Slashdot Mirror
Apple Censors Consumer Report iPhone4 Discussions
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has done it again. All threads about Consumer Report's iPhone4 non-recommendation are removed or deleted.
If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?"
If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?
Keep it up until your 32,768th post when they'll regret using a signed short int for the NUM_POSTS_CENSORED value in your forum profile.
My work here is dung.
Yeh, when Jobs said his control over every Apple-user's computing was about "freedom from porn", we could have guessed that "porn" was just being dragged up as a convenient excuse.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Well, that is what you do with bad apples, isn't it?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I do not see why they are required to allow discussions of that subject considering the number of sites where you are free to discuss it.
Apple knows about the review, why should they let you rub their noses into it? Let alone on their forums there are more than enough rabid supporters that keeping these messages off the site means for more peaceful forums. It would simply be a flame war
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It will be an "advantage" over Android, that the forums are not cluttered with unnecessary information.
...we're Apple! Now shut up and buy this overpriced device that is marginally better than the more expensive one you bought last year!
Living With a Nerd
Really you just paid $299 for your phone. You pay goodness knows how much a month for your 2 GB capped data plan. Just suck it up and buy the $30 bumper! what is the big deal!
(This message was sent from my Android phone on the Sprint network).
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Streisand effect.. I never heard of the review until they made such a stink trying to keep me from hearing about the review.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
... Is that apparently consumer reports finds the crappy AT&T service acceptable, but the new iPhone to be not-so-great. Considering how abysmal many other reports of the AT&T network are, that is probably the more newsworthy component.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
... That once claimed that 1984 wouldn't be like 1984.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
This just proves it again. Don't you dare question our Dear Leader.
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
How does a link to this article relate to support of Apple products? Not at all. If there were threads discussing the actual technical issues of the antenna and reception which were deleted, this might be a story. If I were to call Apple Support on the phone and say "Hey guess what, there's this article on Consumer Reports about your product", they'd say "That's nice, dear, what's your technical problem again?"
Just use Usenet
keeps the thinking away (Steve will make thinking and decisions for us).
Who would have thought that Apple's commercial from 25 years ago was a vision of their own future, only that Apple is Big Brother rather than the hammer thrower?
Apple is about freedom. Freedom from porn. Freedom from criticism. Freedom from competition. Freedom from objective discussions. Freedom from the truth.
Apple little world is looking more like 1984 every day.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
...How do you explain this? Sadly, these fanboys will be outside Apple stores a few years down the road to buy the 'latest' and 'greatest' Apple product of the time...even when it's riddled with obvious defects like the iPhone 4.
After all no one in the industry cares more about the customer experience better than Apple. Right?
It's hard to know if this is censorship or if they just violated the terms of service and hatebois are flying off the handle. There are still lots of posts about the consumer reports unrecommendation on discussions.apple.com:
http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=consumer+reports
Still, if it's true it wouldn't be the first time Apple flew off the handle with the censorship (remember the Ulysses app flap?).
and there are few dumber than those who give Apple their money.
Well it appears to be un-censored. I can see three or four active threads in thier support forum. Of course most are fanboys v. the worl calling each other asholes... FWIW DLM
Even though I'm a Windows user, it always gives me a wry smile when Linux users say what fun it is to observe all the Windows problems (virii, exploits, etc) from a safe distance.
Now, as an ex-Apple customer, now happily using an HTC Desire, I can say that it's great fun watching Apple implode, from a safe distance.
I don't wish them any ill-will. My preference would be for them to take an honesty pill, start treating their customers with some respect, and turn the whole sorry situation around. But they aren't doing that, so I'll toast marshmallows on the bonfire of Apple's reputation.
A company moderates its own forum to make itself look better?
Shocking.
Wow, this spam is disguised as a legitimate post so well I actually read the whole thing before realising it was spam. Clearly Slashdot spambots (or human spammers?) are getting better these days. I don't know whether to be appalled or impressed.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
We all know how Apple likes to make sure all peripherals are Apple licensed. Couldn't a cradle be made (for cars for example) that used the antenna contact point to extend the antenna (thereby bypassing the need to license a Apple proprietary plug)?
