Apple Working on Device Abuse Detection Technology

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Apple has applied for a patent on a consumer abuse detection system? No, it isn’t a system to protect you from their prices and products, it is a system that spies on you to see if you are abusing your Apple product. No, really.

Apple already includes liquid submersion indicators in its MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPods. They irreversibly change color once they come in contact with a liquid, thereby offering the company's retail store staff and authorized repair specialists an easy way to determine if a customer caused damage to their product with liquids -- incidents that aren't covered under Apple's standard warranties. Rather than the physical indicator, the new system would save information of damage digitally into memory.
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Apple seems to do anything to not be liable for their products.

I know they are saying "what people do to their items" but they are still shady for doing this
 
How much extra money will each Apple product cost to incorporate this system and pay for the research into it?
 
Guess too many people have been turning in "defective" Ipods and Iphones.

"That water was inside of it when I first bought it! I demand my money back!"
 
Eh, profit protection. More power to them. Lying consumers are dishonest - And as long as these devices don't malfunction with a false positive - I see nothing wrong with this.
 
k1pp3r said:
I know they are saying "what people do to their items" but they are still shady for doing this
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The honor system isn't always sufficient. If you're able to discern whether a customer is lying about damage to one of your products, and you're able to refuse warranty service because of that, Apple saves money, and that may eventually translate to lower product prices for consumers.

I'd be doing the same thing so long as the detection techniques are 99.99% accurate or better.
 
Oh I'm just sure these sensors would never give false positives. Apple would have nothing gain from it... well, except all of the money they would save by not having to honor their warranties. The wonders of capitalism never cease.
 
I hate these guys. I don't care how good their products are, I could just never bring myself to ever give them money. You can say that as a popular brand they are just trying to protect themselves from warrantless lawsuits/complaints/claims (totally understandable), but I've seen how they treat their customers so I know how it really is. LOL Yuck. :)
 
I get screwed daily from lying customers, so I say more power to them for doing this.
 
Yeah we IT people get lied to all the time. I mean, how can people not know by now that we hear "I stepped away from my desk for a few minutes and came back and it was like this..."

I don't bite! I won't kill you if you fuck up! Help me make my job easier. Tell me what you did!

:-P
 
Don't worry, Walmart will take it back for you...even without the receipt (used to work at one and this would really happen).
 
Makes sense, though it better be bulletproof. I can also see retailers taking advantage of it with product return counters at stores rejecting returns because they didn't get the right numbers.

For better or worse, the numbers off these sensors will be trusted more than the customer.
 
This will actually be beneficial to them. So many people have told me they did nothing to their pc's and yet liquid would spill out of it when I went to undo the screws on the bottom of their laptops.
 
Seriously...? How dare Apple try to keep people from being dishonest!

...

If you disagree, go work the genius bar (or any repair shop) for a bit and watch as 7 out of 10 complaints are people claiming 'I don't know why it does work...' of 'I don't know how that indicator turned pink' or that the LCD screen 'just cracked' hoping that someone will replace their product with a newer one for free.

Also pop open a cell phone and look for the little white dots. Or how about the warranty tape strip that keeps you from opening the device, or how about the sticker that goes right over a screw.

Companies have been doing this for years and people have been trying to rip off companies. Apple wasn't the first to do this, they are just going a little further to get out of the he said she said game.

so if your complaining about Apple well... your bias is showing. :rolleyes:
 
I am surprised the iPhone and iPod don't have this already as most (if not all) cellphones have a water sensor I thought.
 
The iPhone/iPod touch have moisture sensors, but they aren't very advanced.
 
What they should come up with is detectors for their devices that overheat and/or explode. Maybe built in smoke alarms?

Apple is nuts. I hate that company more every day.
 
Taking the conspiracy theory view - what if they abuse the abuse detection? A bad circuit fails,or a battery self destructs,and they program it to register as abuse.Given the hits their reputation has taken lately,I can see such suspicions rising out of this.
 
I'd say that, in the end, it would wind up costing Apple more than they save.. But that isn't true, since customers will just be paying more for Apple to implement the technology that keeps them from returning a defective product. I mean, really, if it's all digital, then what's to keep them from setting them all to say they've been submerged in liquid, just to not honor a warranty if they don't feel like it? How would the customer prove otherwise?

Of course, they couldn't make it so they didn't take any defective products back, but they could certainly use it to precisely control the volume of returns.
 
this is an interesting time, car manufacturers are also doing a similar thing by putting "black boxes" inisde that can record, speed, brake, music on/off, headlights on/off, etc, for use by insurance companies to find more ways deny your claim. Some Insurance agencies will give you 100$ off your policy if you have a vehicle with one of these installed.
It all adds to this growing "big brother" feeling, information about you being collected, bought and sold without your consent or knowledge.
I think its still a fresh field in terms of law, and they're aren't many precidents to stop apple from putting a monitoring device in your laptop that you bought and paid for with your hard earned money.
 
