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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."
What customer centric aura? Apple have been pulling stunts like this for a long time now...
The only reason I have an iPod touch is, at the time I got it, nothing else really fitted the bill for what I wanted.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
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
What customer centric aura? Apple have been pulling stunts like this for a long time now...
The only reason I have an iPod touch is, at the time I got it, nothing else really fitted the bill for what I wanted.
So you only purchased it...because you liked the product.?
Sounds like apple made a product that you wanted. Sounds like they design with the consumer in mind.
I've always thought Apple was just as greedy and immoral as Microsoft.
He didn't say they were customer centric, but that they had a "customer centric Aura". The first requires a corporate culture that cares about the customer, the second requires a marketing department that works very hard to make the customer think you care about them. Amazingly a lot of companies work very hard at the second even though the first is much easier to accomplish (and harder to lose).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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?
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...
I go through a lot of Apple hardware in the course of my business. Any time I have a problem I try to walk into an Apple store to get it taken care of. Their face to face CS is excellent, over the phone is pretty much the same as everyone else.
This is not unusual for companies that position themselves as high end brands. If you can pull it off, pretend you are going to buy a Cartier watch in a Cartier store and they'll outfit you with a Cohiba to smoke and some high end scotch to drink while you make up your mind. Free shoe shine. Ridiculous stuff.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
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.
Sounds like they design with the consumer in mind.
Delivering products that have the consumer in mind, and having corporate policies that also have the consumer in mind are two entirely different things! I'm sorry, Apple fans, but Apple is just as hognoxious as Microsoft in many respects. Better quality products? Sure, I suppose. Less bloodthirsty management? Nope.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I was disappointed in the response by Trading Standards, who compared to other consumer protection bodies around the world are generally good eggs:
"The Trading Standards Institute said that it could not comment on whether such letters were standard across the industry, but that it could understand that Apple would want to protect its reputation by trying to reach a confidential settlement."
Apple isn't trying to protect its reputation. Apple's reputation INCLUDES exploding iPods - albeit a pretty small number of them. What Apple's trying to do by gagging people whose iPods explode is FALSIFY its reputation; making it appear that the problem doesn't exist.
I hate to say it but, there appears to be a little wriggling worm at the center of that nice shiny, tasty-looking apple.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I would agree with this sentiment, and as someone who owns a lot of Apple gear, I'd add that my experience has been pleasant insofar as the electronics works well, but their customer care leaves much to be desired. I also think Apple's iCulture of iSecrecy has gone iTooFar. The need to control every aspect of the user experience leads Apple to do evil things (whereas Microsoft, on the other hand, is just evil).
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
That's assuming you were born into the Apple Hegemony.
I personally find OS X to be user unfriendly.
Finder is the chief offender in making for a User Hostile interface.
Does it ever annoy you when on second down an NFL linebacker tackles a running back behind the line of scrimmage and comes up pumping his fist in the air, as if he single-handedly won the Super Bowl?
Does it ever bug you when a major league soccer player scores into an empty net and runs the field with their shirt over their head, as if the Copa Mundial is theirs, alone, for eternity?
And in both cases, they are merely doing their job to expectations?
We're so ill-served by coporations that when one just does the right thing, we celebrate it as a happening. So much so that we even celebrate when one would offer to fix a problem they know about, have avoided a complete resolution to, and decries their supposed technological brilliance and superior engineering.
I do this too. My new Bluetooth headset is fritzed. I was honestly suprised the company didn't even squeak, but asked me to mail it back for a new one. I was gassed. Then I realized, hey, they should do that, it was about 3 weeks old. Well, we'll see.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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!