Apple seeks patent for abuse detection technology

by Michelle L on August 7, 2009

Guy walks into an Apple store. No, this isn’t a joke. Bear with me. He buys a new iPhone. It’s an expensive electronic device that takes a good chunk out of his paycheck. Since he’s already spending quite a bit of money on the phone, he turns down the AppleCare Protection Plan. He figures he’ll take care of it and nothing will happen to it. He’ll be extra careful. A couple of weeks later, he’s gotten pretty comfortable with his new toy, which also means he’s gotten a little careless. He’s in a hurry to get to work, and he leaves his phone in the car. All day. In the heat. What happens to the phone?

By the time he gets out of work and finds his phone in the car, it’s been subjected to temperatures well over the 113 degree Fahrenheit limit that iPhones are able to withstand without damage, and for an extended period of time. The phone is kaput. It won’t even turn on anymore. But there’s no visible damage to the case. It’s not as if he dropped it. So he figures he’ll just take it back to the store and say it just stopped working for some unknown reason and demand the store replace it. They’ll never be able to tell what really happened to the phone, right? Not for long. Apple has applied for a patent for new technology that will detect and keep a record of “consumer abuse events.”

iPhones (and iPods and MacBook Pros) already contain liquid submersion indicators. These are small white patches affixed inside the phones that turn red if they are subjected to moisture. The company says they aid in identifying malfunction issues with the phone. It just so happens they also let the company know if you dropped your iPhone in the toilet, something that’s not covered by the warranty.

The new abuse detection technology would take it several steps further, with the ability to detect and record other types of damage such as exposure to heat, cold, and impact. The patent reads, in part:

“The system may include an interface by which a diagnostic device may access the memory to analyze the records and determine whether a consumer abuse event occurred, when the event occurred, and, in some embodiments, what type of abuse event occurred. By providing the capability to quickly and easily detect whether consumer abuse occurred in an electronic device, a vendor or manufacturer diagnosing a returned product may be able to better determine whether or not to initiate a product return under a warranty policy.”

To sum up, Apple employees would be able to tell whether the phone you’re trying to exchange is really malfunctioning due to a manufacturer defect, or if you’re trying to pull a fast one. It’s interesting that this patent application follows the recent issue of new iPhones overheating, and Apple blaming customers for it, and then saying that customers who jailbreak iPhones are a threat to national security.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. In one sense, it’s kind of Big Brothery. Including a system within a device that can record when and how the device was damaged leads to the question, could they also include a system that records other data about how you use your phone? And could this system wirelessly report back to the manufacturer, building a database of customer usage habits to be used when developing new devices? That may be stretching things a bit, but expect the conspiracy theorists to come up with something similar if and when this patent is approved.

The positive spin on it is, when a dishonest customer tries to pull the wool over the eyes of an Apple Genius, it can end up costing the rest of us money. Just like shoplifting causes stores to increase prices to make up for lost merchandise, manufacturers raise prices—or wait longer to lower them—to counter money lost when customers return merchandise that cannot be resold. So remember that guy who left his iPhone in the car all day? Multiply him by a few thousand and do the math. All the people who pull that stunt might get a new phone, free of charge, but it may take a little longer for the price to come down for the rest of us so Apple can make up the money lost on those returned items.

Again, that may seem like an exaggeration, until you consider that this happens not just with iPhones, but with all kinds of phones and other electronic devices every day. There are people who would rather try to get out of taking responsibility for their mistakes than pay to replace the thing they broke through their own carelessness.

So if you broke your iPhone somehow and have been trying to think of a way to get it replaced for free, you’d better hurry and come up with a good story. Otherwise, I recommend you quit being a cheapskate and take another look at that protection plan.

Filed under : Apple