I know that, but it doesn't matter. Apple as a company, and Steve Jobs especially, is well aware and all to knowledgeable about the opening up and near death of Apple because of it.
"Mistake" number 1 would be valid if the iPhone wasn't an enormous runaway success, unlike consumer Betamax (which was developed into Betacam by Sony, who then held a practical monopoly on the broadcast format throughout the early 90s and upto today with DigiBeta, only really starting to properly diverge with the advent of competing HD formats from Panasonic - Sony never licenced Beta, which is why it failed "commercially", but it also meant that Betacam reigned supreme in the $10,000+ proVCR edit/ENG/studio market.
If Sony had licenced Beta from the outset then VHS probably would have existed, but then who knows how the pro market would have turned out. There was also a third format involved in that war - Phillips Video 2000, which offered better image quality and double sided video tapes, but was too expensive. Sony ended up in Apple's position like JVC ended up in the IBM compatible position - one sells very expensive VCRs that can cost upwards of $50,000 each, the other sells VCRs that cost $30 and break often, but who cares, they're only $30.
"Mistake" 2 isn't really a mistake - it was inevitable that competitors would rush in to fill the perceived (or actual) gaps in Apple's offering, and also seek to duplicate everything the iPhone does. Apple was nowhere close to the first smartphone provider, nor were they they first mp3 player provider, yet they are the market leaders in both areas, and the benchmark by which all others in the arena are judged. The new smartphone offerings from several companies look exactly like iPhones - funny that they all look like that now - why didn't they look like that before?
Apple isn't "fooling around" and missing an opportunity that Android is filling in - they simply didn't want to (or were not contractually obliged to) take part in. If you want a hackable smartphone, Android is it. If you want Apple's user experience (sold as such from the get go - it's not like they are hiding the fact), then there's the iPhone.
I fail to see how mistake 3 is a mistake - Apple are making money hand over fist, and they literally cannot make iPods and iPhones fast enough, despite all the "mistakes" they seem to be making. Despite cheaper iPhone alternatives from Samsung and Nokia, iPhones are still selling like hot cakes. Despite many, many, many cheaper iPod alternatives, iPods are selling like hot cakes. The only serious competitor to the iPod is the iPhone. No worries about marketshare erosion there.
Apple had no choice when it went to the phone carriers first time out with their new phone. The ROKR (or whatever it was called) was a flop, and they wanted into the market properly with the new and untested iPhone - into a segment of the celluar market that is traditionally harder to sell (smartphones). They needed a carrier, and you can be damn sure that access to that particular game is hard work. In order to get favourable access, I have no doubt they had to take a pretty unfavourable deal (the exclusivity with AT&T) that they are unhappy about (check the WWDC comments regarding AT&T, live on stage). Now it's clear the iPhone is a *massive* success, their bargaining position has changed and they can get better terms, or lose the exclusivity deal entirely. Everyone wants an iPhone (or more accurately, an enormous, statistically and massively profitable portion of the consumer base) wants an iPhone, so whoever has it on their network can make a shedload of money. It doesn't matter to Apple who that is, but the more customers they have (and the carriers are their customers here), the more they can sell.
I agree totally, and so does Apple. The music industry wanted DRM because they think everyone is going to put all the music on a P2P service, but they don't really understand that a person that is likely to buy music from an online service tends not to be the sort of person who uses P2P for obtaining music.
DRM inhibits me for the same reason - I want to use the music I bought where I want. I don's use filesharing sites, so the DRM doesn't stop me doing anything with the tracks I have since I didn't do it in the first place and aren't about to start now. What it does stop me doing is legitimate things like using it on other devices and so on.
Apple has always known this, but it had no choice with the iTMS to start with - they needed the product to sell, and the music industry would not give it to them without the DRM. They have now convinced the industry that the DRM is unnecessary and really only hinders and penalises genuine, honest customers who do want to spend money on the product they have for sale, so the DRM has gone.
The current music that you can get off the iTMS is free of DRM, and encoded in AAC, so while it is a patented format, it is an open standard. You can also burn it to CD in standard audio format (could do that with DRM) to make a disc and files that you do own and that no one can take away from you by expiring a licence, or turning off the authentication servers, which is how it should be.
But that's not the point of the post. Copyright infringement is a crime. The penalties for it have been ludicrously trumped up, far beyond the real damage it causes (debatable just what that damage is), but it has always been a crime since copyright existed.