They want a cool, sharp, designed world where everything is taken care of, by the caring giant that is Steve Jobs. He cares. He makes the world a better place. You don't have to worry about it.
Didn't someone write a book about that?
Deleted
Bad comparison.
This is like standing around in an Apple store, and the guy beside you mentions he's here to return his iMoan, you reply, and you get asked to leave.
Sure, it's their store, but people have gotten kinda used to being able to discuss things with the people around them.
Imagine you were in the queue and security overheard you complaining about how long the queue was, and told you to go to the end. Well - it's their store right? They can do what they want, right?
Nah, that's not modern society.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
This seems like a power play to provide more relevance to Consumer's Union than a specific attack on Apple. I am by no means an Apple fan but this issue seems potentially overstated.
"Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.
We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts.
Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth.
We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.
Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.
We shall prevail!
On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
Who knew that 26 years later, Apple would be "Big Brother"...
They're "censoring" their own site? At first I thought they were somehow censoring the consumer reports site.
While I'm gleeful of this happening, of course they're allowed to have or not have whatever on their site. It's not like I can go into a store and claim that I (and a sufficiently large crowd of accomplishes) have the right to democratically vote that they should give me their stuff.
On the other hand, it's great that this is on slashdot and wherever, so they won't be able to distort reality too much.
From http://www.tuaw.com/2010/07/12/apple-drops-consumer-reports-discussion-threads-down-memory-hole/
If you were looking for a message thread on Apple's support forums pointing to Consumer Reports' article 'not recommending' the iPhone 4, it's not there any more. Apple's support forum moderators deleted the thread. Bing cached it.
If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
From TFA:
Apple's support forum moderators deleted the thread. Bing cached it.
Bing?? Its all said.
No... they're posting it wrong.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
You've got to wonder, though... what would you do if you were Apple?
Allow your support forums to be littered with direct recommendations not to buy the product? That kind of gets into the sales side of things. Do you allow Android phone makers to post ads for their products that compete with the iPhone?
It's a tough situation to be in. They should probably just come clean about the problem and offer customers the workaround cover thing... or refunds.
I'm glad I don't have any Apple stock these days. Might be a good time to buy some after the panic sets in and the price drops like a fire sale.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
We need a new logo on /. for Apple. No more with the company logo. We need Steve Borg or something similar.
Really?
How about you come back when they are censoring OTHER sites and pulling down bad reviews from 3rd party websites with such nonsense as DMCA takedowns.
Until then, dont waste your bandwidth as its a non-issue, and status quo with MANY sites.
Next thing you are going to tell me is that there is astroturfing going on in places like Amazon, etc. /snark
.
RULE 1
http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pUmePicNqIFp8RaGrID5DwhtJFsZAqWCa2OO_8Wa3YcDkJGl-nAXr0ib321V3NFdF3yzGOLvz8xRLpBrTEG4y6g/Mr.Jobs.jpg?psid=1
If someone says something, and you remove it, that's censorship.
No, it's not.
Censorship is:
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable
There are plenty of discussions about this issue on the Apple support boards which are not being removed.
The multiple posts about an external magazine review have been removed because discussing magazine articles is offtopic for a tech support board, just as discussing the latest Huffington Post article on Angelina Jolie is offtopic.
That word has been bastardized beyond belief... in an effort to cry about how "oppressed" someone *feels*, they've watered down true censorship.
Apple made a "business decision", maybe a crappy one, but it is still a business decision. The First Amendment (for us U.S. folks) guarantees you the right to say something, but it doesn't require someone hand you the soap box... nor does it suppress *their* right to free speech in countering your argument.
China practices true censorship. People go to jail in an effort to silence them. The government shows up at the door and demands that you delete, or deletes it for you.
Beware, if you don't hold iHistory with an iron grip could be public reception problems.