EvilWays said:
Don't worry, Walmart will take it back for you...even without the receipt (used to work at one and this would really happen).
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This. I've seen Wally World take back products that the returner admitted weren't even purchased there. I think they just put these products back on their shelves without checking them sometimes, too. My cousin bought a USB HDD from Wally World on clearance and it had all sorts of Best Buy stickers on the inside of the box, and had clearly been opened before.
 
Rockjay420 said:
this is an interesting time, car manufacturers are also doing a similar thing by putting "black boxes" inisde that can record, speed, brake, music on/off, headlights on/off, etc, for use by insurance companies to find more ways deny your claim. Some Insurance agencies will give you 100$ off your policy if you have a vehicle with one of these installed.
It all adds to this growing "big brother" feeling, information about you being collected, bought and sold without your consent or knowledge.
I think its still a fresh field in terms of law, and they're aren't many precidents to stop apple from putting a monitoring device in your laptop that you bought and paid for with your hard earned money.
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It's not for insurance companies really. Its something that can tell your story when you are dead, and would be to your (or your families) great benefit if it was not your fault.

For example, a recent accident the driver was denied claims for driving too fast and dangerous, he managed to get the police to investigate his black box, turned out that his car malfunctioned and caused the wreck. IIRC, Lamborghini was at fault for a similar instance where the cars steering failed causing the individual to be rushed to the hospital.


But, it can also be abused, like Nissan and the GTR for example.


Quite frankly, if you were breaking the law and doing something stupid, the insurance should not have to pay for it. Just like black boxes in planes.
 
Just to add, I have one of these boxes in all my cars. While it can screw me if I do something stupid, I am mature enough to accept full responsibility. Also, I feel comfortable knowing that if I'm hit by a truck running the red light and was killed, at least I will have something speaking for me when I am unable to.
 
Ockie said:
Just to add, I have one of these boxes in all my cars. While it can screw me if I do something stupid, I am mature enough to accept full responsibility. Also, I feel comfortable knowing that if I'm hit by a truck running the red light and was killed, at least I will have something speaking for me when I am unable to.
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yes, if you were in fact doing something wrong...Everything recorded relies on sensors tho, and if you have any experience with cars or electronics, sensors dont always work or work accurately. The black box can only record 1's/0's; you know how fast your driving, without looking at the spedometer. I'd just hate to be found guilty of manslaughter, if the evidence from the black box suggests that i was speeding, because of a malfunctioning speed sensor.
 
Rockjay420 said:
yes, if you were in fact doing something wrong...Everything recorded relies on sensors tho, and if you have any experience with cars or electronics, sensors dont always work or work accurately. The black box can only record 1's/0's; you know how fast your driving, without looking at the spedometer. I'd just hate to be found guilty of manslaughter, if the evidence from the black box suggests that i was speeding, because of a malfunctioning speed sensor.
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It's usually not relied upon as the sole means, it's just a supporting tool. Now if it did read incorrect as you say and the police at the scene also calculated incorrectly because of your skid marks... well then you are screwed... the only difference with this method and the sole latter method is the fact that you have a double check system now in place.
 
I never liked Apple to begin with for a lot of reasons. this is just one more.

I wish there was some way retailers could do this however. It seems you can't rely on the underpaid customer service people anymore to do their job right. (With all sincerity, they are underpaid to put up with as much bullshit as they do.)
 
Ockie said:
It's usually not relied upon as the sole means, it's just a supporting tool. Now if it did read incorrect as you say and the police at the scene also calculated incorrectly because of your skid marks... well then you are screwed... the only difference with this method and the sole latter method is the fact that you have a double check system now in place.
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when you bought the car, how did you find out you had one installed? just curious if their sneaky about it...
 
Azhar said:
Yeah we IT people get lied to all the time. I mean, how can people not know by now that we hear "I stepped away from my desk for a few minutes and came back and it was like this..."

I don't bite! I won't kill you if you fuck up! Help me make my job easier. Tell me what you did!

:-P
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yeah, because someone has never walked away thinking they locked their computer, but actually didn't, and someone screwed with their computer while they were AFK. nope, that's never happened before.

don't automatically assume that someone is lying unless you have reason to believe that they are.

and yes, i do know that people do lie more often than the above scenario....but that's still not a reason to assume that everyone is lying right off the bat.....

Shotglass01 said:
What they should come up with is detectors for their devices that overheat and/or explode. Maybe built in smoke alarms?

