The big players fought this law tooth and nail because they didn't want to guarantee their devices for that long. They definitely did not want this and did not use this an opportunity to "kill hardware startups in Europe".
In fact Apple initially refused to offer the 2 year warranty[1]
[1] https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/fauler-apfel-apple...
EDIT: Weird how this gets downvoted. Let me quote for example from Apple Germany's webpage [1]:
"The limited Apple warranty covers your iPhone for 1 year from the date of purchase against faults due to the design and manufacturing of the product [..] Depending on the problem you might be covered via AppleCare+"
> Die Garantie gilt zusätzlich zu den durch Verbraucherschutzgesetze gewährten Rechten.
"The warranty is in addition to your legal rights."
It's a bit sneaky: Apple makes it sound as if you're only covered by Apples warranty, but those are different things: Apple provides a separate warranty on top of your legal rights and it may cover slightly different things. You still retain all of your legal rights.
There's a catch with the 2 year warranty by law though: It only covers defects that were present in the device when it was purchased - either manufacturing or design. In the first 12 month, the default assumption is that the device was broken when purchased and the burden of proving otherwise is on the vendor. For month 12-24, the burden of proving that a device was defect at the time of purchase is on the buyer. In practice, this means that for most cases, even the legal warranty is limited to 12 month, because that proof is hard in most cases.
Yeah, I didn't miss that part. The fact that their warranty doesn't replace the legal consumer protection rights is not a concession in any way.
For the 2-year guarantee defined by EU-law (which you described very well) they brush you off to the trader who sold you the item as this is the liable party by law.
In case of other manufacturers, the trader (i.e. a mobile carrier) didn't accept such conditions and required the manufacturer to provide a warranty covering the full 2 years in order to sell his goods. So the 2 years of legal guarantee became 2 years of warranty. In case of Apple this extension didn't happen, instead a joint business of selling insurance for the second year was created.
So if your device-fault would be covered and you didn't buy insurance, the trader is double-incentivized to NOT support you in the second year (you should learn to have bought insurance AND he can't forward the claim to Apple).
A trader like a mobile carrier or Apple itself keeps pushing consumers back for years and only settles when a lawsuit is raised and actually moves to court (as they want to avoid a ruling, and the issue goes away with just ~1000EUR).
Source: I worked in that space when the EU extended from 1 to 2 years. And my Spouse works in a Consumer Protection Agency (particularly the iPhone 5c is a legend in those realms...)
I don't think anyone in Germany would misunderstand. Warranty is known so well here, most electronics stores try to upsell you on a warranty extension provided by a third party insurance company.
I think in such cases the 'burden of proof' is fairly light. There is no easy way I could have caused the discoloring, except if the phone became wet (this was before iPhones were water resistant) and they could easily see this with the water indicator strip.
They do provide it. In fact, they cannot by law NOT provide it.
What they don't provide is their special "Apple warranty" that covers more stuff than the standard legal guarantee against a falty good.
But you automatically get (and they comply, as they must) a standard EU guarantee if the product has production issues etc.
And only for "defects presumed to have existed at the time of delivery", for which the burden of proof is on the seller in Year1 and on the buyer in Year2.
Year1 is usually covered also by the manufacturer warranty, so the seller doesn't have to prove anything and just forwards the buyers' claim to the manufacturer as warranty-repair.
If Year2 is not covered by the manufacturer, the seller needs to cover the cost. If Apple is not the seller, this regularly opens a journey of pain for the consumer (especially if the seller was also in the business of selling insurance and the buyer didn't buy any --> "he's gotta learn to buy insurance for his iPhone")
Not sure what the UK law covers under this "consumer law". But that coverage-gap is huge, so I imagine it's particularly in the interest of Apple to define the route of action for the consumer, as they only provide 1 year of warranty as a manufacturer but the SELLER (!) has to provide 6 years of protection.
Side-note: I see the page repeatedly refers to footnote "2" for the seller, which I cannot find on the page. Would be interesting to know what they meant to say here...
Most retailers don't go to the trouble to explain to their customers that they are also liable for the faulty design or manufacture of the products they are selling for up to six years under simple contract law on their websites, at most they typically say something like 'this product is covered by a warranty and this warranty does not affect your statutory rights', you would then need to go away and research what these rights actually are.
Recently had to hand in AirPods Max for repair because they kept crashing, and they were covered under normal warranty.