Calling this censorship is like calling[EOT]
GODDAMMIT SLASDHDOT CENSORED ME!
Naturally, as soon as I read the Slashdot summary, I read the original at TUAW. The TUAW posting was as represented by the Slashdot summary: Apple is said to have killed all mention of the CR article in its forums. Being an Apple support forum member, I logged in. Yes, the particular posts were indeed labelled "you do not have permission...". EVIL, I thought. But then I poked around -- there are massive threads discussing the antenna in the Apple Support Forum, many dumping vile on the antenna engineering. So what was so offensive to Apple in the handful of posts that they did censor? TUAW helpfully pointed out that Bing had cached the offensive posts. Well, let's have a look there. The deleted posts were less about the antenna issue, and more about the quality and accuracy of CR testing. Expressed in highly emotional fan-boy terms. It would seem that Apple has not touched the real ongoing discussions of the antenna issue, but just taken down the threads that strayed into CR bashing. BTW, as a CR subscriber, I read the original article there, too. Yes, after giving good marks to most iPhone 4 features, it considers the antenna issue to be a fatal flaw. But it does not discuss the claims that the signal must be marginal in the first place, for the hand grip to make a difference. Nor discusses the possible smokescreen of bar generation algorithms.
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
For years, it was clearly ignorance, but the Apple hatebois are getting really worked up recently.
So are we at the "then they fight you" stage now?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Welcome to the world of Nazi computing that is worse then trusted computing!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The question is whether it's a smart thing to do. And without question, it's not. The issue is now getting increased prominence as a direct result of Apple's own actions. Obviously it would be a lot better in the long run for Apple to face the music, admit their device has a problem, recall it, and fix the problem. But I doubt Big Steve is psychologically capable of admitting an error of this magnitude.
Disclosure: Mac and iPhone (3G) user here.
You can't mention the Zapper and not quote him!......or...maybe you can.
I'll fix that for you:
Zapp Brannigan's Reporting Strategy
Captain Zapp Brannigan: Captain's journal. Stardate: uhhh...
"Lame" - Galaxar
Captain Zapp Brannigan: Captain's log. Stardate: 3000.6.
Kif Kroker: Who are you talking to?
Captain Zapp Brannigan: You, Kif. Aren't you writing this down?
"Lame" - Galaxar
I bought an iPhone 3G when they came out, and was a little nervous about how the service was going to be. But to my very pleasant surprise, it absolutely blew away what I had before. I rarely have any issue with dropped calls, etc. I think the AT&T service problems depend pretty heavily on where you are - they're probably oversubscribed in big cities.
But... while I had been planning on replacing the 3G with an iPhone 4, this latest issue is giving me second thoughts. Now I'm likely to wait until the dust settles here.
Yes, how dare they? Dominoes Pizza recently made a big deal out of taking strong criticism and changing their recipe. Apple seems to be taking the opposite tack: "Buy a bumper, there are many on the market, including one we just designed concurrently with the iphone4. You're holding it wrong. See, no one's complaining on our forums."
We should laugh and point at the emperor when he wears no clothes.
... the defects weren't obvious until you got the phone in your hands. But I think Apple is going to have a serious problem on their hands if they don't face up to reality here. There are certainly a bunch of fanboys out there who'll buy anything Steve puts out, but you're not going to make blockbuster sales just on those fanboys. You need to convince ordinary schmoes that the phones are worth buying, and this incident isn't helping.
Obviously you're not going to see a just-started implosion on a 5 year stock chart. Come back six months from now and tell me how their stock price is doing (if Apple does nothing to fix this).
It is a privately owned company (i.e. Not the Government) removing conversations from their website that they do not wish discussed on their property. They are well within their rights to do so.
...but on their own support forums? Sorry, I don't see the issue. The CS rating is a story worth discussing, but if Apple doesn't want it done on their site, there are other places (such as here) to do it.
If they were performing this action or disrupting the conversation someplace other than their own property, that would be a huge!
The commercial was a sneak preview of Jobs' future business plan.