No, that's part of my point - copyright infringement has been blown out of proportion with bought and paid for legislation by the media companies to push it up to the levels of a felony, with repercussions far exceeding the real damages of the crime.
The point is though, that is *is* a crime, silly restrictions or not, to share your music that way, and it always has been. Fair use doesn't include burning your collection onto 10,000 CDs and handing them out for free in the street. This is a point that I do agree with the music industry on (shudder). You should be able to use your music on any device you own though, and give it to a friend, or your family, or use it on home movies you've made, or non-commercial stuff and so on.
While the argument that there's no financial loss to the industry since the files are copied and no physical theft occurs, and the people doing it wouldn't have bought the music anyway is sound, the law about copyright has always existed.
What's really silly is that you can get a $700,000 fine for doing it. If I went into a shop at night and stole all of their CDs in the back of a van, I would not be facing a $700,000 fine, and that really is causing major financial losses to a business.
It sounds like your beef is with the phone companies - and rightly so.
I think Apple would love to sell you an iPhone that works on any carrier. They would make more money - there is very clearly a market for people who want one but don't want AT&T, just as there is in the UK for people who don;t want to use O2. Unfortunately, they just can't do that right now and are obligated to try to keep you from unlocking it to change networks (even though they know its fruitess since jailbreaking is trivial, they are contractually obliged to try to stop you).
The same process happened with the iTunes store. They didn't want to sell DRM'ed music tracks - customers don't like it, but it was the only way they could do so at first. Now it has changed somewhat and DRM-free music is available for sale, but it's still not Apple's content, so they are selling it based on an agreement with the actual owners.
I'm sure that if the exclusive deal is not renewed with AT&T (or another carrier makes a better offer) that the locking will change. It is an artificial barrier that exists solely to further the business model of AT&T - it's not Apple's decision. The VOIP and tethering is AT&T again (didn;t you hear the very thinly veiled digs at AT&T during the WWDC keynote - it is clear that Apple are not happy with them and don;t mind publicly hinting at it with huge comedy wink-winks).
The consumer pressure is good though - it;s the only serious way to get companies to change things that are not necessarily in their obvious interest (like DRM on music, or tethering, or the dropping of firewire from the cheapest Macbook). Apple reverted that change in response to customer complaints - I expect they are trying to negotiate with AT&T about some of the nasty restrictions on the iPhone.
Apple did open their platform to clones. It very nearly killed them completely. Apple are a hardware company.
Apple is making an *enormous* amount of money with their hardware and software in its current configuration, and I believe is very high up the charts on total number of machines shipped. They are very clearly not dying. In fact, their marketshare in terms of computers and phones, and portable music players is going up, year on year.
A hackable iPod/iPhone is a niche market. The slashdot audience really isn't the primary target audience. If you want a hackable smartphone, there's Android. If you just want a flashy smartphone with the internet, street cred, a camera, games, and tons of apps of varying usefulness (from things that make your phone into a flashlight and make silly noises, right up to high quality games, task manager apps and sat nav) then the iPhone is for you.
Not that I'm saying the Android lacks street cred, but the iPhone really made smartphones cool. Blackberrys were around, and were pretty popular, but when the iPhone came out - boom. And now we have a huge slew of competitors who are releasing phones that look just like an iPhone. Funny that!
The platform is very transparent up front - ie, you know it is locked to AT&T, you know the app system is tightly controlled by Apple, you know the hardware is tightly controlled. None of this is hidden. If you want a hackable phone, it is yelling at you right out that it's not the purchase for you.
The motive for denying google voice is the deal with AT&T. There will almost certainly be a clause in their contract that forces Apple's hand on this (or whatever smartphone manufacturer they make a deal with) - this is a mobile phone company we're talking about here. If your grandma died while on the phone calling for help and left it off the hook having accidentally dialed the Australian speaking clock in the death throes, they would still chase you to the ends of the earth for payment of the bill.
Apple has no financial penalty for allowing google voice on the iPhone. They don't care if you phone your friend on google voice or via AT&T, since their profit comes from the phone you are physically holding.
Well, to bring it back to comparable offences. I have never been able to get away with shoplifting a CD if I am caught with the defence "It should be free because the music is rubbish and I only want 1 track".
Well, it is the Daily Mail. I'm amazed they spelled most of the words accurately while frothing about lottery money being given to gay people, single mothers and asylum seekers.
Compared to what exactly? Rush Limbaugh's grandmother?
They have a blatantly apparent populist, bandwagon-jumping, right wing agenda. They might be trying to dress that up with "lefty" columnists, but make no mistake, the Mail is not.
