Archive for June, 2010

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the problems facing owners of Apple’s latest and greatest phone – for those who need a reminder, here’s a video put together by the folks at engadget…

As I tested this out for myself with the on display models (didn’t happen for me, tho I did notice an uncomfortable tingle) one fully fledged member of the Cult of Jobs expounded “Just buy the bumper, the problem goes away” (not to mention one of the more decidedly PC fixes).

But hold on there, why should you have to buy an overpriced bit of rubber just to work around what is a glaring design flaw? This kinda thing gets lambasted in other companies, why should Apple be excused? Especially when said company is supposed to place you, the consumer, at the centre of the universe.

So, what should Apple do? Recall every unit with the flaw with a redesigned one that doesn’t have the cockup?

I doubt they would do that, so how about they take a leaf from another mega-corp who showed a lot more class when faced with such a problem and potential backlash?

Cast your minds back to the tech jurassic age – 2006. The ipod was dominating the pocket and the PS2 was just about to get a major contender for the front room – The Wii.

Basking in the glow of their all conquering DS and a return on the home console scene, Nintendo’s smugness started to slip more and more as reports of sweaty palms, thin strap strings and resulting airborne Wiimotes spread from rumour, to news to internet meme.

In response to a potential PR disaster, Nintendo offered free silicon grips to those who had already bought their Wii’s and began shipping them with every new Wii and seperate Wii controller. The complaints about the bodily and property damage by flying controllers simply faded away as a result.

Jumping right back to now, why is it that Apple – with an obvious design flaw – are greeting their problems with “You’re holding it wrong” or “Just buy a bumper“? That’s hardly the actions of a company who places their customer as their number one priority. Instead is smacks of arrogance and caring only about the customers wallet!

Would the Apple of even 5 years ago respond like this? I remember when you got all sorts of extras in your ipod box – covers, docks, power bricks… Now, they’re all separate purchases to maximise the amount of money they extract from you.

The right thing for Apple would be to say “OK, some users are having major problems with signal quality. If you’re one of them, pop into the Apple store and we’ll give you a free Bumper (Limited to one per phone, of course) and from now on, every new iphone4 will come with a bundled bumper.”.

So, what will it be Apple? Greed? Or a return to the customer service of old, you know the one that set you apart from the rest in the first place?