The complaints started arriving after Apple pushed iOS 18 to iPhones in late 2024. Users reported green lines, pink lines, and white lines appearing on their screens, along with microphone failures. When they asked Apple to fix the devices, they hit the same wall: the software license says iOS is provided “without warranty of any kind,” and a replacement screen would have to be paid for out of pocket. Now, Reuters reported on September 15, India’s consumer regulator has escalated its investigation into those terms.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority, or CCPA, has moved the case to its investigation wing for detailed review. The regulator’s concern is that Apple’s warranty terms violate the rights of consumers “as a class,” a phrase that signals the authority is treating the complaints not as individual grievances but as a pattern affecting the whole market. The outcome could reshape how Apple sells and services iPhones in its fastest-growing market.
The cost of a repair is part of why the dispute has traction. Replacing an iPhone 15 screen in India costs about 27,900 rupees, roughly $291, and for some models the repair exceeds a third of the device’s price. For a customer who bought the phone expecting it to work, a bill that large for a fault they did not cause is a hard thing to accept, and the regulator appears to agree.
Apple has pushed back. In an August letter and in public statements, the company argued that it has found no systemic defect or safety issue in India, and that the “no warranty” language on software is standard industry practice. That defense is technically true in most of the world, where software licenses disclaim liability in nearly identical terms. But the Indian regulator is testing whether that global norm holds up against local consumer law.
The dispute lands at a moment when Apple is betting heavily on India. The company has been shifting production to the country and expanding its retail presence, part of a strategy to diversify beyond China and to court a market of more than a billion people. India has become Apple’s second-largest growth market, and the regulatory environment there now matters to the company’s results in a way it did not a decade ago.
The tension is familiar to any multinational that has run into India’s consumer protection regime. The country’s regulators have grown more assertive in recent years, and foreign technology companies have repeatedly found that terms written in Cupertino or Seattle do not automatically translate. The question in the Apple case is whether a software disclaimer can shield a hardware maker from responsibility for a screen that fails after a software update.
The green-line problem itself has been reported on various iPhone models over the years, and users have debated whether it stems from hardware, software, or a combination. Apple has never confirmed a single cause. That ambiguity is awkward for the company, because the regulator is effectively asking it to prove a negative: that no systemic defect exists.
For Apple, the stakes go beyond one investigation. A finding against the company could force changes to how it structures warranties and repairs in India, and could embolden regulators elsewhere. Apple has argued that its repair policies are consistent across markets, a consistency that cuts both ways. What changes in one large market tends to migrate.
The company’s expansion in India gives it reasons to be careful. It has been courting Indian consumers and the Indian government at the same time, and a drawn-out regulatory fight sits awkwardly with that courtship. Analysts said Apple will likely try to resolve the matter quietly, perhaps by adjusting its repair practices without conceding the legal point.
The regulator’s escalation is a procedural step, but it is a meaningful one. Moving a case to the investigation wing means the authority has decided the complaints warrant detailed examination rather than a quick dismissal. For Apple, that converts a customer-service headache into a legal proceeding, with the attendant costs in time, money, and attention.
Consumer advocates in India have framed the issue as one of fairness. A company that sells a phone for a premium price, the argument runs, cannot disclaim responsibility for its software and then charge for repairs when that software appears to break the hardware. Apple’s global terms may be standard, but standard terms are not the same as fair ones.
The immediate question is what the investigation wing will conclude. It could dismiss the complaints, issue a finding against Apple, or push the parties toward some form of settlement. The regulator has not set a public timeline. For now, the dispute shows how the terms printed in a software license, however standard, still have to survive contact with the market where they are enforced. The screen lines may fade, but the legal question behind them is unlikely to.
