lol, you sound as cynical as me. I can see them doing this to make sure they're ahead of iPhone when it comes to sales, but I'm not sure they'd risk their image with this issue to increase their sales.
But I don't mind a good conspiracy so, what if the U.S. government is trying to secure more market share for Apple ahead of them moving a lot of cash back into the U.S.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/01/technology/apple-tax-cook-repatriation/ They tell Samsung that they need to manufacture a defect in their latest offering because they want some market share to go towards the iPhone, and in return the U.S. will give Samsung some future considerations since Uncle Sam is going to get paid via the taxing of all that money that Apple has offshore to avoid taxes? I still don't understand how so many people are ok with Apple holding so much money offshores to avoid paying taxes. /tinfoil hat
You can always see if they'll give you a basic smartphone (one of the freebies) and ask if they'll take it back within the 14-15 grace period and have them wave the restocking fee. If you really want to be sneaky about it, you can tell them that the phone gets hot during charging and that you don't feel safe with it. That should be enough for any competent manager to offer some sort of loaner for you. When I worked for Apple, we had some safety words (no not like kinky couples have) that would give us more latitude with addressing customer concerns. Those words were "burn, cut, shock". When a customer would mention those words, we'd try to get them to an Apple store ASAP.
