[Sam Kapasi]

Allow me to explain this.

All apple products, regardless of registration come with a worlwide warranty. Yes, even unregistered ones.

However an unregistered product has an approximate date of purchase depending on apple's date of shipping (this may vary by a month, depending on how long your dealer has held on to the iPod you have purchased) and you will obviously have an issue if you resort to legal.

Registration is a simple and painless process and you do not have to declare place of purchase OR an invoice number.
Remember, all serial numbers are unique and just by quoting your serial number, Apple knows your product, capacity and colour. (all apple products, computers and handheld MP3 players)

In effect, if you buy with B&W or in cash from grey, your warranty claim process is identical. Connect your Ipod to iTunes for the first time and iTunes will ask you to register. Do so.

Warranty claim: Regardless of whether you have registered with Apple or not, when your iPod fails, call 1800-4250744 (MTNL & BSNL only) and clearly quote your serial number, they will know precisely what you have.
Tell them your problem. They will generate a ticket number, after a little while (while you wait) and give you the address of the nearest Apple service centre to you.

Take your iPod and that ticket number there. You will have to leave your iPod there. In case of minor and software repair, you should get it in 4 days or so. In case of a major repair, you will get a replacement quite easily. Even if your iPod is 10 months old.

Out of warranty: You can still call the same number to take the address of the iPod repair centre. Be warned that they charge 500 bucks EVEN if they cannot repair your iPod. In case they can repair it, be prepared for a hefty bill, often unjustifiable, considering the cost of the iPod. Also that there are independent operators, cannibalising old iPods for switches, hard drives etc and doing a swell job of repairing iPods for a lot less.

I hope this will be a useful post for everyone.