iPhone broken by Apple

Bigmac1euro

Need some help on this one,

A friend of mine bought an iPhone roughly 18 months ago and signed a 2 year contract with a network company, my friend updated the phone last week which bricked the phone,
I immediately took this up with Apple who tried to resolve the issue, unfortunately the cost to have an engineer repair the phone is 249 euro.

The warranty Apple provide is only 1 year from purchase I was then told that I must take it up with the point of sale. I emailed the network company and as expected they told me to take it up with Apple which I did already so I sent them the email that Apple had sent me telling me to contact them after assessing the issue and coming to the conclusion is was a hardware problem and that the update bricked the phone due to the hardware issue.

Now the network company went off to Apple and then came back to me with this

“Under Irish consumer law, any defect or non-conformity of goods with the contract which becomes apparent within 6 months of delivery are presumed to have existed at the time of delivery.
After the expiry of this 6 month period, the burden to prove that the defect or non-conformity of goods with the contract existed on delivery generally shifts to the consumer.“

I’m pretty sure under European law any electronics product within 2 years old had to be replaced at point of sale if it just randomly breaks

Please note this was not accidental damage as it was after the iOS update the phone broke.

L1011

There is no European 2 year warranty, it has not been transposed to Irish law as Irish consumer protections were superior to it

The retailer (the network in this case) are the responsible party, they cannot foist you off to Apple. Registered letter to HQ is probably the next step - stating that a software update made it inoperable which is a manufacturing fault either with the hardware or the software provided with it.

Bigmac1euro

L1011 wrote: »

There is no European 2 year warranty, it has not been transposed to Irish law as Irish consumer protections were superior to it

The retailer (the network in this case) are the responsible party, they cannot foist you off to Apple. Registered letter to HQ is probably the next step - stating that a software update made it inoperable which is a manufacturing fault either with the hardware or the software provided with it.

Thanks for the response!
Do you know is there anything that protects me ? As in, is there any law that protects the buyer in this case ?
The phone is 18 months old. But it still seems a bit ridiculous that they are going to be in the position to fight this considering there was no accidental damage.

L1011

Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act provides for up to 6 years protection in case of a manufacturing fault. This does not equal a 6 year no questions guarantee by any means but its one of the longest terms in Europe

If you look back over this forum you'll see that phone networks are extremely difficult to deal with.


We have had a few users who have pushed Apple on the "2 years" that doesn't actually exist here with success, now that I remember it - its worth giving it a go but do remember you are bending the truth to get the result you should get anyway a bit quicker!

theteal

Ah yes, good old apple and their "better customer experience" with this direct to manufacturer policy. Just go back to the retailer OP. Contract of sale is there. Just because they have an agreement with Apple does not affect your consumer rights in the slightest. An undamaged item must last a reasonable amount of time. Did you follow the instructions correctly when installing the update?

I would send a letter to the network HQ giving them 10 days for resolution or else you're off to the SCC

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

GhostyMcGhost

Is it a beta update? Or official release?

tedpan

What is the hardware issue that's mentioned above OP, is it damage caused by you?

Bigmac1euro

Please note the damage was not caused by my friend. The phone was perfect > iOS update> phone stuck on loop failing with an error code.

Bigmac1euro

Thanks for all the replies,

So.

I went to The networks shop and they said the phone was 17 months old and wanted nothing to do with it. Didn’t even ask for my friends details.
This was the shop manager and I got his name etc
But also I’m not surprised.
I sent a letter of complaint giving them the 10 days to reply as advised by the consumer commission ireland.
Next step will be small claims procedure

Apple investigated the issue and came to the conclusion it was a hardware issue that stopped the Update from completeing.
They DID NOT tell me what kind of hardware issue it is..

Note: it’s not a Beta update
I tried DFU mode, I spent hours on this particular phone. I work with iPhones every day of the week as part of my job in IT, so believe me when I say it’s bricked , it’s bricked.

Apple obviously is to Blame for this but the network company sold the phone to my friend they are point of sale and me going to Apple is me going the extra mile as it’s their manufacturer.