Oh I agree. The course of the war was shortened enormously by the Atlantic supply lines and the involvement of US forces in Western Europe. It's just that most os the time when the whole "we saved your butts in WW2" thing is trotted out, it's painted somehow that we were all totally helpless like lambs in a fox den whimpering "oh if only the mighty US would come and save us" when it really wasn't anything like that.
A health care system that would be right at home in Blade Runner is uncivilized. Wake me up when the US moves out of the dark ages with it's health care system (for all of it citizens, not just the ones who have money).
You're also enormously overestimating the effect of the US on the outcome of WW2 - one of the biggest turning points, and perhaps the fulcrum of change for the whole war, occurred in Stalingrad in 1943. I don't remember seeing many pictures of GIs there.
While the US was no doubt a welcome ally to have during the second world war that helped to bring it to an end more quickly, you were hardly the shining white knight who saved us all from German oppression.
If you have a 6 month old Mac laptop, just click the touchpad on the right hand side. That performs right click. The touchpad also supports window scrolling gestures too.
Perhaps Mac wasn't for you (re: no significant advantages) - they're not for everyone. While I love Macs, I'm not going to force anyone to use them!
But that is the standard method for these sorts of things. Apple is a large company after all, so it will behave like one when protecting its business (where it seems counterproductive or not). Settlements with undisclosed terms are not at all uncommon, and you can spin it out with the demonic language quite easily, but that's the nature of them.
If you threaten to sue, they'll either offer you a settlement like that, or you can take them to court and try your luck there.
If you don't threaten to sue, they'll give you a new iPod - and they'll probably offer that as an option anyway, even if you do say you'll sue them.
No one is considering how the family approached them about the issue, but it's not all a one way street. If you go in there screaming and blazing, you are likely to meet with a frosty reception. If you talk to them calmly and more like a level headed human being, they are more likely to be nice to you, and regardless of how a company "should" act (treating all customers equally), it is staffed by human people who my just take it personally if every other word couldn't be repeated before the watershed.
As a disclaimer, I am an Apple fan, but I am not excusing genuinely crappy things that Apple has done, and may continue to do. This story isn't one of them though.
I happen to think the software is better than anything anyone else has to offer (except perhaps Safari - that's about equal to Firefox for me, I use both pretty interchangeably).
The hardware is just as good or better than most of the competition out there. The only reason it looks like Apple has "endemic" battery problems that exceed the normal rte of Lithium battery failures is that people jump on it and make a huge deal about it. A 1 in 11 million failure rate really isn't anything to write home about, but hey, it's Apple. MS and Sony have had similar problems (Sony especially with batteries).
MS was selling known defective Xboxes for some time (red ring of death anyone?) and while it generated some kerfuffle, it was nothing compared to the giant hammer that swings down anytime there is even a hint of negative press for Apple.
While it's "the done thing" to bash MS on slashdot, there's an equal contingent of people who will do the same to Apple, far in disproportion to the size of the problem. When was the last time you heard "settled out of court for an undisclosed sum" on the news - that is what this is here, and it's not at all uncommon for large companies to do this.
Sure I'd prefer that Apple didn't buy batteries that had the potential to swell up and burst, but they're hard to come by, unless we want to drop back to older battery tech, with long recharge times and lower capacity. Either that or "suffer" a 1 in 11 million failure rate, which Apple will replace for you (unlike HP, who will just tell you to buy a new battery if your iPaq battery explodes in the same way).
Well, there might be, but if you had even *glanced* at the article for maybe 3 seconds you'd realise that this is about a family in THE UNITED KINGDOM which is not America. Several clues are littered liberally throughout the article, but then, when does anyone on/. RTFA before spouting an opinion that is written to look like they have read it and commented on the contents.
Because they offered a customer a standard settlement with standard a "undisclosed terms" portion, just like any other large company wanting to avoid court action.
They're only evil because people are looking for ways to point out their flaws and yell "aha! I told you!"
Slashdot Mirror
I think they call that "a derivative work" since I doubt you could reproduce it accurately with just your mouth and body.
That's exactly what my post says. Thank you for repeating my point.
I know that, but it doesn't matter. Apple as a company, and Steve Jobs especially, is well aware and all to knowledgeable about the opening up and near death of Apple because of it.
Apple is not Steve Jobs alone.
