Apple Patent Detects Device Abuse

[ssddx]

[citation][nom]r0x0r[/nom]Hmm this has a lot of potential for mis-use...Buy an iPod. Replace crappy white earbuds with something decent that isn't Apple brand. Flag as abuse. Same story for all those iPod docks, chargers, etc out there.[/citation]

I doubt there will be a problem with using any 3rd party headphones. As for the chargers, they should conform to apple standards. Well... the more expensive ones should. I wouldn't trust anything on the cheap.

This is less like limiting consumer choice as it is to placing a tilt monitor on plasma televisions. They used to do that since people would just return a defective $10,000 tv and expect a refund. Yeah, they tilted it even when the huge letters on the box told them otherwise. Most of the time this will only affect the retailer, unless they decide to try and force the manufacturer to pay up for a faulty product. In either case, one of them is going to lose. Having such detection technology will protect the manufacturer, and let the retailer eat the cost since they did an unauthorized return just to keep a customer happy.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

[citation][nom]nachowarrior[/nom]so you're saying the moron with a 2 digit iq and a 5 digit yearly income behind the counter is qualified to diagnose complex electronics?[citation]

I'm pretty sure most of the people on this site have a 5 digit yearly income. Where I'm from making 90k a year doesn't exactly mean you're poor or stupid.

 

[ravetroll]

It will be hacked / disabled to read 'no abuse' and then you can claim no water damage even if you return it in a pint of lager. Speaking from experience this would be very handy to me!

 

[Guest]

I personally think Apple are making a very bad business decision here, similar to the EA DRM scandal.
If ipods worked 100% to their potential 100% of the time, no one would batter an eyelid. The fact of the matter is though, ipods are notorious for breaking without warning (sticky wheels, broken screens to name a few popular breaks).
Consumers will be wondering, and rightly so, why the fuck Apple are implementing this patent instead of working on a more reliable product.
As someone else put it, its punishing the consumer for their lazy actions.

Apple, you're a bunch a twats

 

[skalagon]

Yeah this could be good news for the technically savy. Lets say Apple come to rely on this completely for checking if returned products are valid. Now all someone has to do if they drop their ipod and it goes all funny is hack it and wipe the abuse event log.

 

[njalterio]

[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]Many devices include such monitoring devices. Moisture detection is common. A shock sensor isnt a bad idea if it works. [/citation]

Wrong. If that was true; Apple would not be patenting this technology.

[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]
Why should they pay for your screw up?
[/citation]

No one here said Apple or any company should pay for a customer screw up. People here are concerned because there is a lot of room for error with this sensor. False positives happen all the time. I remember I almost shelled out $1600 to replace the catalytic converter in my car due to a faulty O2 sensor. I would imagine this type of issue of sensor generated false positives would be much more prevalent in computers than cars as computers operate in a much smaller range of specification.


[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]
I am sure you do not realize the massive returns/exchanges apple has to deal with because of simple consumer carelessness.
[/citation]

Aren't Macs supposed to be user-friendly, reliable and error free?

[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]
Don't hate on apple for implimenting existing (and more common then you think) technology.
[/citation]

Again, Apple is the one who is patenting this technology. They are the first to do this sort of thing.


[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]
And no, i'm not a fan-boy.
[/citation]

Yes, you are.

 

[mrkenan]

[citation][nom]nachowarrior[/nom]so you're saying the moron with a 2 digit iq and a 5 digit yearly income behind the counter is qualified to diagnose complex electronics?[/citation]

That's really classy right there. /sarcasm
Apparently you have to make over 100 grand to be competent. Most college Profs don't make that much. It's not like the people looking at this stuff are random people off the street. They're trained and qualified to do their job and do it well...or they wouldn't be there. Everyone knows how much Apple focuses on quality, or what they view as quality. Why would it be any different for their personnel.

 

[balister]

When Jobs got sick, was he infected with evil Ballmer DNA or did M$ just swap out his brain?

Jobs was evil from day one. He was making developers pay him money to write programs for the Mac back in '84 and hasn't really changed his ways since.

