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Apple will appeal against the fine imposed by the Italian regulator for failing to respect the legal warranty requirements, and (astonishingly) we know this because Apple told us.

The fruitchomp firm reckons that despite the regulator's ruling it is complying with Italian law, and will be appealing against the decision by the regulator to fine the company $1.2m. The Italian authorities have accused Apple of failing to advise customers of their legal right to a two-year warranty, instead offering them one year and then promoting AppleCare as an optional extension, an accusation Apple denies.

Apple famously only speaks to media it likes, and The Register has not been on that list for a very long time. Calls to Cupertino (or local reps) are answered politely, and messages taken, but return calls never materialise, and company statements never find their way into El Reg mailboxes.

In the last few years we've taken to wondering if anyone actually reads the correspondence submitted, or if the Apple press office is just a holder for /dev/null. But appeals for reassurance on the matter meet the same wall of silence as questions on policy or planning.

We do have one or two contacts within Apple, employees willing to confirm that the company has a physical presence and can even receive communications from the outside world, just not from The Register it seemed.

Relationships with all corporate PRs are slightly strange - such people are overtly friendly in the hope of getting coverage, but always annoyed when that coverage isn't as favourable as they had hoped. As one reader-turned-story told us: "It's not quite so funny when you're on the other side".

We've been accused of being anti-Apple, but really we're not, we're anti-just-about-everybody. If you only read our coverage of Apple then you might conclude we're plotting against Cupertino, but you could reach the same conclusion about any company if you restrict your reading to those stories - only by reading a breadth of The Register does our equal-opportunities approach become clear.

Whether Apple has really forgiven, we don't know. Perhaps three ghosts spent Christmas hanging around Cupertino, or perhaps a hapless PR has communicated with us by accident and will shortly be fired for this heinous blunder - we hope not. Anyway we're delighted to wish everyone at the company a very happy new year and hope to hear from them again sooner than say 2022.

Oh - and they're appealing against the Italian decision, in case you missed that. ®

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