"Mistake" number 1 would be valid if the iPhone wasn't an enormous runaway success, unlike consumer Betamax (which was developed into Betacam by Sony, who then held a practical monopoly on the broadcast format throughout the early 90s and upto today with DigiBeta, only really starting to properly diverge with the advent of competing HD formats from Panasonic - Sony never licenced Beta, which is why it failed "commercially", but it also meant that Betacam reigned supreme in the $10,000+ proVCR edit/ENG/studio market.
If Sony had licenced Beta from the outset then VHS probably would have existed, but then who knows how the pro market would have turned out. There was also a third format involved in that war - Phillips Video 2000, which offered better image quality and double sided video tapes, but was too expensive. Sony ended up in Apple's position like JVC ended up in the IBM compatible position - one sells very expensive VCRs that can cost upwards of $50,000 each, the other sells VCRs that cost $30 and break often, but who cares, they're only $30.
"Mistake" 2 isn't really a mistake - it was inevitable that competitors would rush in to fill the perceived (or actual) gaps in Apple's offering, and also seek to duplicate everything the iPhone does. Apple was nowhere close to the first smartphone provider, nor were they they first mp3 player provider, yet they are the market leaders in both areas, and the benchmark by which all others in the arena are judged. The new smartphone offerings from several companies look exactly like iPhones - funny that they all look like that now - why didn't they look like that before?
Apple isn't "fooling around" and missing an opportunity that Android is filling in - they simply didn't want to (or were not contractually obliged to) take part in. If you want a hackable smartphone, Android is it. If you want Apple's user experience (sold as such from the get go - it's not like they are hiding the fact), then there's the iPhone.
I fail to see how mistake 3 is a mistake - Apple are making money hand over fist, and they literally cannot make iPods and iPhones fast enough, despite all the "mistakes" they seem to be making. Despite cheaper iPhone alternatives from Samsung and Nokia, iPhones are still selling like hot cakes. Despite many, many, many cheaper iPod alternatives, iPods are selling like hot cakes. The only serious competitor to the iPod is the iPhone. No worries about marketshare erosion there.
Apple had no choice when it went to the phone carriers first time out with their new phone. The ROKR (or whatever it was called) was a flop, and they wanted into the market properly with the new and untested iPhone - into a segment of the celluar market that is traditionally harder to sell (smartphones). They needed a carrier, and you can be damn sure that access to that particular game is hard work. In order to get favourable access, I have no doubt they had to take a pretty unfavourable deal (the exclusivity with AT&T) that they are unhappy about (check the WWDC comments regarding AT&T, live on stage). Now it's clear the iPhone is a *massive* success, their bargaining position has changed and they can get better terms, or lose the exclusivity deal entirely. Everyone wants an iPhone (or more accurately, an enormous, statistically and massively profitable portion of the consumer base) wants an iPhone, so whoever has it on their network can make a shedload of money. It doesn't matter to Apple who that is, but the more customers they have (and the carriers are their customers here), the more they can sell.
I agree totally, and so does Apple. The music industry wanted DRM because they think everyone is going to put all the music on a P2P service, but they don't really understand that a person that is likely to buy music from an online service tends not to be the sort of person who uses P2P for obtaining music.
DRM inhibits me for the same reason - I want to use the music I bought where I want. I don's use filesharing sites, so the DRM doesn't stop me doing anything with the tracks I have since I didn't do it in the first place and aren't about to start now. What it does stop me doing is legitimate things like using it on other devices and so on.
Apple has always known this, but it had no choice with the iTMS to start with - they needed the product to sell, and the music industry would not give it to them without the DRM. They have now convinced the industry that the DRM is unnecessary and really only hinders and penalises genuine, honest customers who do want to spend money on the product they have for sale, so the DRM has gone.
The current music that you can get off the iTMS is free of DRM, and encoded in AAC, so while it is a patented format, it is an open standard. You can also burn it to CD in standard audio format (could do that with DRM) to make a disc and files that you do own and that no one can take away from you by expiring a licence, or turning off the authentication servers, which is how it should be.
But that's not the point of the post. Copyright infringement is a crime. The penalties for it have been ludicrously trumped up, far beyond the real damage it causes (debatable just what that damage is), but it has always been a crime since copyright existed.
No, that's part of my point - copyright infringement has been blown out of proportion with bought and paid for legislation by the media companies to push it up to the levels of a felony, with repercussions far exceeding the real damages of the crime.
