The iPhone (and any Apple product) carries a 12-month Apple Limited Warranty, which is applied internationally, regardless of where the unit is purchased.
For devices purchased within Australia, Apple offers an extended 12-months on top of the Apple Limited Warranty. This Consumer Law Coverage applies only to devices purchased within Australia, and sourced from an Australian supplier, when being serviced within Australia.
Some retailers such as Kogan (who now own Dick Smith) import their goods from international suppliers, and so even though the device was technically sold within Australia between the online retailer and you, Apple’s internal warranty and parts ordering systems reflect the country of original supply - where the retailer purchased the unit from before passing it onto you. As such these devices don’t carry an automatic second year of Australian Consumer Law coverage within Apple’s service systems, and you would need to deal direct with the retailer for any kind of second year service under consumer law.
Where can you take a device for service under Australian Consumer Law? It becomes somewhat of a grey area and a little misleading on Apple’s part here, because you don’t necessarily need to take a device back to the retailer to make a warranty claim under the ACL, despite what Apple’s website states.
It’s simple - Apple’s service systems automatically apply Consumer Law Coverage to a repair, regardless of where it was purchased or where it’s being serviced, as long as the device was purchased within Australia and is greater than 1 year old but less than 2 years.
As a matter of fact, retailers such as Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, JB Hi-Fi and so forth are Apple Authorised Resellers, but not service providers, and so these retailers send your devices out to an Apple Authorised Service Provider for service anyway. The exception of course being Harvey Norman, as they themselves own a service provider (MAC1).
The only service channel I’ve found that doesn’t necessarily honour this is the Apple Store. When my MacBook Air developed a trackpad issue, AppleCare and the Apple Store wouldn’t cover it and advised me to take the computer back to the retailer I purchased it from. Instead I took it to an Apple Authorised Service Provider and presto - within 24 hours the machine was fixed, covered under Australian Consumer Law.
So you don’t necessarily need to have AppleCare to have your carrier-supplied iPhone serviced by a service provider either. Of course because a service provider has to send the iPhone away to Apple for repairs and as per Apple’s policies only the Apple Store can service them in house same-day, if the Apple Store doesn’t honour the ACL in the second year… then yes, you would need AppleCare to have an Apple Store cover it, or at least have them cover it without a fight. Otherwise you’re off to an AASP, to a retailer or a carrier to have the device sent in for service.
Talk about a mess. But I’ve tried to explain it the best I can.
