Quebec Superior Court authorizes class action against Apple

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Exactly, the performance degradation without any notification to the user is really anti-consumer.

It was literally a pro-consumer move! If Apple wanted them to buy a new phone, they would have done nothing to stop the unexpected shut downs. It’s a lot easier to use a slower phone than it is to use a phone that turns off whenever you throw a load at it.

 

5 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Apple should be using higher capacity batteries so significantly slowing down devices wouldn't be necessary.

A bigger battery would only slightly postpone the aging process. Power issues affected the the small iPhones the most. Saying “should have put a bigger battery in it” would have not only not been possible, it makes it look like you missed a great job opportunity in Apples R&D department. 

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, givingtnt said:

Planned obselesance (slowdowns after updates)

Which has never been demonstrated in a court of law before. I don’t see why that would change now. 

 

1 minute ago, givingtnt said:

Overpriced and ridiculous paid warranties that do not go beyond what Quebec requires manufacturers to give

Apple does not charge for warrantied repairs. Apple is also not obligated to provide a warranty beyond the legal minimum set my the countries they operate in. 

 

Doesn’t sound like there is much of a case here.....

[WkdPaul]

4 hours ago, givingtnt said:

Ha !

We finally did something good.

 

Now can we be let in to the giveaways ?

Either I forgot, or I never realized you were in MTL!! lol

 

Why did you leave the translation to me? (ಥ﹏ಥ)

[WkdPaul]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple does not charge for warrantied repairs. Apple is also not obligated to provide a warranty beyond the legal minimum set my the countries they operate in. 

 

Doesn’t sound like there is much of a case here.....

please take some time to read my explanation under the translated article.

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1083743-quebec-superior-court-authorizes-class-action-against-apple/?tab=comments#comment-12730172

 

 

Based on the legal warranty laws we have here in Qc, they 100% have a case, even if it was just for that.

[givingtnt]

4 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Either I forgot, or I never realized you were in MTL!! lol

 

Why did you leave the translation to me? (ಥ﹏ಥ)

HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW !?

Also, I've been at work all day

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Based on the legal warranty laws we have here in Qc

Which are? It sounds like they believe that the legal warranty Apple is obligated to provide in QC conflicts with the practice of selling people Apple Care. But without knowing the consumer protection laws of QC, I can’t defend anyone but Apples position here. 

[WkdPaul]

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Which are? It sounds like they believe that the legal warranty Apple is obligated to provide in QC conflicts with the practice of selling people Apple Care. But without knowing the consumer protection laws of QC, I can’t defend anyone but Apples position here. 

I did provide a link in English that details the law and also explained what might be the issue (the fact that Apple never notifies Qc buyers of that law when selling AppleCare, which is required).

 

I do understand that you love Apple, but being disingenuous isn't helping the conversation.

[DrMacintosh]

8 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

I did provide a link in English that details the law and also explained what might be the issue (the fact that Apple never notifies Qc buyers of that law when selling AppleCare, which is required).

Ok, so I can see that violation from here:

Quote

Merchants and manufacturers must respect this legal warranty. Before offering an extra warranty to consumers, such as an extended warranty or other protection plan, they must inform consumers orally and in a written notice that they already benefit from the free legal warranty. 

So they might have a case there. On a side note, the warranty system is extremely vague on timeframes. 

 

Quote

Since consumers and merchants don’t always agree on what is a reasonable length of time, this question is often debated in the courts. Here are a few examples of life expectancy considered to be too short: 

• two years for a refrigerator
• three years for heat pump
• five years for a washer

That’s essentially saying “we don’t know how long the warranty should be, so figure it out”. Seems ripe for exploitation which I guarantee Apple will use in their defense. 

[Sirmyself]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Ok, so I can see that violation from here:

So they might have a case there. On a side note, the warranty system is extremely vague on timeframes. 

 

That’s essentially saying “we don’t know how long the warranty should be, so figure it out”. Seems ripe for exploitation which I guarantee Apple will use in their defense. 

Either the law gets updated, or apple is forced to update their warranty services. Both results would make me happy.

[WkdPaul]

10 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

That’s essentially saying “we don’t know how long the warranty should be, so figure it out”. Seems ripe for exploitation which I guarantee Apple will use in their defense. 

Totally agree that the law is very vague, usually when you endup in court about this, it's because the manufacturer is being difficult, the law is regulated by the Consumer protection agency, and they will usually intervene between the consumer and company and even try arbitration. Only when all else fails that it goes to court (if the consumer decides it's worth it).

