Smoking will Void Your Apple Warranty!

Do you smoke? Apple has been known to void warranties and refuse to fix computers that have been exposed to cigarette smoke.

Since the Apple warranty does not cover damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, fire, earthquake, or any other external cause, the question of how much nicotine, tar, and smoke are absorbed into the product is really the only relevant one.

According to reports on a website that covers consumer issues in the United States called The Consumerist, Apple voids a warranty on a MacBook because it was tainted by cigarette smoke. This situation is similar to a report from the past in which Apple refused to fix an iMac because secondhand smoke could be bad for your health.

It is said that Apple first agreed to fix the owner's MacBook before informing them that work could not be done because smoke residue had polluted the system. This occurred in both of the aforementioned instances. A lady who was upset that Apple would not repair her iMac argued that the terms of her AppleCare warranty did not mention anything about the company refusing to honor the guarantee if the user was a smoker.

According to Apple's terms and conditions, AppleCare does not cover damage that is caused by an extreme environment. It would appear that this indicates that a few people smoked Lucky cigarettes nearby.

If your product were to be placed in a sealed plastic bag, you would probably not be denied service for something that wouldn't make someone recoil from the amount of nicotine and tar that permeated the air left in the bag after a few hours of being removed from the environment where it is normally stored and used. If you were to take your product to a smoke-free room and have a child sniff it, you would probably not be denied service for something that wouldn't make someone recoil from the amount of

Where does all this science come into play? And what do you think the right business response would be? Should the AppleCare agreements include a disclaimer that makes clear reference to being exposed to secondhand smoke? Or, might Microsoft create a new advertisement for their Laptop Hunter product in which a really attractive and cheerful individual says, "I'm not cool enough and I smoke, so there's no way I could ever get a Mac fixed"?