 

[eyemaster]

[citation][nom]Rab1d-BDGR[/nom]The good news: If apple patent it then nobody else will be able to use it.[/citation]

It might not be software. It might be stickers or hardware detection of somekind that the techs at the store need to physically witness. Like the little red/white dot in cell phones.

 

[eyemaster]

Argh, I quoted the wrong post... It was intended for the "Hackable".

 

[jellico]

You know, there's just something terribly elitist about Apple. Their stuff is highly stylized, and often a status symbol... but one that you pay a premium for. When it comes to their phones and media players, in between the praise and accolades, there have been a litanty of horror stories about substandard batteries, exploding batteries, poor customer service, etc. When it comes to computers, it's not even a contest. There's no such thing as a Mac gamer. And forget their hardware. You can do so much more, as Tom's demonstrate EVERY DAY, with so much less money. And then, the icing on the cake is that you pay all that money, and they still do crap like this. For what you're paying for their stuff, they should exchange the products no questions asked.

 

[lowguppy]

[citation][nom]acecombat[/nom]So I go and buy a new car, take it out the front and crash it, should I get a refund because I damaged it? I can see, from a companies perspective why they would want to integrate such a thing...But what if the sensor is faulty???[/citation]
Well, in that case its your car insurance and GAP coverage that will pay for it, not the manufacturer. Do we need Gadget insurance now?

 

[scook9]

considering the price of most apple devices, I would expect a no questions asked sort of return policy as a courtesy and sign of respect to the customers - instead of dicking us around like this. Most people simply "break" their iPod around 11 months to get a new one for a new battery, since the batteries apple uses are notorious for SUCKING and failing soon after 1 year, apple earned the way customers treat them

But that is just me...

 

[cyprod]

The one I love is the thermal sensor.

Customer Service Rep: "Hmm, says here that the device got way too hot shortly before the failure, that's an abuse event so it isn't covered under the warrenty."

Customer: "Yeah, of course it got hot, the battery started on fire!"

 

[dextermat]

Lol way to shoot a bullet in you dumb long feets apple.

Never buy expensive crap

 

[ssddx]

After reading in greater detail I see that apple is coming up with something a little more ornate then what is typically used. However, the technology does already exist. Apple is just trying to tie it all together in one of their devices.
-As for returns? I worked in retail for a few years. I'm not sure if it went all to way to apple, but someone lost out.
--Just because someone defends apple does not mean they are a fanboy. I only prefer my ipod for ease of use. I just had to respond to your iHate comment.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]acecombat[/nom]So I go and buy a new car, take it out the front and crash it, should I get a refund because I damaged it?[/citation]
I actually don't know of any dealership that replaces or refunds damage you did to the car. There are warranties for parts of the car, which typically don't cover collisions. That's what insurance is for.

 

[azgard]

I worked repairing consumer electronics, and honestly if you people have never done it you have no idea what your talking about. It's amazing the amount of stupid crap people do to their electronics and try to have it replaced under warranty. You spill a liquid "moisture event" chances are no matter how much you hide it, we will find it same with thermal and shock. System like this just makes it a lot easier to diagnose an issue and void your warranty's. Their is no shift of the burden of innocence or guilt here.

 

[blackz06vette]

This is why you buy everything with plastic. They refuse to honor the warranty? Contact your credit card company and let them know you are disputing the charge. This may not work for extended warranty issues (a year down the road), but most electronics either fail in the first few weeks/months, or they wont fail for years.

The last paragraph is not very clear. Does that mean they are going to equip the retailer to get this stored info to see if the product has been abused?

I always try to do my returns through the retailer. That way you know you are getting a new product that is 99% likely to be in good shape, as opposed to a 'repaired' return that could have any number of intermittent problems they did not catch in the repair process.

 

[ready4dis]

I really hope it doesn't get approved, mostly because the same exact thing already exists in many places. One example are cars storing events, so if you come in and the ECU says you were doing 150mph, they can reject warranty work. That is not any different than what Apple is tring to patent as a 'new' idea. For some reason the patent office is really bad about realizing things like 'hey, this is common practice and not actually anything new', so it probably will be approved, then apple will sue someone that was already using it, a lot of time, and money will be wasted in the courts and on lawyers when this could all be avoided if the patent office had any intelligence whatsoever. Some of the things they approve amazes me.