Regarding display production: I recently bought a Studio Display from Apple with the thought that it should last a very long time.
It bricked itself with a software update after maybe 3 months. I realized these things depend on Apple supporting the A13 chip in order for it to remain compatible with new technologies and, absurdly, to remain secure from exploits. A monitor.
I couldn’t regret my purchase much more and feel pretty stupid for not figuring this stuff out before I pulled out my credit card.
To add insult to injury, the display has been getting repaired for almost 2 months and there’s still no ETA on a fix. I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a display, both for ecological reasons but also because these things likely have a software-driven expiry date, with their hardware being relatively complex and error prone compared to most displays.
Also, they come with a barely usable camera. Audio is fine but it’s mind boggling how bad the camera is. What a waste.
If you want to get rid of it, multiple months for a good-as-new product is long enough to suggest they just keep it and give you the full money back instead. Laws may be different where you live, I'm not a lawyer, but that should work
I suppose the laws where I am don’t work in my favour. I firmly insisted I get a refund after about 45 days, but they flatly refused and shortly after agreed to a replacement. I still don’t have that, though.
I would never take a vendor’s word for what the laws are. Many will simply violate the law, and see what they can get away with.
Look up your local consumer protection laws, and see if their behavior is allowed. If not, write to them demanding the refund, citing to the specific consumer protection laws, and informing them that if they don’t resolve the issue your next step is to file a complaint with your state AG.
Edit: to make this slightly more useful, you can search “(your state) uniform commercial code”, and you can look at this resource for a quick summary of the UCC obligation on a manufacturer: https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commerc...
I could see an AG complaint prompting them to complete the replacement soon.
I’m in Canada (BC), and unfortunately there is no law governing refunds for consumer goods. Apple offers if of their own volition and can implement it here as they see fit. In this case it’s within their right to insist that the unit is repaired rather than replaced.
Can they just keep it indefinitely and never refund you? I doubt that.
We also don't have a law that says "when XYZ then you must get a refund", but it follows from the law that says "the consumer has a right to a product conforming expectations". If they don't provide what they promised or lead you to expect, you can start to make demands.
(Fun fact: we have indefinite warranty because of this, so long as you can make it believable that the product should have lasted the given amount of time. In practice, all shops use the EU minimum of 2 years as maximum warranty term, also for things that can be expected to last five times as long, such as a TV. The person above you is right: they just pretend and see what they can get away with.)
Eventually it would be up to a judge to say whether any given demand is reasonable, but for most situations there's case law available and most companies don't feel like going to court when the case law is established enough that the consumer market authority has guidance on what rights follow from this.
I had this exact situation: a good in repair for months with no feedback besides promises to update me soon. They finally sent the refund one day before the date I had told them I was going to hand it off to a no-cure-no-pay collection agency. Half a year of pushing them at least once a week: calling, emailing, snailmailing, trying to get stuff moving. (Possession really is 90% of the law.) What a headache that was. Later found there were more people in reviews describing the same situation for this store. Only a handful per hundred superficial positive reviews but, still, the negative reviews were elaborate and I could have known.
One option you might have would be to sell it on the used market, once you get the replacement. Certainly you won't get full price for it, but especially if Apple gives up and sends you a new-in-box replacement, you might be able to get pretty close.
Then you can buy something better. Hopefully the buyer of your Studio Display will be happy with it, and you'll have denied Apple a first-hand sale, while giving (most of) the money to another manufacturer that deserves it more.
They refused to replace it for quite a while and just recently agreed to replace it, but that was a week ago. It’s been a brutal customer service experience. It got 2 new logic boards while they tried to track down the problem.
At this point I still don’t know when I’ll have a working display in my possession.
Did you buy it from Apple directly, or a retailer?
If from Apple, you may consider a chargeback. Or suggest that you'll do a chargeback if they don't refund you when you next check on the status of the replacement.
I would probably recommend the small-claims court first (assuming that's a thing where you live). If you issue a chargeback, Apple isn't constrained by any code of conduct, and could retaliate by deactivating your Apple ID or refusing to sell you anything in the future, or...
But if you get a court order for Apple to take some specific action (like a refund), I'd think they'd be less likely to retaliate since you could presumably bring another (legal) case against them that their retaliation was shady.
Then again, I don't know about laws where you live, so maybe this isn't a consideration.
It bricked itself with a software update after maybe 3 months. I realized these things depend on Apple supporting the A13 chip in order for it to remain compatible with new technologies and, absurdly, to remain secure from exploits. A monitor.
I couldn’t regret my purchase much more and feel pretty stupid for not figuring this stuff out before I pulled out my credit card.
To add insult to injury, the display has been getting repaired for almost 2 months and there’s still no ETA on a fix. I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a display, both for ecological reasons but also because these things likely have a software-driven expiry date, with their hardware being relatively complex and error prone compared to most displays.
Also, they come with a barely usable camera. Audio is fine but it’s mind boggling how bad the camera is. What a waste.