Apple Tries To Gag Owner of Exploding iPod 475
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."
Re:Consumer protection? (Score:5, Informative)
What has America got to do with this story? Several pointers as to why this is a UK story (and no, despite appearances to the contrary we're not part of the US yet):
1. Its a story from the Times - a major UK broadsheet newspaper.
2. He obtained the iPod at Argos which I believe is not present in the US.
3. He's from Liverpool - which, last time I looked, is in England in the context of this article.
4. Trading Standards Institute is the UK consumer protection board.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:5, Informative)
After eight hour on the phone (at 10p/minute) and six weeks, they finally sent me a replacement (good thing I backed up the disk before sending it in...). The replacement was DoA - it didn't even boot, it just got hotter and hotter until you pulled the battery out.
Two weeks later, they sent me another replacement. This one actually worked, but had the wrong amount of RAM. A few days later they sent me some replacement DIMMs to install. I did, and a couple of months later, one of the RAM slots failed (this having been one of the faults that I had originally posted the machine in to get fixed).
The next repair, they replaced the motherboard with one with a slower CPU. Then they over-tightened the hinges so first time I opened it after getting it back one of them snapped. They then failed to honour this as a warranty replacement (luckily for me, the local computer shop that was handling the repairs decided to absorb this cost to generate some goodwill).
But over the same period I had several Mac-using friends who had repairs happen without any trouble. The most irritating thing was that all of my complaints were met by being told that Apple is consistently ranked top for customer support in independent surveys. This may be true, but it doesn't alter the fact that they consistently and repeatedly screwed up in my particular case.
Re:Is this uncommon? (Score:1, Informative)
That's because they've upheld their end of the bargain.
Re:Picture (Score:4, Informative)
You must not have seen heavy makeup.... Try any of Avril Lavigne's followers.
Anyway, that's obviously a staged shot, so the makeup was applied by the photographer's studio. Not surprising. Heck, I've had more than that pancaked on my face - when they were doing marketing shots for a control panel I built. (And, yes, I'm a middle aged guy.)
What does that have to do with the ipod?
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:3, Informative)
I also forgot to mention:
They gave me a full year of normal warranty on the new machine, even though my original warranty+Applecare was almost expired. Most companies would have only warrantied to the original date.
On top (again), they offered me another AppleCare plan for $129 to bring the warranty on the new machine to 3 years. I was impressed by that.
Re:Is this uncommon? (Score:3, Informative)
The father says "not to say anything to anyone". If you're familiar with logic, you'll note that the phrase "exploding ipod" is a subset of "anything". Basically, the guy and his daughter are acting hysterically, Apple gives them what they asked for (a refund) and since it was presumably outside of warranty they asked them not to talk about the settlement. I hate this kind of thing, but I do believe that this is a standard practice for settlements outside of court for ANY company not just Apple. The father is now reacting hysterically to this statement and the reporter has picked up on it in order to get some press.
But sensationalist headlines and bogus stories against companies like Apple who favor the democratic party are typical for "news" organizations like the Times and Fox who are both owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:4, Informative)
They offered you the opportunity to purchase the new extended warranty because their projections show it will be profitable.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:2, Informative)
They gave me a full year of normal warranty on the new machine, even though my original warranty+Applecare was almost expired. Most companies would have only warrantied to the original date.
If you're in the UK then they are required too do that. I think its the Sales of Goods Act that states all new items must
come with a year guarantee even if its a replacement for another product.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:5, Informative)
Dell.
As much as I hate them, their warranty replacement is ridiculously simple and fast. Anytime I've had an issue with Dell components under warranty they ship a replacement out without arguing. They don't even require me to ship the item back first, they just ship out the replacement and include a return label that I put the broken part in and ship it back for free.
I can fault Dell for many things, but warranty replacement is not one of them.
Re:Exploding ipod? Don't worry! (Score:5, Informative)
I think Sony has prior art...
Re:iDiots... (Score:4, Informative)
I used to be very similar, thinking that OS X users were being cushioned from the harsh world of real technology. Now I am a Mac user, and I'm happy to report that in fact I am being cushioned from the harsh world of having to hack the registry, of having to manually install drivers, of having to repeatedly alter system settings because something decided it would be fun to change them, of having to deal with people who say "just read the manual" when nobody has bothered to document it properly, of arcane command line switches that have no consistency between products. Instead, I can get on with being tech-savvy without the computer getting in the way.
Don't confuse "tech-savvy" with "can find their way around the registry" or "knows which command line switch makes obscurelinuxtoolset run in the mode you would expect it to run in by default".
Re:Is this uncommon? (Score:3, Informative)
since it was presumably outside of warranty
UK law requires the product to last longer than the manufacturer's warrenty. (And the article doesn't say how old it was anyway.)
