MacRumors is reporting that New Scientist has brought to light, a recently published Apple patent application that shows techniques for digitally “detecting whether consumer abuse has occurred in an electronic device.” Some of the examples mentioned in the patent application include, extreme heat, liquids, excessive shock, and of course, tampering. All of which are not covered […]
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Apple Exploring Ways to Detect 'Consumer Abuse' in Portable Devices

Aug 7th 2009 by

Liquid Sensor built in every iPhone

MacRumors is reporting that New Scientist has brought to light, a recently published Apple patent application that shows techniques for digitally “detecting whether consumer abuse has occurred in an electronic device.” Some of the examples mentioned in the patent application include, extreme heat, liquids, excessive shock, and of course, tampering. All of which are not covered by a manufacturers warranty.

In general, such warranty and return policies are intended only to cover failures and defects relating to the manufacture or design of the product, and typically do not cover product failure that occurs as the result of consumer abuse. In fact, many warranty policies explicitly exclude returns or repair when damage from consumer abuse, whether intentional or unintentional, is the underlying cause of the product failure. For example, consumer abuse may include exposing an electronic device to liquids, extreme temperatures, or excessive shock (e.g., the resulting impact from dropping the device). Consumer abuse may also result from tampering which may include any interaction with the device that is not related to operating the device in a normal manner (e.g., opening the casing or housing of a device and adding, removing, or altering the internal components).

The records of any “abuse event” would be held in the device’s memory where an Apple technician could access it and quickly determine if the problem would be covered under warranty.

In accordance with another disclosed embodiment, the abuse detection circuitry may be configured to disable operation of an electronic device upon detecting the occurrence of a consumer abuse event, for example, by disabling power to the device. Subsequent to disabling operation of the device, the abuse detection circuitry may be further configured to periodically check the sensors to determine whether the detected abuse event is still occurring and to re-enable operation of the device if it is determined that the abuse event is no longer occurring. By disabling operation of the device upon detection of a consumer abuse event, the risks of damage to the device from the abuse event may be reduced.

As you may recall, several of the portable devices in Apple’s current line-up contain sensors that permanently change color when they come in contact with liquid. This gives service technicians an idea as to whether an issue may have been caused by the consumer, and if it can be repaired under warranty.

Image courtesy of Apple.

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