"Exactly" how long is the Apple hw warrranty?

Question

Is an Apple "1 year" h/w warranty actually less than 1 year?
On Monday of this week, 7/15/13, I noted that my iPhone 4S wasn't using my home wifi network.  Of course I assumed my network was down, but it wasn't.  Wifi was apparently 'broken' on my iPhone.  When I went to settings to turn it on, I couldn't - the 'on' option was grayed out.
So I tried following the support recommendations for this problem, rebooted the phone, reloaded a fresh ios, etc..  No joy.
So I went into the local Apple store - got an appountment for Thursday, 7/18/13.  I was going to be out of town on business the next 2 days, it would have been nice to get it fixed that night, but they required that I stay in the store for an hour and a half to do it that night.  No thanks.
So on 7/18/13 I show up at the appointed hour.  I'm told that it's likely a hardware problem.  When did you buy this phone?  "About a year ago".  What's your AppleID - I give it, the tech types and away, then tells me that my warranty expired 'about a week ago', and it'll be $199 to get the hardware replaced.
No thanks - if Apple won't stretch a warranty one week, they lose my loyalty, I'll look at every other option for replacing this phone.
So I went home, Googled "Apple Warranty Validation", got this site - https://selfsolve.apple.com/wcResults.do , entered my serial #, and sure enough, it said that my warranty had expired.
But neither the Tech, nor the site, told me when I bought the phone.  So I went to the attic, and got my 2012 files out.
I had a receipt for a phone purchase on 7/19/12.  Another for a return of that phone on 7/23/12, at 5 pm, and another for a purchase of my current phone at 8:30 pm on 7/23/12.  What had happend was that I had dropped my 3S, which my business communication relies on, and lost phone connectivity with it. So I went to the ATT store in a panic, got a replacement, and then went to work seeing if I could fix my 3S (since I really would have liked to hang onto it till the '5' came out, in a couple of months or so).  By the 23'rd, I thought I had it fixed, so I returned the 1st 4S, paying a $35 restocking charge.  Later that evening I realized that it wasn't fixed, so I went back and got another 4S.
So, why did Apple think that a phone I bought less than a year ago was out of warranty?
I called Apple support.  They at first didn't want to deal with me because, hey, my phone was out of warranty.  I asked them when they thought I bought it, and got told "7/19/13".  Interesting, because this call took place on 7/18/13.  So I asked why Apple though I was beyond their 1 year warranty, when in fact, by their records, I was one day short of a calendar year?  The agent told me that their warranty is actually a day short of a year, and that thus it had expired that day.
I told the agent that a) my records showed I bought the phone on 7/23, and b) in any event, I had reported the problem at the Apple store on 7/15, prior to the warranty expiration.  That blew his mind, so he passed the issue on to a more senior guy, who passed the issue onto a warranty expert, who asked me for the serial # of the phone.  Once he had that he responded that yes, he showed I bought that phone on 7/23, it was within warranty, no issue.
Unanswered was why 2 Apple reps, and a web site, thought my phone was out of warranty.  And is it really true that an Apple "1 year warrant" is acutally less than 1 year, by even a day?
Interestingly enough, the Apple warranty validation web site now says that this phone has been replaced.  I.e., the phone I'm holding in my hand.  Wow.

Answer 1

What a good read. The Apple iPhone warranty is freely available in the public domain. Whatever it says.