What a difference a day makes. After being forced to issue a public apology for Apple’s Maps debacle late last year, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook on Monday issued an apology to Chinese consumers for what the state media deemed to be unfair local warranty policies that differed from Apple’s policies elsewhere. As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, Cook’s plea appears to have worked — the once critical government-run Chinese newspaper Global Times has issued a followup to earlier attacks stating that Apple is “worth respect compared with other American companies.” The Foreign Ministry also reportedly praised Apple for “conscientiously” responding to the media-driven outcry.
Earlier reports out of China stated that Apple was intentionally avoiding warranty replacements for iPhones and Mac computers in order to dodge local laws that would require the company to issue a new full warranty on the replacement products. While Cook did not admit to any wrongdoing in his apology, he did suggest that Apple engineers in China were perhaps fixing devices with new parts in some situations where warranty replacements would have been issued elsewhere.