The point is though, that is *is* a crime, silly restrictions or not, to share your music that way, and it always has been. Fair use doesn't include burning your collection onto 10,000 CDs and handing them out for free in the street. This is a point that I do agree with the music industry on (shudder). You should be able to use your music on any device you own though, and give it to a friend, or your family, or use it on home movies you've made, or non-commercial stuff and so on.
While the argument that there's no financial loss to the industry since the files are copied and no physical theft occurs, and the people doing it wouldn't have bought the music anyway is sound, the law about copyright has always existed.
What's really silly is that you can get a $700,000 fine for doing it. If I went into a shop at night and stole all of their CDs in the back of a van, I would not be facing a $700,000 fine, and that really is causing major financial losses to a business.
It sounds like your beef is with the phone companies - and rightly so.
I think Apple would love to sell you an iPhone that works on any carrier. They would make more money - there is very clearly a market for people who want one but don't want AT&T, just as there is in the UK for people who don;t want to use O2. Unfortunately, they just can't do that right now and are obligated to try to keep you from unlocking it to change networks (even though they know its fruitess since jailbreaking is trivial, they are contractually obliged to try to stop you).
The same process happened with the iTunes store. They didn't want to sell DRM'ed music tracks - customers don't like it, but it was the only way they could do so at first. Now it has changed somewhat and DRM-free music is available for sale, but it's still not Apple's content, so they are selling it based on an agreement with the actual owners.
I'm sure that if the exclusive deal is not renewed with AT&T (or another carrier makes a better offer) that the locking will change. It is an artificial barrier that exists solely to further the business model of AT&T - it's not Apple's decision. The VOIP and tethering is AT&T again (didn;t you hear the very thinly veiled digs at AT&T during the WWDC keynote - it is clear that Apple are not happy with them and don;t mind publicly hinting at it with huge comedy wink-winks).
The consumer pressure is good though - it;s the only serious way to get companies to change things that are not necessarily in their obvious interest (like DRM on music, or tethering, or the dropping of firewire from the cheapest Macbook). Apple reverted that change in response to customer complaints - I expect they are trying to negotiate with AT&T about some of the nasty restrictions on the iPhone.
Apple did open their platform to clones. It very nearly killed them completely. Apple are a hardware company.
Apple is making an *enormous* amount of money with their hardware and software in its current configuration, and I believe is very high up the charts on total number of machines shipped. They are very clearly not dying. In fact, their marketshare in terms of computers and phones, and portable music players is going up, year on year.
A hackable iPod/iPhone is a niche market. The slashdot audience really isn't the primary target audience. If you want a hackable smartphone, there's Android. If you just want a flashy smartphone with the internet, street cred, a camera, games, and tons of apps of varying usefulness (from things that make your phone into a flashlight and make silly noises, right up to high quality games, task manager apps and sat nav) then the iPhone is for you.
Not that I'm saying the Android lacks street cred, but the iPhone really made smartphones cool. Blackberrys were around, and were pretty popular, but when the iPhone came out - boom. And now we have a huge slew of competitors who are releasing phones that look just like an iPhone. Funny that!
The platform is very transparent up front - ie, you know it is locked to AT&T, you know the app system is tightly controlled by Apple, you know the hardware is tightly controlled. None of this is hidden. If you want a hackable phone, it is yelling at you right out that it's not the purchase for you.
The motive for denying google voice is the deal with AT&T. There will almost certainly be a clause in their contract that forces Apple's hand on this (or whatever smartphone manufacturer they make a deal with) - this is a mobile phone company we're talking about here. If your grandma died while on the phone calling for help and left it off the hook having accidentally dialed the Australian speaking clock in the death throes, they would still chase you to the ends of the earth for payment of the bill.
Apple has no financial penalty for allowing google voice on the iPhone. They don't care if you phone your friend on google voice or via AT&T, since their profit comes from the phone you are physically holding.
AT&T cares though.
Foxnews in the sig.
Yup. Crazy.
Move along folks, nothing useful to read here.
Well, to bring it back to comparable offences. I have never been able to get away with shoplifting a CD if I am caught with the defence "It should be free because the music is rubbish and I only want 1 track".
Well, it is the Daily Mail. I'm amazed they spelled most of the words accurately while frothing about lottery money being given to gay people, single mothers and asylum seekers.
The Daily Mail not right wing?
Compared to what exactly? Rush Limbaugh's grandmother?
They have a blatantly apparent populist, bandwagon-jumping, right wing agenda. They might be trying to dress that up with "lefty" columnists, but make no mistake, the Mail is not.
