Perhaps I didn't explain myself - I'm not saying the rule isn't transparent, I understand very well there's an actual rule. My complaint is that it's there at all.

Although, what you said about warranties makes sense...however honestly that hasn't kept friends of mine from deliberately breaking their phones just to get new ones.

...then your friends are dishonest, and their dishonesty raises the price I have to pay when I buy a product from Apple.

Did you criticize them when you found out they did that?

Sure. Not that it helped any. Interestingly, it's more my "untechnical" friends - exclusively those, actually. The technical ones are somewhat invested in technology news and wouldn't do that because they understand a lot more of the process. On the other hand, those that are dishonest in this way, in my experience, know nothing about the tech of Apple except that it's, well, new and shiny.

As for myself, my iPhone 4 is half-broken and I'm still eeking out whatever life I can get from it before I get the iPhone 6 in the Fall.

Perhaps it is worth more to Apple that a user can download apps and continue the "iPhone lifestyle" than worry about how to fix their device. I personally think that it is not a conflict of interest.