Apple is nuts. I hate that company more every day.
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exactly what i was thinking....i mean, they have sensors that will detect if the device was subjected to too much heat (the "Thermal Sensor" shown in the diagram in the arcticle)...but what if that heat was caused by a defective battery, like the several reports of exploding/overheating iPods/iPhones on the [H] news section lately? does that register as a factory defect, or do they register that as abuse? and if it's registered as abuse, how much of a hassle is it going to be to prove that it wasn't? i'm guessing quite a bit of hassle, considering the fact that Apple is trying to cover up as much of the overheating/exploding Apple product incidents as they can, instead of doing the right thing and taking responsibility for their shitty engineering.

sure, that seems like a somewhat small percentage of the problems that can occur....but that's the problem to begin with. they program these things based on problems that they are able to think of at the time. if they had thought these batteries were going to start overheating and exploding, do you really think they would be in the news for it? it's the things they DON'T think of when engineering these devices that will cause problems for people.

i realize that any company has the potential to make a mistake and things can go bad....but that's not the issue, the issue is how that company handles the problem when things do go bad. so far, Apple doesn't seem to be doing so well in that department, considering they will only give people refunds for their products if those people agree to sign what's basically a "gag order" to keep the problem quiet.
 
CEpeep said:
This. I've seen Wally World take back products that the returner admitted weren't even purchased there. I think they just put these products back on their shelves without checking them sometimes, too. My cousin bought a USB HDD from Wally World on clearance and it had all sorts of Best Buy stickers on the inside of the box, and had clearly been opened before.
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I was at a walmart right after the Dualshock 3 came out. I was looking them over, debating whether or not to get one.

I noticed that there was one that was previously opened. I wondered who would return a controller that was only a few weeks old. Upon closer inspection, someone returned an original sixaxis controller in the DS3 box. I told an employee, and about 3 minutes later the manager called for a "meeting" over the loudspeaker for anyone that deals with electronics or returns.
 
That patent application picture is funny, and the "abuse detection systems" sound quite ridiculous. It seems Apple don't think their products are possible to malfunction, they must believe it's the users who are always at fault.
 
Heh speaking of liars, our services were hired to be the tech guys for a company, and we kept getting a repeat from this older guy who kept saying we were planting virus' on his computer and if he had to come back one more time he would write up a complaint about us.

So we are very protective of peoples privacy, normally we don't do anything short of making a back up file and opening a regular text file we placed in the back up to make sure the back up worked (not entirely full proof testing but worked enough times). So this guy was pissing us off enough times we decided to dive into the reason why he was getting and looked at temp internet files, saw loads of MILF hunter stuff and various other stuff. Repaired his PC, called him up, and told him if he wrote anything up on our site we'd show his boss what we found on his PC...

haha he left cussing and telling us we would get sued but we never saw anything in those threats, nor did we see him again.
 
"In other news, Apple officially filed patents for what is being deemed the first consumer "Bullshit Detector... sources close to the bullshit coming from Cupertino say it's a measure to try and protect the already asinine cult mentality they've cultivated since the early 1980s. One person who declined to be identified stated, 'We really don't have a problem with bullshit, as long as it's coming from our marketing department. The big problems happen when the amateu--*cough* consumers think they can do it better than us. We're professionals, leave the bullshit to us.' Steve Jobs could not be reached for comment."
 
One thing i must say though, these 'water indicator' strips are a bunch of shit. I recently sent in my iphone 3g for a dead pixel problem. One of the strips was red, I noticed just before sending it in.... I never immersed it in any liquid, however my warranty could be void just because of that strip.. I havent heard anything back yet but maybe this abuse thing is 99.9 % bad and 0.1 percent good? lol

playing devils advocate
 
Arcygenical said:
And as long as these devices don't malfunction with a false positive - I see nothing wrong with this.
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They can, and do. I had to pay a deductible on my cell phone "protection plan" when I went to get the phone replaced. There's stupid little color change stickers inside it that indicate moisture. That phone had never been wet, but apparently, the humidity of a pants pocket is enough to trip the indicator. BS!!

Moisture isn't an excuse to void a warranty. This is an indicator of poor customer service that is all to prevalent today.

Take Sears, for a counterexample. I can take my favorite ratchet, and drop it in a bucket of salt water. I can leave it there for a month. Then, I can take the rusted, locked up ratchet to Sears, tell them what I did to it, and walk out of there with a new one. That is how a honorable company handles a product warranty.
 
Rockjay420 said:
when you bought the car, how did you find out you had one installed? just curious if their sneaky about it...
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They mention it in the manual. Most cars these days record information on RPMs, etc. I remember Mitsubishi getting in hot water about denying claims for Lancer Evolution owners when they autocrossed the car, but that is clearly one of the biggest things Evo owners do with their cars. I think they ended up biting the bullet and taking the warranty claims, but the fact that they tried it I'm sure is just typical, and every owner will have to fight the dealership on it.
 
Arcygenical said:
Eh, profit protection. More power to them. Lying consumers are dishonest - And as long as these devices don't malfunction with a false positive - I see nothing wrong with this.
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Except that official policy will be to do whatever is possible to deny someones warranty service. If there's ever any question, they will err on the side of "You're screwed bud. Here, buy the new version 2.0 of that product to replace it!"

When all customers are treated like criminals, your company doesn't deserve to be around anymore.
 
I don't see the point in this.

Apple products are perfect and never fail. Thereby you already know that the product must have been abused if it is not working properly.
 
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