... the question isn't whether it's legal. The question is whether it's a smart business decision. Quibbling over the definition of censorship is kind of beside the point here. Whatever you call it, Apple's propensity to silence its critics isn't likely to help the company in the long run.
I do not see why they are required to allow discussions of that subject considering the number of sites where you are free to discuss it.
Apple knows about the review, why should they let you rub their noses into it? Let alone on their forums there are more than enough rabid supporters that keeping these messages off the site means for more peaceful forums. It would simply be a flame war
I have to agree here. There are millions of websites where you are free to discuss whatever you want... but on most websites, when you sign up, you accept that moderators have the right to remove stuff.
Now, a commercial company like Apple would do well to have someone from the communications/PR/marketing or whatever department on that forum to give an objective reply.
But if the company strategy is to keep the problems quiet, then we gotta accept that.
That may be immoral, but hey... welcome to the 21st century. Companies happen to be exactly that: immoral, betraying, spying, treasonous and self-serving organizations that are not there to make life better for human kind... No. Companies are there to make their shareholders rich.
I can't tell what was allegedly deleted and why, but there are plenty of discussions going on about the CR article on the apple discussion forums, and some are lengthy, so it's not like they could have missed them. All these attacks on Apple are really starting to feel coordinated. I suppose, though, it's just the blog effect. One gets hold of a story and then they all start going with it, not a single one doing any fact checking or any other kind of even remotely thoughtful investigation. The next "blog story" comes about and the cycle repeats.
My iPhone 4 is performing great, much better then implied by the CR article. You're all (and CR was) stuck on the left-hand signal drop itself, and not seeing that it's still performing better then past iPhones. Is it a flawed antenna design, or does it improve things? My experience is that, in practice, even when I'm not paying attention to the signal strength gauge nor my handedness (I do usually hold it left handed), that it has performed better then my 3GS did. And with a case, which many will use, and/or when held right-handed, or just by "minding the gap", even the left-hand issue is pretty much eliminated. Not that that any of this matters to any of you, I suspect. Oh well.
--- What?
I do know that Consumers Union (Consumer Reports) is _very_ hardline on not allowing their magazine name or reviews mentioned by companies that are reviewed - that's why you always see the "Best Buy" by "Consumer's Digest" (a company which accepts money in exchange for awards), not Consumer Reports.
Don't know if that's why they're censoring it, but it _is_ a possibility.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
How were the articles about the Consumer Reports article relevant to support?
No one would think twice or make accusations of censorship if it were advertisements that were removed.
These postings were nothing more than negative ads, designed to incite, and had nothing to do with support. If I'm looking for support on a support website, I would expect this kind of non sequitur input to be removed.
BTW, I'm not some Apple fanboi. I loathe the iPhone and have no inkling to buy one. Geek-that-I-am, I have no interest in being pinned in to the walled garden... I just don't see the support value of the posts that were removed and therefore find it appropriate that they were removed.
Oh.....You mean something more like this??? I know it's not a "site" but rather an App with politics contrary to Apples likely, unlike iFart, which is cool.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/04/mark-fiore-can-win-a-pulitzer-prize-but-he-cant-get-his-iphone-cartoon-app-past-apples-satire-police/
...for decades. Might as well hit them on the evil front too...
Certainly not all the forum posts were deleted (yet!)
http://www.boardtracker.com/search/?q=consumer+report&o=0&s=apple.com
USENET is very resistant to censorship. The comment "The network interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" was actually made about USENET, not the Internet, in response to an incident at Stanford where the administration tried to censor "rec.humor.funny". As long as someone, somewhere on campus had a dialup USENET feed, the missing messages would be recovered and put back into on-campus servers.
There was something to be said for that, instead of a huge number of business-controlled forum systems.
This is SOP for Apple.
When Airport Express units started dropping like flies, all reports about the problem were deleted from their forums.
They don't like criticism of their products, true or not.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Who was it that said "The biggest mistake is denying a mistake." Well this news suggests that someone is taking that to another level.
