Hacker News Reader

Comment by pierat | Hacker News Reader

Just wait, humidity and condensation will cause a spat of "water detected, fail warranty" issues.

And now, jailbreaking will mean being able to reset tattletaled.

For a long time Apple apparently didn't test in hot humid climates, as the plastic they used on the macbook power cables would disintegrate and slew off after a year or so.

I would not be surprised if hot humidity is also an issue with these sensors, which seem to be a user-hostile feature in any case.

Like the early Model 3 problem where when you open the trunk it used to dump water inside. If your designers all live in California they sometimes forget that other places have weather.

https://teslatuneup.com/tesla-model-3-trunk-rain-fix/

It's probably worse in warm climates, but macbook cables were disintegrating everywhere for the longest time.

Yeah, it will be interesting if they can deny a claim based on the above.

I once received an iPod I sent to Apple with grass inside when it was returned to me and have never trusted them since.

Of course they can…? It’s just a term of the warranty policy.

Very bizarre regarding your iPod! What is your working theory for that?

That would greatly depend upon the country.

Many countries (sans USA probably) have rights of warranty for consumers, that companies policies cannot override.

Water damage is one of the cases I've seen companies abuse to get out of warranty in Europe. I don't know of a way to dispute it.

A touch of bleach on the water dots will revert them to "no water detected".

"rights of warranty" can't be unconditional. If I drop my phone and it breaks or drop laptop in pool, that wouldn't be on the company?

If they decide to go down this path, someone in Australia will report them to the ACCC. If they are using it as an excuse to avoid their warranty obligations, then they will be sorry.

Your claim is that in Australia, you cannot offer a warranty that exempts water damage? I find that extremely hard to believe.

It does not.

No, what I’m saying is that if they claim water damage based on those indicators alone, and they do it as a policy, then the ACCC will likely consider it a policy to avoid warranty claims.

If there is genuine water damage, of course that’s not warranty. It’s how they assess it that could be problematic.

I still think about it more than once a year almost 20 years later and I am still yet to come up with anything that doesn’t sound wildly implausible.

You mean grass like weed? I get that in my keyboard all the time.

Years ago my cat knocked the bong over into the keyboard of my Dell laptop, and they happily replaced it (the keyboard, not the bong). The nice lady doing the extended warranty on-site repair cheerfully held her nose and winked at me, and I sheepishly shrugged back and pointed at the naughty cat, but she didn't give me any flack about it.

Good story.

Apple sent me my iPod back with blades of Poaceae stuck inside between the back and front covers.

> And now, jailbreaking will mean being able to reset tattletaled.

Jailbreaking will be able to stop future reports, but it can't take back the reports that it already uploaded to the Apple mothership.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com