Apple Voids Warranties Over Smoking ?

What will states like California do? Oh, the dilemma their officials face. Do they take the traditional lefty brutal pro-consumerist, liberal "implied warranty of merchantability" position and require Apple not only to honor reasonable warranty claims but to pay penalties for fraud, or do they take the overt PC stance instead, and support Apple? (In which case, what's next, dishonoring warranties on motor vehicles as well as everything else for excessive exposure to "greenhouse gas" emissions and such?)

(California has defined environmental tobacco smoke as a toxic air pollutant ("contaminant"), which is reasonable, but this does not imply it should support bogus or politically flippant warranty claim rejections by Apple and other firms that may follow Apple's example.)

It was in the earlier stages still when it was first in the news -- don't you remember, before Thanksgiving?

Who knows why they're doing this. Are they merely contriving a bogus excuse to avoid paying warranty claims, which is bad enough, or are they actually stooping to play PC games, as many before Thanksgiving promptly wondered.

it's just poor design

heh, reminds me of a book I read over the summer, "The Design of Everyday Things" that managed to point out many of the flaws made in designing some of the simplest things, from doors to telephones.

I do product design, and I can tell you there's a huge design issue if Apple is designing computers that can't stand a little second-hand smoke over the relatively short warrantee lifetime of a computer; it's just poor design. If you live in a large metropolitan area, the air you breath just living there gives you as much tar as smoking a cig a day, and if you're near a busy road in that large city, it's even worse; it is a failure of design not to create products that can withstand the conditions under which their product will most likely be used.

Good explanation and scary thoughts on lungs.

But it's worth pointing out that according to the stories the reason Apple refused was due to second hand smoke exposure for their employees., not because of specific damage to the units.

And again, if you want to exempt something from a warranty you should say so. I've got Complete Care with Dell which means they fix everything but if I didn't there would be many things not covered.

Thanks for the explanation, Stellarjay, but that probably won't get Apple out of the legal woods if folks press the issue. The problem is that most consumers wouldn't have a clue about what you just explained. Without some sort of express warning that smoking near your computer could damage it and void the warranty I don't see the average jury cutting Apple/Applecare any slack here. BTW, it's Apple that issues the warranty so they're probably on the hook, maybe with Applecare as a codefendant or third party defendant.

And, even if the legal system didn't get them, the PR would be devastating as smokers and those with smokers in their household would think twice about buying their product(s).

tar from smoke gunks up thick on fans and through pinholes in hard drives. It is not a 'dust' issue, it's a gunk issue that does not respond to air cleaning but literally has to be scraped and chipped off.

The story is that Apple did not refuse service to smokers. It is that warranty was voided in Applecare which is not even done by Apple, but by another org.... because of users exposing cpu to corrosive elements.

"Smoke" damage is misleading. It's the stench and glop of tar that's the issue. If you've ever seen the innards of a cpu used by a smoker, the damage to the delicate components is great. Not to mention damage to the smoker's poor lungs.