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Other applecare is saying "water damage" but this phone hasn't been in contact with liquid?

A Rat?

Heres the Rat theory!

Apple ship new iPhones with one white sensor and one red sensor.
Think how much money they must be losing with all these replacments there handing out for cracks, light leaks, faulty switches fallen off and otherwise, yellow screens, battery issues, gps issues, dropping calls and much more.

If they look and see a red sensor well thats it. You must have water damage and voided your warranty regardless of any other fault!
 
amorican said:
That is exactly what I was thinking. Or make a case with removable plugs for the headphone and charging ports...
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The Switcheasy Colors has these.

colors07.jpg
 
Not often i do this but i blame Apple.

If the iPhone is that sensitive to moisture, even from being in pockets in humid conditions they would of:

A. Provided warnings.

B. Done something about it. I.E Provide you with little rubber inserts which protect the sensors for when you go to humid environments.

They know they've cocked up, but won't admit it and foot the bill.
 
if anyone knows of or hears about a class-action, I would gladly join at this point. They can't hide behind this faulty sensor. Even other phone manufacturers put it inside the phone, not by a headphone jack or power input to protect against false positives. There has a precedent set in the industry and Apple blatantly didn't follow it.
 
MITicktoff said:
So when the Apple Nazi at the store told me "subjected to water, warranty void! NEXT!" I nearly fell of the stool. But wait, for a mere 299.00 I can purchase a replacement phone. Thanks but no thanks.
My phone was not exposed to any water.
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Tell them you want the case replaced not the so called water damage.
 
Oh dear...

Just glancing thru the newest threads, spotted this and thought i'd have a read. Guess i can be added to the "water damaged" iphone owners club. My bottom sensor has turned red but my headphone dock sensor is fine...strange. My phone is in perfect working conditions and i have never had any problems. God damn my sweaty palms!!!!
 
Just checked both of the sensors on my iphone are still white. However, I called my brother up and asked him to check his. He says that his bottom sensor is pink and the top sensor is white. He lives in Florida and walks to work everyday. He is now upset at me because I told him about the problem he knew nothing about. :) He says he would have kept on being ignorant and would have never known anything was up. Oh well. I hope he doesn't have issues with his iphone.
 
There are actually 4 sensors in the phone, dock, headphone jack, one on the upper left and one on the lower phone somewhere inside the case. My theory is having the dock connector sensor set off is no way to void a warranty, if one of the internals tripped should be another story. Why else would they put 4 of the things in each phone? paranoid?
 
johnd24 said:
Apple's policy is lazy, greedy, and wasteful. According to their policy all moisture-damaged phones should be trashed. They are asking their customers to spend several hundred dollars on a new phone rather than performing a simple repair. This is unacceptable. It's bad customer service and harmful to the environment to boot.
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I don't know it works for them. Apple has one of the most liberal and easy return policies of anyone anywhere. They make exchanges for people all the time that probably should not be made but because of the way their system is set up they do them because it is easier.

A water damaged phone is not one that can necessarily be repaired to specs and resold. It probably takes a ton more work to verify a phone that had a water trigger go off be put back in service. Apple does not repair individual phones, for the most part. They take the phone in and give the person a new one. They take the old one, refurbish it and then sell it or do whatever with it. Handling 1000s and 10s of thousands of individual repairs becomes a logistical nightmare and that is why Apple does not do that. They are able to have a very liberal return policy because they have the program stream-lined and they are able to easily move units back into circulation. A water damage phone does not fall under that criteria. If they could still easily certify that a phone exposed to water would not have any possible longer term effects then they would most likely honor these exchanges, even though they do not have to do it. However water can and does damage that can take time to show and any device that has been exposed to water damage is a liability to them.

It sucks people have had their sensors go off. I am not going to get into a debate about how or what set them off as I don't know. I have several iphones and know several people close to me with them, and nobody has ever had a sensor go off. That does not mean there is a problem with them, it also does not mean there is not one. I am not following the people here around with a camera 24x7 so I can't really know.

With 40 some million devices out there, I think the number of people who try to scam Apple by doing other damage to their phone to get a replacement for a water damaged phone is probably easily in the thousands. So the fact that 20-30 to 100 stories show up on the net is not evidence that there is some sort of widespread defect in the sensors. I am not going to make judgment on those who have posted their innocence and frustration here. If it did go off illegitimately, you have my sympathies.
 
Phil A. said:
IMO, what should happen is that if they see a triggered sensor they should refuse immediate service because it "appears there may be water damage to this device", and then send it off for further diagnostics: I'm sure there is a way of saying for definite if a device has been destroyed or damaged by water that doesn't involve a simple color change.
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That is the problem though. There is not a way to conclusively tell that a device has not been exposed to water that could damage internal parts.

The water sensors are there to tell if water got in a place where it could potentially cause damage. Does it mean that the device suffered water damage? Not necessarily, but it could have happened.
 
marksman said:
With 40 some million devices out there, I think the number of people who try to scam Apple by doing other damage to their phone to get a replacement for a water damaged phone is probably easily in the thousands. So the fact that 20-30 to 100 stories show up on the net is not evidence that there is some sort of widespread defect in the sensors. I am not going to make judgment on those who have posted their innocence and frustration here. If it did go off illegitimately, you have my sympathies.
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would you agree with this though....A precedent has been set in the industry to place the sensors behind batteries or not exposed to open air. Apple went against this (likely to make it easy on the "Genius" and because there is no removable battery), but in doing so introduced faulty engineering. It was never a good idea to put a sensor there and they need to accept responsibility for that decision.

not to mention...I love how Apple products have bugs and material defects, but somehow the sensor is 100% defect free.
 
Hmm said:
You could probably contact SwitchEasy and find out: http://www.switcheasy.com/index.php.

I also found these on a google search. Don't know how well they work though.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15259
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I just sent a message to Switcheasy, I'll keep y'all posted as to what they say. I might just bite the bullet and buy a colors case if they won't sell the plugs separately, and just use the plugs with my Candy Shell... I don't like the idea of the cheapo ones sticking out of the phone like the reviews say.
 
Me Too!!!!

jrm27 said:
Hey guys:

About two weeks ago the mute switch on my iphone broke off... i went to put it in silent mode and the switch came off. i called applecare, they said "no problem". they overnighted me a new phone, i put my old one in the box, and everything was hunky-dory.

Today, i get a box in the mail. Surprise, its my old iphone! i call support and they tell me that my old iphone had "water damage" and therefore they were sending it back and charging me for my replacement phone.

I told them that isn't possible... I've never spilled anything on the phone, never dropped it in water, never left it in the bathroom while i took a shower, never exposed it to a humid environment... heck it stays at about 20% humidity here where I live. The sensor must be faulty. He tells me that it's not and that I'm out of luck because those water sensors are really hard to set off. In fact, they've put iphones in the shower and not had those sensors go off.

He then asked if it gets cold where I live. yep, i live in the rocky mountains and it snows here. He said that is probably the culprit. If I have it in my pocket outside and it is really cold, then when i bring it inside condensation probably forms and causes water damage. Seriously? I can put my iphone in the shower and not have the sensor go off, but if I take it from a cold place to a warm room i can set the sensor off? Either way, they said that I should send them my new replacement phone (with working mute switch) and fire up my old one (that doesn't work properly). If they get their new phone back without damage, they might refund my money.

Sorry for the length of this, but has anyone else experienced this? Is there something else I can do? Some higher power? Thanks for any suggestions/insight!

-jon
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Hello

About a month ago the "HOME" button on my IPHONE 3G stopped responding. The liquid detection sensor inside the dockstation connection has been tripped. I too have never spilled anything on it or all of the others listed above. I took my phone to an Apple Store and the guy said that it would cost me £150 for a replacement. But i have never abused the phone in that way and refused to pay.

I regret to inform i have been trying to get this solved for the past three weeks and i am no more near to getting a new phone for free than i was when i first started. Its pay the money or lose out..

hope that helps..
 
The same exact thing happened to me....My mute switch stopped working all together......Took it to apple to have them look at it.....the headphone jack was white...the dock connector was pinkish/red. And they told me that I could replace the damaged phone for $199.....