While a certain mindset is bound to appear in a small section of a companies fanbase, especially when it purveys such a complete lifestyle choice, to see this dysfunctional nonsense creep all the way to the top is really something else. After the way this reception issue has been dealt with you have to wonder what's coming next?
The new mantra might end up being "Think happy place...think (different) happy place."
... as running counter to what Consumer Reports is all about. It would seem to be a possibility.
Not even speaking about the antenna issue (and I agree, Apple censoring is hilarious but exactly what I would expect from them), iPhone4 users are so blinded by this whole thing. Seriously, what a horrible, unintuitive interface! Not only that, try and do something that my shitty Boost Mobile phone did, like sending a contact via Bluetooth (I'm not making reference to that Youtube video, I really did buy a Boost phone to try out the Spring CDMA network - some of their phones run on it). You can't do it, that or Apple thoughtfully didn't include that option in the "Send this contact by..." option list. Seriously, every crapass phone I've had since 2003 can do this, but not the iPhone.
It was my brother's iPhone4, so we argue about this stuff nearly every time we hang out. He uses it to play Scrabble with his wife and chess online, seriously, this is the end value of this ridiculous phone for him. His only legitimate argument for this phone at all is that he is a graphic designer and at least this way all his devices are "a single platform". Yeah, he can't find a text editing solution he likes that works on his Macbook and his iPhone4, I said to use GoogleDocs, but apparently the AppStore doesn't have that. Gee, my EVO has that...
Seriously, the iPhone4 has a million black eyes if you've tried all the options out there.
that's how you fight back.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
But it does not discuss the claims that the signal must be marginal in the first place, for the hand grip to make a difference.
From the quoted section of the Slashdot article about the report (emphasis mine):
...the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal.
television networks were completely in their rights to not broadcast advertisements that were critical of, say, their newscasts
And do you know the job title of the person who decides what does and does not get broadcast? Censor.
ironically, we become *more* susceptible to the true censorship alluded to in 1984.
And by renaming acts of censorship when they're not performed by the government, we become more susceptible to the true censorship alluded to in 1984, when the government points to examples of non-government people who do the exact same thing and call it _____ and claim what the government is doing is ____ and not "censorship". (Nobody whining on slashdot about the use of the word censorship has yet to provide a word for what they think ____ should be called when people block information because they took offense to the content, but they're not part of the government.) Or when the government compels individuals to do it for them, and therefore it's not "censorship", it's ____ because it's not done by the government personally.
Apple to re-brand the iPhone4 the "Android".
Jobs: "Who wants to buy that old-and-broken Android piece of shit? You'll love the new-has-more-features-and-works-great-trust-me-on-this iPhone5. Sorry, no upgrades and you need to purchase all new apps."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It was a major issue that kept me from buying an iPhone.
As it turned out, in MSP, I get overall BETTER reception with AT&T than I got with Verizon (Motorola Q black). I had a couple of client sites where there was almost no reception on Verizon and now I get a great signal with AT&T.
Dropped calls have been about the same overall, although I have noticed a slight (but totally perception-based, I don't keep score) uptick in dropped calls lately but that may just be an illusion. When you do 1200+ minutes a month on a cell phone, a handful of dropped calls isn't really an issue.
I do think Apple hardware designs occasionally need a second rev to get it right and I agree with you about the iPhone 4. I'm not due for a discounted upgrade anyway until next year (and I have a 32GB 3GS now) and I'd like to see whatever the antenna issue is fixed as well as see a 64GB storage option -- I was surprised they didn't do a 64GB model this year.
And China has the right to quell riots. It's their country. Iran has the right to train terrorists in their country. It's their country. North Korea has the right to have a large standing army on the southern border, it's their country.
I mean, if you're going to say "it's theirs, so it's not censorship", then China's great firewall isn't censorship either, since it's legal to do what they're doing in their country.
But people STILL complain about censorship in china and human rights abuses in Iran and the danger of the NK army.
Because even though the actions are legal (the government declared it legal), they are wrong.