The Times isn't regarded as sensationalist in the UK (perhaps this is only relative to what we do regard as sensationalist, i.e. Daily Mail, Daily Express etc)
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is this uncommon? (Score:1, Informative)
Basically, the guy and his daughter are acting hysterically, Apple gives them what they asked for (a refund) and since it was presumably outside of warranty they asked them not to talk about the settlement. I hate this kind of thing, but I do believe that this is a standard practice for settlements outside of court for ANY company not just Apple
I would readily accept that this is standard practice in the US. However, the rest of the world tends to ascribe much power stature to the courts. And, as you can R from TFA, this is about "Ken Stanborough, 47, from Liverpool".
In the EU, courts are only considered a last resort when other ways of communication fail. For Apple to even imply legal action at the first encounter would already be offensive. On top of that insult, it's not just a simple transaction they're proposing, but a time-unlimited gag order (or "we'll sue-ya" contract). To use a car analogy, it is comparable to a police officer holding you at gunpoint while you simply try to report that your car is stolen.
It's a matter of culture, and being a multinational company, Apple should have known that this would backfire.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:1, Informative)
I wasn't quite so lucky. They did replace my MBP after their depot process returned it with a new problem 3 consecutive times (within a 2 month window). However, they didn't care that my DVI-video, DVI-VGA and firewire cables all were useless with the new MBP. My biggest concern was not how they dealt with me, but that their depot kept returning the laptop with a new problem. I could cut them some slack, but one problem was a loose screw rattling around. I can't imagine how they would not catch that, as long as they have an inspection process on their fixes. To top it off, they needed my original receipt for Applecare to issue a pro-rated refund for the swapped MBP. After they've depoted it 3 times for repairs and replaced it with a new one, they suddenly need a receipt before they can give me credit for a few months remaining AppleCare?
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:3, Informative)
Call in Failure Analysis (Score:4, Informative)
The people to call when this happens are Failure Analysis Associates, an engineering consultancy that analyzes engineering failures. They started with building structural failures, and they've branched out. They call themselves "The Exponent Group" now.
One of the things they do is battery failure investigation. [exponent.com] These are the people your class action lawyer brings in to find out what really happened. Companies with a clue use this to fix their manufacturing processes. Whether or not Apple has a clue about this, or whether they just take whatever their China supplier gives them, remains to be determined in court.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:4, Informative)
No. The standard mouse since 2005 is called Mighty Mouse [wikipedia.org] and has 4 configurable buttons - although you can't visually distinguish them (that actually is a flaw). Prices start at $999 for a MacBook, not $2000.
I still prefer working on my Ubuntu desktop and laptop, though.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:3, Informative)
The Ethernet jack on my 1st gen Intel Macbook went south after 9 months.
The connector was bad because any cable would work as long as it was held with upward tension, but without the tension on the jack would fail.
The Apple store told me they would need the computer for a few days for testing and that if they found something wrong they would fix it, but it would probably be gone for a week or maybe even two.
After a year and a half, my Dell Vostro had power button problem (machine would only turn on without the battery plugged in and ignoring some weird self-test error). I called Dell and had a technician with all the replacement parts AT MY HOUSE at 6:30 PM the next day.
Please don't tell me about how great Apple's service is. I personally would love a MacBook for consulting as I run into Mac stuff often enough that it would help a great deal. But at their prices and with their service, I can't afford to have two Macs so one can go away to the alchemy repair shop for a couple of weeks.
Re:It turned me into a newt! (Score:3, Informative)
But we are talking about commodity components, not pre-built systems if we are talking about desktops. You can't buy a good pre-built system - they simply don't make them. You can get boutique built systems that are good, but they tend to be Apple-Expensive.
You can easily compare a Mac desktop to a commodity built system... just pick the same parts. Price = 1/2. You're paying 2x the cost for the OS and the little DRM chip that lets it run. It's an Apple tax, just like the Microsoft tax, just a hell of a lot more.
So I just priced out a Lenovo Thinkpad vs a MacBook Pro. For essentially the same laptop, the Lenovo was about $450 cheaper - no small chunk of change. For the SAME price as the MacBook, I could get a far superior Lenovo in terms of performance and storage. The CPU could be upgraded to a quad core (not even offered on the Mac), the hard drive could be upgraded to a 7200 rpm or a solid state, could add a pantone color sensor and a Wacom digitizing tablet. These options aren't even offered on the Mac, and at a higher price point. If you wanted to go more budget, you could get that price down more than $400, but the Lenovo's are arguably one of the better built laptops on the market today, so going with your assertion that MacBook build quality is top notch (I won't argue with it, they seem decent from the few times I used them) - the Lenovo is comparable.
Now, lets say you want to be safe, lets add AppleCare into the bunch - this gives you 3 years of P/L warranty. For the same coverage on the Lenovo? $101. So now the price difference is $700. Over $3200 for a 17" MacBook or $2500 for a Lenovo. 1/2 the price? No, not in the laptop arena, but $700 can buy you a pretty nice "backup" notebook - however, the extended Warranty on the Lenovo is Next Business day replacement - does Applecare offer that? Or do you have to wait until they fix it at their leisure?