate one new device to warranty purposes... or use whatever numbers you please) without making a dent in their profit margin. If they do give new phones, they potentially improve customer satisfaction and potentially minimize returns (due to defects not being caught in the refurb process). Hence it could actually save them a bit of money. Is that so hard to comprehend?