Just like here.
This is Slashdot, so it has to be a conspiracy and not normal forum moderation. It's not as though there are competitors who have a vested interest in anonymously submitting stories like this to Slashdot to try to rile up the anti-censorship nerds against Apple. That would never happen!
BTW if you put your finger over the mic on any cell phone people on the other end can't hear you... where is the ranting?. If you drop something with glass in it from 3 feet onto concrete it will break. I'm so glad that articles on slashdot and other "tech forums" are here to enlighten us about how things work. Yes the iPhone has a flaw where the antennae is susceptible under a certain set of circumstances, but of all my friends that have them, no one has actually experienced it as a problem in the real world.... so I keep wondering why there is article after article after article about a problem that appears to not really be an issue for real world users.
The real news here is that they actually paid attention to something that was said in their support forums. :-p
"I don't care. I want an iPhone 4."
Don't understand why so many defend Apple's behaviors (but are so keen on jumping on Microsoft).
FAIL .. UR DUM
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
And your point is? its still Apple controlling Apple's sites and services; no big deal.
My point is that companies control their own stuff, some more than others. Where I would have issues is when Company A starts attempting to control the content on Company B's website because they dont like the otherwise honest and legal (and painful) factual content.
If Apple were threatening the Consumer Reports folks with a lawsuit, etc. Then I would agree, they are doing bad things.
Welcome to America, where you are free to be a douche, even if it does piss people off.
Oh Slashdotta, please.
(This comment has been removed by Apple)
.. basically the apple forum mods are like Winston Smith from 1984.. Cutting out unflattering news clips etc?
Because otherwise it is just moderation of their support boards. People who are having problems don't need to be reminded they are having problems, they need to find fixes for them. Would people be in the same ferver if someone got a "Windows is better" post deleted from a Linux support board? Reactionary dribble. Everyone seems to be wanting to make Apple into the sith empire.
I don't care, as a proud Mac OS X user I really don't care if Apple is acting just as evil as every other major corporation of that size.
I don't pretend to understand what it takes to run a company that size, I judge the product I want to use and right now that is Mac OS X which I find much more suitable for every most daily work I do than Microsoft Windows for example.
Don't get me wrong though, I still think people should keep an eye on them and expose these things, it won't affect my choice in operating system or computer though.
I'm still likely to take the plunge, but mostly because the 3G phone is pretty damn slow. If I had a GS I'd probably skip this iteration.
Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was?
A. The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However, Mr.
Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two,
has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of
the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.
-from Foundation
and don't want to be tracked. Isn't Dilbert modelled on Apple and its 'droids? (sic). I think we should be told . . .
I don't care that Apple is censoring their own forums. I've used Apple products for years and never once visited the Apple site forums. It's not like there is a lack of places to learn about and/or discuss Apple products on the Web. I like Macintouch.com for instance.
To be honest I always assume that the forums on corporate sites are heavily moderated by the corporation. Just like I assume that if I ask a saleman what he thinks of his product, I'll get a sales pitch. I think anyone acting shocked over this is either putting us on or very naive.
Surprise: people and businesses exhibit self-interest. Caveat emptor. I'm long over getting offended at every little demonstration of this.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That's a shame. While I don't like Microsoft I have to admit that they are getting better. On the other hand, Apple is really getting bad.
Liberty is not an option.
He's gone... we've won the battle!
hi5, AC!
XD
Apple said from the very beginning there was NO problems,then they say you can buy a rubber shield for 30 bucks to fix the non problem. Then its the consumers fault for holding the phone the wrong way,oops sorry its really a software problem with the bars. And this isn't apples first time playing the denial game, Do you see a pattern here??
Jack of all trades,master of none
To fully begin the Apple boycott. It really doesn't matter though, as Android is clearly taking over. Cyanogen for the win!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
You're confusing the idea that you have the power to control something, with the rightness of doing so. Censorship is wrong. Period.