 

And at that point, it's left to the judge to decide.

 

But where they don't have a leg to stand on, is the notification when selling AppleCare, I've bought AppleCare before, and was never notified about the legal warranty. They might have change that recently, I didn't look. But I can tell you that in 2014 and 2016, there were no notice or references to Quebec's legal warranty when purchasing AppleCare in Quebec.

Edited July 18, 2019 by wkdpaul

[HarryNyquist]

28 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

It was literally a pro-consumer move! If Apple wanted them to buy a new phone, they would have done nothing to stop the unexpected shut downs. It’s a lot easier to use a slower phone than it is to use a phone that turns off whenever you throw a load at it.

 

A bigger battery would only slightly postpone the aging process. Power issues affected the the small iPhones the most. Saying “should have put a bigger battery in it” would have not only not been possible, it makes it look like you missed a great job opportunity in Apples R&D department. 

Exactly this. This is one thing I'll rip every time I see it because it's so stupid.

 

Batteries are consumable. Period, end of discussion. Doesn't matter if they're alkaline, lead-acid, zinc-carbon, lithium, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, nickel-cadmium, nickel metal hydride, all of them will eventually die and be unable to effectively provide power to a device. It doesn't matter how big the battery is or how simple it is; even something as basic as a lead-acid battery will die. The fact that a battery is rechargeable doesn't matter; the chemical reactions taking place within the battery during charge/discharge are not completely reversible; there is always more consumed than produced.

 

The whole power management thing is a cheap shot. Apple did what they did and they're demonized for slowing down phones as planned obsolescence, even if it means people could use their phones while it was being slowed. If they had let the batteries die as normal, they'd be demonized for letting batteries die prematurely as planned obsolescence, even if it meant people would have gotten the most out of their phone. The people making the accusations are not looking for logic; they're just looking for money.

 

If anything could be learned from this, IMO, it's that Apple's power management chips should switch to trickle charge as the battery approaches full, to conserve the battery life as long as possible (the more energy you pump into a battery when it's full, the more likely the charge reaction is to consume unwanted battery life). This is something I think they're already planning on doing.

 

[Franck]

15 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

So they might have a case there. On a side note, the warranty system is extremely vague on timeframes.

They are indeed vague. Don't forget that you don't have to fight this alone, the consumer protection service actually build the case with you and help you figure out the amount of time that is good to assume it should work for at least that amount of time.

 

I know of a case where a fridge was given a 10 years values while another only 7 years. It probably depends on the original value and/or quality of the product.

[Sirmyself]

5 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

@wkdpaul? 

how do you tag like that though?

[WkdPaul]

1 minute ago, Sirmyself said:

how do you tag like that though?

start by typing @ followed by the username

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

that Apple's power management chips should switch to trickle charge as the battery approaches full, to conserve the battery life as long as possible

They actually do, and have been for years. Apple only includes 5W bricks in the box anyway, so the phone is essentially always trickle charging. 

 

The iPhone has been able to charge with higher wattage bricks for as long as I can remember. My personal favorite is the 10W iPad Charger. Apple will charge the phone at full speed until they hit 80% and will go into trickle mode until the cell hits 100%. 

 

For iPhones with quick charge support, the iPhone will only quick charge up to 50%, beyond that the charging speed slows down significantly and starts trickle charging at 80% again. 

 

Apple is taking these power management features even further in iOS 13 with a feature called Optimize Battery Charging. The main purpose of this is to stop charging the phone when it hits 80%. The feature uses machine learning to figure out your sleep cycle and will only charge up to 100% when you need it so that the cell is 100% full for the shortest possible time. 

 

For example, you go to sleep at 10PM and wake up at 7AM. Your phone will have charged to 80% and then held off charging until around 6:30AM before starting to charge again. 

[HarryNyquist]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple is taking these power management features even further in iOS 13 with a feature called Optimize Battery Charging. The main purpose of this is to stop charging the phone when it hits 80%. The feature uses machine learning to figure out your sleep cycle and will only charge up to 100% when you need it so that the cell is 100% full for the shortest possible time. 

 

For example, you go to sleep at 10PM and wake up at 7AM. Your phone will have charged to 80% and then held off charging until around 6:30AM before starting to charge again. 

That's what I was talking about! I didn't remember what it was called

[Sirmyself]

13 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

start by typing @ followed by the username

it's what I did in the subject, didn't work... maybe it only works in the comment?