Oh I agree. The course of the war was shortened enormously by the Atlantic supply lines and the involvement of US forces in Western Europe. It's just that most os the time when the whole "we saved your butts in WW2" thing is trotted out, it's painted somehow that we were all totally helpless like lambs in a fox den whimpering "oh if only the mighty US would come and save us" when it really wasn't anything like that.
Apostrophes, spelling errors and serious grammar problems. If the US is in charge, the standards sure have dropped.
Also, posting AC with your inaccurate and "patriotic" rant really just makes you look silly.
A health care system that would be right at home in Blade Runner is uncivilized. Wake me up when the US moves out of the dark ages with it's health care system (for all of it citizens, not just the ones who have money).
You're also enormously overestimating the effect of the US on the outcome of WW2 - one of the biggest turning points, and perhaps the fulcrum of change for the whole war, occurred in Stalingrad in 1943. I don't remember seeing many pictures of GIs there.
While the US was no doubt a welcome ally to have during the second world war that helped to bring it to an end more quickly, you were hardly the shining white knight who saved us all from German oppression.
If you have a 6 month old Mac laptop, just click the touchpad on the right hand side. That performs right click. The touchpad also supports window scrolling gestures too.
Perhaps Mac wasn't for you (re: no significant advantages) - they're not for everyone. While I love Macs, I'm not going to force anyone to use them!
The eject button is no smaller than the window close/minimise/restore buttons. Or you can just right click and choose "eject".
Or just unplug the cable without ejecting - the message on completion of sync is "ok to disconnect".
Read the instruction manual. Do not drop or crush iPod.
We're sorry you're the 1 in 11 million whose battery has failed.
But that is the standard method for these sorts of things. Apple is a large company after all, so it will behave like one when protecting its business (where it seems counterproductive or not). Settlements with undisclosed terms are not at all uncommon, and you can spin it out with the demonic language quite easily, but that's the nature of them.
If you threaten to sue, they'll either offer you a settlement like that, or you can take them to court and try your luck there.
If you don't threaten to sue, they'll give you a new iPod - and they'll probably offer that as an option anyway, even if you do say you'll sue them.
No one is considering how the family approached them about the issue, but it's not all a one way street. If you go in there screaming and blazing, you are likely to meet with a frosty reception. If you talk to them calmly and more like a level headed human being, they are more likely to be nice to you, and regardless of how a company "should" act (treating all customers equally), it is staffed by human people who my just take it personally if every other word couldn't be repeated before the watershed.
As a disclaimer, I am an Apple fan, but I am not excusing genuinely crappy things that Apple has done, and may continue to do. This story isn't one of them though.
In your opinion perhaps.
I happen to think the software is better than anything anyone else has to offer (except perhaps Safari - that's about equal to Firefox for me, I use both pretty interchangeably).
The hardware is just as good or better than most of the competition out there. The only reason it looks like Apple has "endemic" battery problems that exceed the normal rte of Lithium battery failures is that people jump on it and make a huge deal about it. A 1 in 11 million failure rate really isn't anything to write home about, but hey, it's Apple. MS and Sony have had similar problems (Sony especially with batteries).
MS was selling known defective Xboxes for some time (red ring of death anyone?) and while it generated some kerfuffle, it was nothing compared to the giant hammer that swings down anytime there is even a hint of negative press for Apple.
While it's "the done thing" to bash MS on slashdot, there's an equal contingent of people who will do the same to Apple, far in disproportion to the size of the problem. When was the last time you heard "settled out of court for an undisclosed sum" on the news - that is what this is here, and it's not at all uncommon for large companies to do this.
Sure I'd prefer that Apple didn't buy batteries that had the potential to swell up and burst, but they're hard to come by, unless we want to drop back to older battery tech, with long recharge times and lower capacity. Either that or "suffer" a 1 in 11 million failure rate, which Apple will replace for you (unlike HP, who will just tell you to buy a new battery if your iPaq battery explodes in the same way).
Well, there might be, but if you had even *glanced* at the article for maybe 3 seconds you'd realise that this is about a family in THE UNITED KINGDOM which is not America. Several clues are littered liberally throughout the article, but then, when does anyone on /. RTFA before spouting an opinion that is written to look like they have read it and commented on the contents.
Because they offered a customer a standard settlement with standard a "undisclosed terms" portion, just like any other large company wanting to avoid court action.
They're only evil because people are looking for ways to point out their flaws and yell "aha! I told you!"
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Steve, is that you?
Don't you have a /. account?
*engages chair deflector field*