Both of your examples are software related. In my experience, anything hardware related Apple tends to shift the blame to the consumer. I wonder how much of their profits are based on repairs.
For all the people complaining about Apple, they haven't screwed me over yet either, I've only had good experiences. All hardware, I haven't had a software issue I couldn't find the fix for on my own.
They are, at least in my part of the world, considered just above Italian car rentals.
The best support i got was when the guy at the authorized service provider told me to take the business across the street since it was both faster and cheaper and the device was out of warranty anyway.
And good luck if you're outside the US. Not sure how it is in other countries, but in Mexico Apple doesn't do repairs. It's all left to authorized third parties that really will only try to get as much money from you as possible or get you to buy a new device.
I know a couple of people that were denied repairs/replacements on the infamous butterfly keyboards because these repair centers said they couldn't reproduce the issue themselves. Most likely they didn't want to do the repairs because their margin was too low.
Phone side, I had an OG iPhone SE and decided to get the battery replaced right towards the end of the free replacement period. The first/only appointment I could find was at the Emeryville store so I dropped the phone off. Unfortunately they had a runaway thermal event so the store got evacuated. I was told to come back later and pick up my phone. Eff that, I'm not sitting in traffic and paying for bridge toll for their mistake. It took a bit of persuasion, escalation, and a minor tantrum but they did FedEx my phone back to me. Eventually I dropped that and broke the screen. They couldn't fix it and they no longer sold the 64 GB version so I got a new 128 GB one off the shelf for the price of the repair ($130) without even asking. Or 32/64. Whatever.
So, yeah, Apple's been good to me with hardware stuff (with and without AppleCare). Clearly they're not making everyone whole. The problem as I see it is that Apple is relying almost entirely on the discretion of their retail staff instead of having a formal policy in place.
So, I worked behind the genius Bar about a decade ago, and can tell you that at least as of then (say iPhone 3g through 6 era) this was definitely not the case. There’s a policy for everything.
The issue is that you’re an individual, dealing with another individual who is acting as the intermediary between you and an extraordinarily large and complex logistics and record-keeping system.
If you left feeling taken care of and treated fairly, from apple’s POV that’s a successful interaction. But the procedure for getting there may deliberately not be customer-facing; that doesn’t mean the procedure doesn’t exist.
I can answer questions if people are interested, with the caveat that my info is (thankfully) not fresh.
To the sibling comment: I've seen much worse approaches to safety stuff at other companies. Go buy a used steering wheel with a potentially defective Takata airbag for a car. Now try to get that air bag replaced or verified safe.
Or go buy a Coway air purifier. Notice how the fan is off balance and there are a bunch of complaints about these things periodically exploding? Try to get Coway to fix or replace it… lol.
Sure there is, it’s “we don’t do that” (at least in my day, and I’d be shocked if that’s changed). It’s a good explanation for why things seemed ad hoc and improvised—because they were. Sounds like the tech & manager were way off the reservation.
At least at my store and in my day, that’s the kind of exception we tried really hard to avoid. You never want to set an expectation you’re not going to be able to meet consistently.
The other thing to mention is that regardless of policy, humans are humans.
If you're acting like a Karen to the guy behind the counter, they are going to give you the absolute bare minimum service. They know the policy, and they know exactly how it can be applied to make sure you have a shit day.
If you help them help you, they'll often go above and beyond to make sure you're looked after.
The simplest and most effective strategy I've found, both as a customer and a support rep, is to simply explain the problem you're experiencing at a physical level, keeping emotion and opinion out of it. Then cooperate with them and trust them to do their job.
Support people are almost biologically engineered to want to solve your problems, but do not appreciate being treated as a punching bag or emotional dumpster.
"My trackpad stopped working randomly, do you reckon we can fix this?" is far more likely to get a good response than "My trackpad is broken, I spent $1000 on this computer just 6 months ago! I can't believe you'd sell me such shit!"
Every time you say to yourself “I like this guy, I’ll break the rules and hook him up” you’re setting the next tech up for a really bad day.
Basically it means they're early indications of problems that can cause injury (in both these cases fire). Most companies I know are extremely lenient with warranty for these types of issues. I worked in support for a manufacturer (not Apple) for a long time.
They didn't charge me anything for that either.
I realize this is just anecdotal, though.