Yes, I love the Apple commercials too. John Hodgman makes a brilliant bumbling PC, the charmingly jealous foil to Justin Long's hip modern Mac. I dig the Apple marketing campaigns as much as anyone. They're clever as hell. I get it. We all get it.
For years, Apple has crushed the competition with incredible product innovation, a finger on the pulse of our consumer needs, and excellent marketing which has turned the gadget and gizmo market on its ear. As their stockholders know, things are pretty good in Apple Land. However, after what happened this past weekend in Las Vegas, I've figured out where Steve Jobs and the rest of the Apple folks can store their iPhones, and it isn't in a pocket.
Once a year, I join my closest friends in Vegas for our annual trip. It's the weekend of the year for us, one so steeped in tradition that even our wives like that we go. If things go well, no one loses their mortgage and there is little to no interaction with law enforcement. We look forward to the trip as kids do Christmas. Vegas, the guys, a cocktail or 30...good times.
Our Vegas scene is perhaps a tad more mellow than it used to be. We are kind of old, pretty fat, and very tired from raising our kids. We used to hit Vegas to go nuts. Now we go to get away from the sippy cups and poopy diapers which dominate our lives back home. We also get to eat things most of our wives no longer allow in the house. In short, we're more concerned about getting a firm mattress than a lap dance. We're the guys we used to make fun of. We're our dads. Still, whatever Tommy Lee might think of our trip, we love it. And all you need is a little cash, a sense of humor, a thick skin, and a cell phone so you can find your buddies at 2:00am.
Enter my friend Andrew. A brief bio: He's 38, lives in Seattle, works for a bank, married, two kids, owns a home, pays his taxes, successful, honest, charming, and made a great toast at my wedding which he sang to the tune of the Oscar Mayer wiener song. (My buddy has a first name, it's E.D.D.I.E...) Andrew loves his iPhone...a lot. Like everyone else who owns one, he talks about it like it saved his life. Mazel Tov. I'm happy they're happy.
On Friday, Andrew left Seattle for Vegas. His iPhone worked fine. He landed in Vegas, got off the plane, turned on the phone and saw an error code indicating am issue with the phone's SIM card. The phone no longer worked. Andrew takes it in stride and survives the evening in Vegas without a phone. (We lost him once but luckily found him at the pound several hours later).
Saturday morning Andrew heads over to the Apple Store in Vegas for an extremely inconvenient but entirely necessary fix it errand. The Apple guy starts helping Andrew and asks if he's ever replaced the SIM card. Andrew tells him that he wouldn't know how to change a SIM card if his life depended on it and that to his knowledge the iPhone has one button and the rest of the thing is an impenetrable brick.
The Apple rep takes the phone and tries to activate it. The software on the phone tells him is that the IMEI # assigned to the Phone's software is different than the IMEI # on the back of Andrew's phone. The IMEI number is used by to identify valid devices and therefore can be used to stop a stolen phone from accessing the network. The guy tells Andrew that the only conclusion is that he tampered with the phone.
Andrew reiterates that he's never tampered with the phone, never unlocked it, never changed SIM cards. Still, Andrew's told that he's out of luck. Moreover, he's told that he's lying about why the phone doesn't work and that he must have tampered with the software. The Apple employee simply doesn't believe him.
It seems that unbeknownst to any of us, most importantly Andrew -- he's an iPhone hacker which is surprising as Andrew's just barely smart enough to call his own voicemail. He's many things (kind of jowly, bitter, condescending) but a hacker he isn't.
Patiently, Andrew asks to speak to the manager. The manager stands firm and tells Andrew that he'd have to take it up with corporate. In the mean time, no temporary phone, no new phone, no I'm sorry. He's now the proud owner of a $600 paper weight.
Did it not occur to any of them that perhaps he was telling the truth and the iPhone was lying?
The Apple folks believed their defective iPhone software over a long time customer. How do you fight that? How do you argue against a computer? How do you survive in a world where some Apple guy can choose a gadget's say over yours? How did Andrew leave that store without eating the guy's liver?
What's happened to us? When did a gadget's word mean more than those of someone who actually breath's oxygen? Is this where technology is taking us? Has Apple become so big that they no longer need to believe the customer? Are they so jaded that they've actually turned on their own flock? In the end, isn't technology supposed to ease the human experience?
I'm a fan of Steve Jobs. He's a visionary and all that jazz. He's also a fighter and a survivor, someone who's been handed his ass a time or two and come back better than ever. That inspires me. I can relate to that. I'd only hope that if he were a fly on the wall of that Apple store in Vegas, he'd be as incensed at what went down as I am.
What if all the iPhones in use suddenly show the same error message? What then? Will Apple tell everyone out there, all the schmucks who waited in line for three days, all the hipsters, all the iPhone folks, that they too are lying? I get the feeling that this policy will live as long as consumers allow it to.
Perhaps Steve Jobs and friends should spend fewer dollars on marketing and put that money toward figuring out why their phones are spreading rumors about their owners. And, while they're at it, maybe they can come up with a better policy when it comes to customer service? I imagine calling everyone with a broken phone a liar isn't good for the long term health of the company.
My phone doesn't tell me the best place in San Francisco to get calamari. But, I didn't pay $500-600 for it either. And, it's never once called me a liar. Do the math. