How Apple Decides If a Phone Is Eligible for Warranty: Company's Guidelines Leaked
Many wonder how an Apple Store decides the fate of a broken iPhone. A detailed manual intended for Apple Store employees was just leaked online, and it shows exactly how an Apple tech should decide if a unit is covered by warranty.
Apple's warranty for their products is simple enough for the majority of cases. The backing from the company foots the bill for repairs for an iPhone, iPad, or their other products, for up to a year after purchase.
There are some corner cases, however. In the case of the iPhone, the service details state that repair eligibility is nulled for damages from "accident, disassembly, unauthorized service, and unauthorized modifications." The first source, accident, is a common point of debate across Apple Store tables between techs and owners everywhere.
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A document leaked on Dropbox, called the "Visual/Mechanical Inspection Guide," is a 22-page guideline, complete with photos, on how an Apple Store tech should decide if an iPhone is eligible for warranty-covered repair, or if the owner will have to shell out to fix their device.
The guide, up to date until March 2017, covers the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and all their assorted iPhone Plus models. "We have one just like that for all of the products," an Apple technician told Business Insider, referring to the manual they like to call the "VMI."
As Apple's warranty is enough to cover most cases, retail techs don't need to flip through it every single time. The guide, in practice, is "something we use, but we don't refer to it all that often unless we get some oddball issue," as another Apple tech shared.
A sample page shows some cases where an iPhone is eligible for Warranty service, and on one page, they are limited to single dead pixels, single hairline cracks, or a shifted FaceTime camera. Most other cases will have to make do with Out-of-Warranty Service.
Another page shows examples of scuffs and dents from phone enclosures, along with "defects caused by normal wear and tear or otherwise due to the normal aging of the device." These are not covered by a warranty as well, with Apple technicians given an instruction to deny repair or replacement if no other issues are present.
Apple has yet to offer an official comment about the leak as of this time.
