iPhone Cruncher

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Apple is sued for allegedly selling refurbished iPhone handsets as new in China, which is a pretty damn big deal if it’s true. I’d like to think there is more to this story, so hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it sooner than later. But I can’t imagine what it must be like to take home a brand-spankin’ new iPhone and opening it up and using it only to realize that it isn’t a fresh virgin from the factory.

What’s worse is needing Apple Genius Bar service or other help and realizing that your warranty isn’t quite as long as it should be. BGR reports:

The suits both allege that Apple Store locations sold refurbished iPhones to the complainants under the guise that they were new devices. Only when the customers discovered that their manufacturer warranties expired less than one year from their respective dates of purchase did they realize something was awry. To make matters worse, Wang says that when one such customer went back to the Apple Store to confront them, the staff there allegedly tried to trick her by modifying her warranty expiration date.

Others are apparently coming forward with the same issue, stating that they thought they were buying new iPhones when it turned out they were being given refurbished or refreshed units.

It seems like shady business practice to sell refurbished iPhones as new, but again we ought to wait about what Apple has to say regarding the matter. It just doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a company would do in order to risk damaging its reputation and business.

What do you think? Could the problem be limited to only Apple, or is it possible that some middlemen are involved in this scheme? Or is it possible that this is some kind of scam from the user’s end? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

About The Author

Marc Flores

Marc has been a mobile fanatic for the better part of a decade and has had more devices pass through

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We haven’t seen the HTC Ignite or Prime since March, but a new leak from cell phone retailer The Phone House suggests that HTC is planning to launch both handsets in the near future. The phones will pack Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, presumably the Mango release, but it is unclear when they will hit the market. If we were betting men we would wager that both handsets will launch in the early fall, when Microsoft has said it will deploy Mango to existing handsets. Earlier this week, the Redmond-based company announced that it has already released the operating system update to manufacturers, so we’re expecting to see a number of new Windows Phone leaks to start cropping up.

Thanks, Andrew

[Via Tweakers.net]

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Tags: fall, HTC, Ignite, leak, Mango, PRIME, QWERTY, release, retailer, rumor, September, The Phone Store, Windows Phone

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Google’s Eric Schmidt decided to chime in on the Apple lawsuits brought against its hardware partners. The former Google CEO says that Apple is feeling threatened by its competitors, and instead of firing back with new innovations, the iPhone maker is just hitting everyone else with lawsuits. To be fair, Schmidt ought to look at Android’s own history and what the platform looked like before and after the iPhone was announced.

A judge recently sided with Apple, stating that HTC, a major Android handset manufacturer, infringes on the iPhone maker’s patents. HTC, in turn, says that it will aggressively defend its technologies against Apple, and ultimately find workarounds to the patent issues if it is unsuccessful in court.

If these lawsuits end up in Apple’s favor, it could mean that the company’s competitors will be barred from bringing certain products into the U.S., or that they will have to pay royalties to Apple. PerthNow reports:

“The big news in the past year has been the explosion of Google Android handsets and this means our competitors are responding,” he said.

“Because they are not responding with innovation, they’re responding with lawsuits.

“We have not done anything wrong and these lawsuits are just inspired by our success.”

It’s true that there has been an explosion of Android handsets, from your most basic, $50 handsets to powerful high-end smartphones reaching into the $250 range. The reason for this is because Google has made its mobile platform free for manufacturers to use – for better or worse – and so the manufacturers can focus on just that–manufacturing tons of phones without having to worry about building software.

The upside to this is the variety and selection of handsets, but the downside is that so many new smartphones are being released each week that it becomes dizzying. And when you really take a closer look, they’re almost all the same: 1GHz processors, 5-8MP cameras, similar screen sizes and resolutions and very similar battery life across all Android devices.

However, Apple does have to consider the rate at

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Starting September 25, MMS capability shall be present for the iPhone 3G and 3GS as confirmed by AT&T. Though it may seem late since a lot of people have been awaiting such an announcement, the timing (3 days after school opens!) couldn’t have been better to shelve all the curious iPhone owners awaiting the official announcement.

There were a lot of factors considered such as the potential MMS traffic as well as making sure that all the multimedia capabilities of the iPhone 3G and 3GS are optimized. But like most services, stability and issues concerning this new MMS service is still up for scrutiny as there is still always room for potential problems, something that should not be alarming and normal for all handsets and telecommunication services.

(Source) Mobile Crunch