The problem with censorship is not that some fellow being offensive for the sake of his own amusement is censored; the problem is that, just as we see every day here on slashdot, once the power is in place, what actually gets censored is what the censor disagrees with.
This is why censorship is always wrong. Because it is a power that is inevitably abused on the one hand, and serves no real useful purpose on the other.
And that's exactly what we're seeing happen at Apple; these posts are 100% relevant to Apple; to the iPhone 4; to consumers who have bought, or may buy, the iPhone; the facts of the matter, as reported are of extreme interest to all parties -- and Apple's reaction is to delete the threads.
On slashdot, post an opinion that isn't in line with the majority, and you will be censored. Slashdot, like Apple, declines to fix the broken system, because the Slashdot folks themselves benefit, they think, from being able to knock off posts at will. Read their comments about using those powers of moderation -- it's quite clear they're ready and willing to abuse them (and experience shows that they indeed do exactly that... some commenters are followed from thread to thread and systematically modded down. You can't even *do* that with normal moderation powers -- you run out of points in 15 posts.)
At Apple, if you don't drink the Kool-aid, you're the enemy, and you're going to get it right in the neck. It's really the same thing as what happens here on Slashdot (and a zillion other venues on the net), and it happens because censorship is allowed at the corporate and individual level, even when those entities are creating a forum for use by the public.
At your home, when some guy comes to your door, we allow you the power to say, no, you can't come in, and I'm not going to discuss it. If you run a store, and we find you're doing that, for instance, because they guy in question is black and you don't like that -- we say, oh no, you're running a public enterprise and you will serve the public, or you will serve no one at all. That's a good model for how online discussions should be handled; the power to select is the power to abuse, and we know that when such power is extended generally, abuse is inevitable.
Yes, people might say things you don't like. But (a) you (and others) can answer them, and (b) the world is full of such events. Get over it. Steve Jobs -- and the people who follow his directions -- act like children in a schoolyard with their petty abuses. It is not admirable, and in the end, it is not right in and of itself, nor is it right that society keeps the window open for such abuses. Yet they do have that power. So let's call it what it is: A thing done wrong, with a power that isn't illegal because the system has failed, not because anyone should have the right to control speech in a forum open to the public.
And yes, I'm an Apple customer - Macs, iPods, iPads, software. I have absolutely no personal respect for Steve Jobs remaining. He's an utter loony, condemned by his own repeated bizarre practices.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to mention a POSITIVE experience with an online vendor. I was absolutely taken aback by their excellent customer service. Basically, they had mislabeled a product, and as a result, I bought something I couldn't use. They CALLED ME ON THE PHONE and informed me that they were issuing me an immediate full credit including shipping. (At that point, I had already bought a substitute from Radio Shack.) I immediately went to resellerratings.com and gave them a great review.
The name of the publication is Consumer Reports, not Consumer Report.
I've had mostly good experiences with my MacBook Pro. Ok, there was some trouble with the RAM, the network adaptor, and it keeps eating batteries. But it's a better experience than I've had from other PC makers. But this whole iPhone 4 situation really shows Apple's true colors. If there's something wrong with something they made, they're going to pull a Dell and LIKE ABOUT IT. This makes me wonder what kinds of design flaws I'll see in the next Mac I buy. Ok, so no technology is perfect, but a tendency to try to cover up mistakes is not good for business.
Ok so it's less of a case of evil corporate censorship and more of a case of Apple deleting flame wars.
Deleting them was still the wrong response though because it makes people think they have something to hide.
A better response would have been to lock the thread, with a final post explaining why. If a problem user kept making new threads about the subject and ignoring their actions, they could ban the user for a day, again with full disclosure.
Apple was already under scrutiny due to their behaviors regarding the app store, they need to back way off from the Machiavellian stuff quickly.
Posting anonymously because Steve Jobs looks like one of those people who might snap and rip someone's spine out and beat them to death with it. :) Also uber Apple fanbois scare me.