I’ll let yous know how this goes, I’ve dealt with Apple at least 10 times before and they are always great up to the 12 months. Anyway should be interesting to see what happens.

Bigmac1euro

Also Apple asked me to update windows to see if that would work which I found hilarious,
restore from DFU mode
Restore from DFU mode with/without sim
Use a different computer.
3 different laptops
Etc etc etc

ED E

The issue is most likely the NAND chip on the motherboard. Its basically a mini SD Card that survives a little bit longer.

If the OS overwrites itself in an important place, but the sector it writes to fails, then boom you have a brick. For example with cheapo routers between 1 in 1000-5000 can fail on every update. With the more expensive chips on an iPhone it will happen less often, but still happens.

This weakness would be present from factory, but only becomes apparent with use.

Bigmac1euro

ED E wrote: »

The issue is most likely the NAND chip on the motherboard. Its basically a mini SD Card that survives a little bit longer.

If the OS overwrites itself in an important place, but the sector it writes to fails, then boom you have a brick. For example with cheapo routers between 1 in 1000-5000 can fail on every update. With the more expensive chips on an iPhone it will happen less often, but still happens.

This weakness would be present from factory, but only becomes apparent with use.

Yes, after hours of research I did come to the conclusion that this may be the issue.
And most likely is the issue. I still think the phone should be replaced by the network company. I've lost a lot of respect for apple in the last number of weeks and I've been working with and using an iphone for years.

ED E

Its hard as it is a part that "wears out" so can be considered a consumable in a way, sort of like a car tyre, but then its not replaceable, so its not really.

Id be on your side, but expect a lot of hassle from the network for them to accept that.

Bigmac1euro

ED E wrote: »

Its hard as it is a part that "wears out" so can be considered a consumable in a way, sort of like a car tyre, but then its not replaceable, so its not really.

Id be on your side, but expect a lot of hassle from the network for them to accept that.

I’m looking forward to their reply right now tbh.
I’ll iodate when they come back to me.

JimsAlterEgo

ED E wrote: »

Its hard as it is a part that "wears out" so can be considered a consumable in a way, sort of like a car tyre, but then its not replaceable, so its not really.

Id be on your side, but expect a lot of hassle from the network for them to accept that.

let small claims court decide, far less hassle

Bigmac1euro

JimsAlterEgo wrote: »

let small claims court decide, far less hassle

That’s the plan. But you can’t proceed without a letter of complaint first.

flaneur

I’ve had fairly good support from Apple for stuff I’ve bought directly from Apple, including items beyond warranty.

It’s likely that the network operator is just stone walking you. They’re the retailer in this case and Apple isn’t even getting the item returned to it because they’re sitting in the middle.

Apple won’t take on legal responsibility for something sold by a third party.

In most cases the mobile operators are very annoying to deal with and will just try and push the problem back to you. This might have been OK with cheap Nokia phones 10 years ago but, you’re talking about very expensive devices that are effectively computers these days and sell for prices that are close enough to a laptop.

Bigmac1euro

flaneur wrote: »

I’ve had fairly good support from Apple for stuff I’ve bought directly from Apple, including items beyond warranty.

It’s likely that the network operator is just stone walking you. They’re the retailer in this case and Apple isn’t even getting the item returned to it because they’re sitting in the middle.

Apple won’t take on legal responsibility for something sold by a third party.

In most cases the mobile operators are very annoying to deal with and will just try and push the problem back to you. This might have been OK with cheap Nokia phones 10 years ago but, you’re talking about very expensive devices that are effectively computers these days and sell for prices that are close enough to a laptop.

Yeah as I said generally Apple are pretty good to deal with but I suppose they’d want to be with the prices they charge.

The network company unfortunately needs to sort this mess out. Myself and my friend are pretty much going to take this as far as we possibly can.

I emailed them a week ago the letter of complaint.
Then I sent the same message through the web contact interface
Then we sent a registered letter signed.
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