Well, this so true. From what i know the 11 consumer organisations have not yet received an official response from Apple to the cease and desist letter they sent some weeks ago. Somes sites are misinterpreting the changes Apple recently made. These changes are so deeply buried on their site ( except for Italian site) buyers never see these changes. It's quite clear that the consumer organistaions are not going to accept this.

Is het nu zo moeilijk om dit te begrijpen. -dutch .Is this so difficult to understand. Its NOT about selling Applecare. It's all about limiting the warranty to 1 year without Applecare. And this is bollocks : "AppleCare Protection Plan benefits are in addition to any legal rights provided by consumer protection laws in your jurisdiction.". These are just words but they never ever act accordingly. And surely this won't help Apple if this matter ever gets in court. They are lying.

If you live in an European country where the EC Directive is in place, a battery is covered by the 2 year warranty. This consumable thing is a manufacturer invention , to cover up the low quality batteries in laptops. If you look closely at the definition of the word consumable , it says : That may be depleted or worn out by use. The latter thing is interessing because that's what exactly happens to a harddisk. But the manufacturers are not excluding harddisks, aren't they. Of course , some states in Europe could have an exclusion clause for batteries but it's certainly not in the EC Directive and not in country where i live.

Apple has not been taken to court yet. A cease and desist letter has been sent to the Apple European headquarters in Ireland by 11 consumer organizations. Apple has 1 month to reply. If they ignore this cease and desist letter, this thing could go to European Commession but most likely they (Apple) will be sued on a national level.

All i wanted to say is that this proof nonsens has always failed in court. Reasonable manufacturers ask proof of purschase, look at the problem, no self-inflected damage , no malware and they fix the problem. 2 years. But i have to admit : most pc manufacturers are limiting warranty on laptop batteries to. Well that's illegal to, over here. I think the 11 consumer organisations have a solid case against Apple and surely with 90 trillion cash on their hands they can deal with it.

It's very simple : all Apple has to is stop forcing people to buy Applecare for the second year and lower the price for the third year. It's actualy a good thing for the small independent Apple retailer because all bigger outlets like Saturnus, Mediamarkt and others were already offering 2 years warranty without Applecare. And it will be good for sales to.

True.It's a EC directive but a lot of countries transformed this into a local law. Now what's totaly ridiculous in this directive is that a consumer has to proof that the defect was already present at time of purchase. Sorry , but this is bollocks. How can a consumer prove that some electronic component ( hard disk, motherboard) defect is already present at the time of purchase? Can you ? I'm a repair technician and I can't. In all warranty cases i've been involved i have never encountered a manufacturer or reseller that said: now my friend : proof it.

Some explanation about the 2 year warranty in Europe. This was a 1999 EC directive ( (Directive 1999/44/EC) . From 2005 it became law in a lot of European countries. Initially this directive was to curb cheap imports from Asia. Manufacturers - like Apple and others - were not targets. In fact , retailers are solely responsible for all warranty repairs. Now comes the tricky bit: in lot's of cases retailers were not covered for the second year warranty by their suppliers. That why they forced the unnecessary Applecare upon their clients. But now : If you buy an Apple product online they become a retailer , so they had to comply with the EC directive. Which they did not. The headline is somewhat misleading. It's not only Belgium. There are 10 other countries involved.

No. Just the opposite. If Apple will adapt ( finaly) their warranty they can never ever justify the 249 euro Applecare ( on a MacBook Air) for the third year.

Of course nobody has to buy Apple products but that is not the point. The 2 year waranty law came into effect on 1/1/2005. A lot of customers thought they were covered by this law and didn't buy Applecare. On secondhand sales from retailer to consumer there is one year mandatory warranty in Belgium and other EU countries.