iPhone Water Damage Policy Updated
Feb 1, 2011 - 6 Comments
Apple has quietly relaxed their water damage policy for the iPod, this probably includes the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well. The new policy states:
If a customer disputes whether an iPod with an activated LCI has been damaged by liquid contact and there are no external signs of damage from corrosion, then the iPod may still be eligible for warranty service.
This should be good news to iPhone and iPod users who live in humid climates, who report the Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) can be wrongly activated due to extended exposure to high humidity and certain environmental conditions.
Image of updated policy comes from the French site iGeneration.
This is good news, the sensors are very sensitive and will respond to rain despite the iphone still working fine, but that was enough to kill the warranty. I think an internal sensor would resolve this problem too, but might not help with humidity.
I had the same experience, must have been rain drop or snow got in the headphone jack and hit the sensor. Apple repaired it anyway but they told me the sensor was triggered and that they see it happen a lot, probably led to the overall policy change.
the whole thing is a $$$ thing, it would literally cost 10c to make all these iPods, iPads, iPhones fully water proof but that would take away x% of repeat buyers.
How do you figure? Sealing the phone wouldn’t be too practical, how would you deal with the headphone jack..or the dock connector?
It’s not just humidity, it’s also sweat. In the summer we’ll see a few of these sensors with no other damage or signs of liquid, this is Arizona so it’s just hot and dry.
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