Is there really a point for people to start up new discussions on Apple's support site because of the Consumer Reports article? I'm sure there must have been plenty of posts re. reception issues since day one. The Consumer Reports article doesn't really add anything new to the discussion, so what is the point? Why not just append it to the other support discussions like normal people.
Browsing though a few stories over there and it's obvious that all the 12 year olds are done school and have nothing better to do between bouts of WoW than to troll Apple Forums, it's almost as bad as the comments on Engadget.
Not trying apologize for Apple in any way here. Just curious.
But if the company strategy is to keep the problems quiet, then we gotta accept that.
Apple didn't delete any and all discussion of the problems though. That's what the Slashdot Hate Brigade is either missing or deliberately ignoring here. Apple simply deleted a few troll messages - messages from Apple fanbois, in fact, who were trash-talking Consumer Reports! Their strategy is simply to keep the discussion civil, and frankly I'm *happy* to accept that. Not every discussion needs to sound like a schoolyard screaming contest.
The little strip between the two antennas was added as an undocumented feature: Picture a boss/girlfriend/telemarketer that is calling you. Don't like where this converstation is going? You simply have to move your pinky finger down and voila, no more call (and you can blame the network). It's seamless... It just works.
I can't really fault Apple for cleaning up the mess after people who can't be bothered to at least do a quick search, especially when it's a high-profile case like this (which makes it easy to find the existing threads since they are typically among the most active).
As long as they don't hide all threads about it, I actually don't see the problem. I would have wanted to keep my own forum clean as well. Dozens of threads on the exact same topic will tend to bury other threads, and I just don't think that's acceptable. Show some decency towards people who want to discuss other things in the forum!
Clever signature text goes here.
Two jugs of Kool Aid forming an Apple logo?
And if we are to go full monty with the ad hominems like with Bill Gates - these two guys could have been separated at birth.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
APPL can delay as long as they want but in reality, the early edition of the 4G has so many problems that nothing short of a recall or a immediate release of 4GS can solve this mess. Dismissing the problems is not going to make them go away. I have a 3G with a cracked screen that I will not upgrade unless the 4G issues are gone, physically, not through software patches, or just go to android.
Not when Dell or HP or Lenovo does it.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
At least untrue that every post is being deleted. Simply (login and) search discussions.apple.com for "Consumer Report" -- or click
http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=Consumer+Report
That doesn't mean they're not playing "Catch Up" with the posts, or deleting only certain Consumer Report threads, but it does mean the literal post seems untrue.
I'm a Mac user and I have an older iPhone, and I have to say that the denial that Apple supporters have in suppressing any negative comments or reports on Apple is simply amazing. It seem to be almost pathological.
Where did all the good comments to this story go? They were just there...
I could see the resulting police report riddled with the words "Angry", "Chair", "Balmer stealing toys" all throughout.
Tom222555 Posts: 3 From: UK Registered: 17.10.2009 New! Consumer reports has un-recommended the iPhone 4 Posted: 13.07.2010 03:05
xupeiran Posts: 1 From: New Orleans LA Registered: 12.07.2010 New! Re: Consumer reports has un-recommended the iPhone 4 Posted: 13.07.2010 03:07 in response to: Tom222555 Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email I'm sure this thread will be deleted soon lol... Windows 7
JPBOSS Posts: 167 From: Atlanta, GA Registered: 11.08.2009 New! Re: Consumer reports has un-recommended the iPhone 4 Posted: 13.07.2010 03:07 in response to: Tom222555 Helpful Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email This thread being deleted in 5, 4, 3, 2.... iPhone 4 iOS 4
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Boys and Girls, I will explain to you on Saturday. In the meantime stop expressing yourselves!
Steve J.
To the tune of "Home on the Range"
Oh give me a phone
that I can say that I own,
but the manufacturers say 'no way'.
Where I download an app,
but they say that it's crap,
and take it off without me saying 'ok'.
Oh! Oh! The shame!
Where the iPhone is pwning me all day!
Where seldom is heard
because the antenna is a turd
and drops my calls when I "hold it that way"!
Read the rest of this rant...