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Apple Tries To Gag Owner of Exploding iPod
David Gerard writes "The Times in London reports that Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child's iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company. Well, at least they're not Microsoft. Or something."
Customer service is a cost. But it also buys goodwill when done right.
It's sad that Apple has done this and marred their customer-centric aura. However, such settlement terms are really par for the course.
The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.
I don't see where it says they can't say the iPod exploded.
I do see where it says they can't disclose the terms of the settlement, which is absolutely normal and common as far as settlement language goes.
Was there something newsworthy here that I missed?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Why not publicly give the girl a refund and then reiterate the fact that this can happen with ANY Lithium Ion battery, and that the odds of it happening to you are about 1 in 11 million, and even less if you use a modicum of care. Instead they get to meet the Streisand effect, drawing huge amounts of attention to a COMPLETE non-issue, making themselves look like (Godwin alert) Nazis and making the minor tech failure seem like a huge catastrophic problem, surely hurting sales. It really blows my mind that a tech savvy company like Apple can still honestly think that it is possible to hide knowledge in this information age. iDiots...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I've always thought Apple was just as greedy and immoral as Microsoft.
The letter also stated that, in accepting the money, Mr Stanborough was to "agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential", and that any breach of confidentiality "may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties".
Gag?! Sensationalism ftw!
Where I come from we call that buying silence. Everyone tries for that stuff, if there wasn't Apple nobody would care.
The real story here is that we have an exploding iPod and pictures of the result.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Tell me again why Apple's not Evil ?
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Yea, and yet you are allowed to take them onto a airplane... But not a bottle of water.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
While not trying to minimize the impact of this on an airplane, and certainly not trying to downplay the stupidity of Apple's apparent PR gaffe on this one...
Li-Ion batteries contain a lot of energy, and they will (not may, WILL) occasionally do this. The frequency depends on the quality of the plant that manufactured the battery, but even the very best plant will put out batteries that will do this from time to time. Put any weight on the battery, or don't allow it to dissipate its heat while in use, and the battery suddenly becomes a prime candidate for a meltdown, and possibly a catastrophic one.
Frankly, I'd be FAR more concerned about, say, your average "long battery life" laptop. If one of those suckers goes up, there's a lot more battery to go "boom", a lot more fumes released, etc. An iPod/iPhone has a small enough battery that any physical harm would probably be limited to the owner and maybe their seatmates, and the fumes would be dissipate pretty quickly. A large laptop battery could cause harm over several rows, and possibly even cause some minor damage to the aircraft (nothing it couldn't land with, but enough to cause a divert).
Given the minuscule chances that any one battery will decide that it wants to go "blammo", the risk is about as statistically significant as hitting the lottery. If you short, compress or overheat the battery, you increase your chances somewhat, but still we're talking lottery statistics. But the risk is real, and it exists in every device containing a battery (and especially Li-Ion).
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
to hide the truth simply because it might hurt a corporation?
Depends on the device's mechanical design, and how it lands. The most likely failure mode (I would think, from inspection of such equipment) is that the battery will deform under impact, and try to conform to the shape of some internal sharp pointy bit, or a tall component on the PCB underneath, and it will put just that little bit too much pressure on the battery's internal separator layers. But you will see in most cases this is not going to happen - the battery sits in a compartment with no sharp ribs, components, screw bosses or heads, etc. At least that is the case in Apple devices. In Chinese $1.50 MP3 players the battery is usually just stuck to some convenient surface with a bit of double-stick tape, and all bets are off ;) That was really the type of device I was talking about in my original comment, those engineers work on the "life is cheap" principle.
Another possible failure mode would be if the case itself was cracked and a sharp fragment went into the battery, or if the battery compartment was so severely deformed that the battery's shape was compromised.
All in all I think unlikely a simple drop/throw would cause this to happen. If the whole device got severely bent or crushed, though...
It is funny, Apple's previous marketing plan had also been to be the hip brand to the money hungry Microsoft. It seems Apple has become worse than Microsoft.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Second, and more importantly, it's pretty standard for a company to require non-disclosure when a settlement agreement is made. In fact, I'd wager that 99% of all settlement agreements made have a non-disclosure clause and the 1% that don't are made by people without a clue.
A settlement implies compensation, not a simple refund. They are legally obliged under consumer law in this case to give a full *no-strings* refund. If they had *also* offered compensation for the inconvience etc. *then* they would have been entitled to ask for non-disclosure in exchange.
Essentially they were trying to con the customer into signing an unnecessary non-disclosure in return for nothing at all, and hoping they were unfamiliar with consumer law.
This negates your entire argument, which smells badly of desparate fanboyism.
Can I trade-in my 72 downloads for a female virgin? Actually I'll just settle for any female around age 20 and less than 140 pounds
140lbs sounds great until you realize she's 4'9". Never mind the fact that if you are chosing a partner based on age and weight you are bound to be very disappointed.
Aside-
I don't understand the male obsession with virgins. They're messy.
They are also typically disease free, not played out, and won't know enough to realize you suck at intercourse.
Aside -
I don't understand the male obsession with 20 year olds. They don't know shit!
Is it expected to explode violently when dropped?
No. There are tens of millions of iPods out there. Lots of people must drop them. If they were expected to explode when dropped, the streets would be littered with singed and blood-spattered white earbuds, and Apple would have had their asses sued off ages ago. However there is a possibility that anything with a lithium battery could explode violently if dropped, faulty or not.
If so are there warnings?
I'm sure that buried in amongst all the warnings about not playing music too loud, not crossing the road while listening to music, not inserting iPods in various bodily orifices, not eating iPods, not garrotting people with the headphone cord, not touching the live wires if the charger breaks, not hacking people to death with a machette (while listening to an iPod) there is something on the lines of "if iPod starts making a hissing noise and smoking, do not hold it up to your ear" - although the victim in this case seems to have worked that one out for himself.
That's kinda the problem with the zero-risk society.
If not, perhaps it was a defect?
Perhaps. Perhaps that was why Apple offered to give the guy a refund? The real question is, was it a systematic defect affecting all iPods - or is it just that Apple is a more tempting target for journalists and ambulance-chasers, and whenever some cheap no-brand kit goes kaboom it doesn't make the Times?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
... that I need to pony up the $9.95 to upgrade my 6-month old iPod Touch to firmware v3.0, or... wait, where's this going? Nowhere. I just wanted to vent that Apple wants $9.95 for a firmware upgrade that adds a few incremental features. Mine is under warranty, so why can't I upgrade for free? Oh, yeah. Because Apple are greedy bee-stards. Apple silencing the truth doesn't surprise me at all. I hope my pocket doesn't catch on fire now.
Modding down by Apple fanboiz in 5...4...3...
So Apple has no clothes when it comes to its squeaky-clean fanboi image.
Wow, what a surprise!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Don't add uranium. That would be a nuclear bomb and, therefore, be against the itunes terms.