Italian law states that consumer electronics devices must be sold with a two-year free warranty
For the record, this isn't just Italian law, but it EU law. All half a billion (or so) people in the EU can benefit from this sort of protection.
For the record, this isn't just Italian law, but it EU law. All half a billion (or so) people in the EU can benefit from this sort of protection.
AppleCare is not required, and in includes other things that are not covered under implicit rights, such as onsite support, or telephone support outside of 1 incident/90 days.
In Germany, the burden of proof reverses after six months (i.e. after six months the buyer has to proof that a defect was present when they bought the product – I have not idea how you can do that short of hiring some sort of expert), making the two year warranty basically useless. No company will do anything for you after six months.
Also, I can very much understand why Apple found itself in the situation it is in Italy. In Germany there is a very clear difference between a „Garantie“ (lit. “guarantee”) and a „Gewährleistung“ (≈ “defects liability”).
A „Garantie“ is a contract between seller (or a company which made the product) and buyer with certain guarantees and conditions the seller provides. That’s exactly what Apple does with their one year warranty. The conditions are very different from those of the law.
A „Gewährleistung“ is what the law requires the seller to do if there is any defect in the product that was there when it was sold. How that is implemented in detail differs from country to country. Also note that I’m talking about the seller here. Apple provides their warranty no matter where you buy your Apple product. You can go directly to them if you have a problem, no matter where you bought it. That’s not so in the case of the „Gewährleistung“. To make it easy for buyers, they can always go to their sellers with problems that are covered by the law.
They probably were too broad in their EU policy and ignored that Italy is so damn finicky about this.
Again, in Germany there is no confusion because we have two different words for it. Well, there is some confusion but the two words is how all companies do it. I don’t think companies are even allowed to advertise something that is your right anyway (like the mandated warranty), that’s probably the reason why they don’t say anything.
That's actually what the EU law says aswell. first 6 months fault is presumed to be there from the start. After that, you must show it was faulty.