And I paid for Apple Care.....I'm still t'd off....Not real happy with Apple right now. They won't honor my Apple Care....Heck...they wouldn't even discount the replacement iPhone for the amount of Apple Care I paid for and now cannot use. This phone had never been in water, and this is obviously a very common problem. But I get made out to be the person who's trying to defraud the system. That's what bugs me the most......
 
"the sensors are hard to trip" = total ********.

go search for this problem... thousands of people with the same problem.

apple put INCREDIBLY SENSITIVE sensors as close to the edges as they could.

The only reason it is set up this way is to give a convenient and widespread reason for them to VOID APPLECARE.

The class action on this is brewing. this design is outright fraud. FRAUD i say!
 
marksman said:
I have several iphones and know several people close to me with them, and nobody has ever had a sensor go off.
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Really, mr. anectdote who works for apple?

i have several iphones and i know several people close to me... and ALL of them are tripped, and NONE of them have ever touched water.

if you've had your phone for 1 year, the sensor is tripped. go check. it is.

the sensors are ridiculously sensitive. and it just so happens that it gives apple a convenient excuse to charge you more money.

coincidence, right?
 
muskratboy said:
Really, mr. anectdote who works for apple?

i have several iphones and i know several people close to me... and ALL of them are tripped, and NONE of them have ever touched water.

if you've had your phone for 1 year, the sensor is tripped. go check. it is.

the sensors are ridiculously sensitive. and it just so happens that it gives apple a convenient excuse to charge you more money.

coincidence, right?
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I have 3 iPhones the sensors are fine in all three despite the fact that two have been in the bathroom while I take showers and have also been with me at the gym, and when out cycling (even in the rain was in a plastic bag but was sweaty when I took it out).

I do think the placement of the senors is wrong as a small amount of water in those locations wouldn't harm the phone. the two visible from outside should be used to quickly check and if neither is tripped honour the warranty, if either has been tripped the third senor inside should be used to make the final determination.

I don't work for Apple so.
 
I just checked the sensors on my iphone which is about 3 or 4 months old. They are both okay, despite me taking it into the bathroom with me when I shower and having it very near when I wash dishes etc. I know I have splashed it a few times, but I've never gotten any water near the headphone jack or the dock connector port (that I'm aware of).

I'm considering myself very lucky right now, but from what I've read, it seems that the sensors are fairly erratic. I am clumsy, and mine aren't tripped, yet others who really take the utmost care have tripped sensors. Clearly there is something wrong with the placement and/or sensitivity of these sensors. All the best to everyone who's fighting Apple on this one.
 
Apple must overhaul their diagnostics.

Just my two cents but these indicators are there to indicate water touching them.

There are also two inside. When you have a problem with your phone they should determine what is wrong. So geniuses should follow this line of examination.

First check the outer indicators for tripping. If one is tripped determine that that is a possible cause for the phones problem.

Next, actually verify if the fricken thing is water damaged by looking at the internal indicators. If these are tripped then the problem is likely due to water damage.

If the internal indicators are still white start looking at other possible causes for the problem.

Indicators indicate what line of examination to follow. Not determine. Otherwise they would be called determiners. :rolleyes:

Apple is being stupid in this case. :mad:

I want to know out of all the people so far who have been refused service have had the internal sensors examined. If not why have they installed them in the first place. :confused:

If they have been looked at and were also red, then sorry but I must side with apple. ;)
 
I had the same thing happen with my phone. The silver switch broke off on me, and also the case cracked around the headphone jack about 2-3 weeks after I bought it. So I can't mute my phone or really use headphones at all. I thought about taking it in, but know something exactly like this would happen. This was a replacement for a phone Apple refused to cover. They pointed to a small indent on the back and said that's why the screen was dead.

So I weight my options and decided no matter how good the phone is I do not want to feel like a criminal exercising my warranty. Apple will do anything to get out of covering things under warranty, and therefor I will not purchase Apple hardware anymore. Dealing with the phone just put a bad taste in my mouth. I know that hundreds of people have no issues getting warrantied fixes, it just the way Apple goes about denying the ones they can that bothers me.
 
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