 

Edit : ok... copy paste does not work... Headbang on my desk...

[WkdPaul]

7 minutes ago, Sirmyself said:

it's what I did in the subject, didn't work... maybe it only works in the comment?

 

Edit : ok... copy paste does not work... Headbang on my desk...

Just got the notification, looks like it works!

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Sirmyself said:

 

I tend to disagree, I had no issue at all with my Sony XPeria m4's battery or system: the earphone finally broke after the phone was dropped too many times, so I had to switch to an LG G6. If it were not for me being clumsy, I would still use my Xperia.

I think if your read my comment you will see that I did not say all android phones. Sony do a great job and seem to offer excellent support, LG too. The same cannot be said about all Android vendors.

[Drak3]

47 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

Apple did what they did and they're demonized for slowing down phones as planned obsolescence, even if it means people could use their phones while it was being slowed.

They’re demonized because users were NEVER NOTIFIED. As far as they knew, their phones were just slower. Doesn’t help when older iPhone batteries typically lasted a year, maybe two. Long enough for at least one new iPhone model to come out.

 

And the issue was not as severe on comparable alternatives.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

From what I’ve heard, this class-action is related to batteries.....in which case I say, what do you want Apple to do? Change the laws of physics? Batteries degrade and you can only postpone that degradation for so long. 

Honestly the planned obsolescence myth has been around for so long with Apple and it’s all BS. 

[Sirmyself]

20 minutes ago, Phill104 said:

I think if your read my comment you will see that I did not say all android phones. Sony do a great job and seem to offer excellent support, LG too. The same cannot be said about all Android vendors.

True, but now, you need to compare the iPhone with a relevant phone. with your precision, you're basically saying your argument is either incomplete, or irrelevant... You can't say "Many android phones are bad" and not even include one example in the same price range than the iPhone.

Both my XPeria and my G6 were much cheaper and hold their batteries much better than the iPhone 6 my mother uses while having much more useful features (useful for me that is). sure my G6 is newer, but my XPeria M4 was roughly released the same year.

[HarryNyquist]

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

They’re demonized because users were NEVER NOTIFIED. As far as they knew, their phones were just slower.

And the notification would only have fed the cries of planned obsolescence. It doesn't matter that the notification was late, the response would have been exactly the same. These people are not satisfied because to them "Apple=bad" even if the change in question HELPS them retain their device for longer or allows them to burn through their battery with aplomb.

 

I'm sure the iOS 13 changes will be somehow connected to planned obsolescence too. It'll get released and the same people will start again talking about how slow their phones are etc etc. No winning with that type of person.

[CarlBar]

Since it seems to have slipped by i should point out that the way the warranty thing seems to be worded in theory if the judge decides on the second part that the warranty support should be let's say 8 years, but apple had to start implementing their performance degrading features to keep the phone functional before then, then that would screw apple on the first part because at that point it literally doesn't matter weather implementing the performance degrading feature helps more than it hurts. it's still a case of a device performing below sold at performance whilst within warranty. Apple would be obligated under the legal warranty to fix said degredation without causing other issues.

 

I have to admit it's a cool if a little vague system Quebec has there and i have to admit that whilst the old adage about stuff being designed to fail quickly so you have to replace it doesn't happen anywhere near as much as people like to grumble about, having an explicit legal protection against it isn't an awful state of affairs IMO.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Sirmyself said:

True, but now, you need to compare the iPhone with a relevant phone. with your precision, you're basically saying your argument is either incomplete, or irrelevant... You can't say "Many android phones are bad" and not even include one example in the same price range than the iPhone.

Both my XPeria and my G6 were much cheaper and hold their batteries much better than the iPhone 6 my mother uses while having much more useful features (useful for me that is). sure my G6 is newer, but my XPeria M4 was roughly released the same year.

No, mentioning a single comparison phone is not required, nor is the point.

 

This is about the ethos of a brand or platform and not specific devices. The court case is regarding the longevity, are users being forced into upgrades or additional costs due to deliberate methods on the part of the vendor. It could be argued that putting non removable batteries in any device is planned obsolescence for instance. This is now the majority of all phones so not unique to Apple. It could also be argued that not supporting an OS after a set length of time is also planned obsolescence, yet in the case of some Android devices that can be as short as two years, while all Apple devices have so far been supported for 5 years or more.

 

There is a perception that Apple are the bad boys, and that perception in my opinion is misplaced in many ways, or at best poorly reasoned. Apple are far from perfect, but are no different to their competitors.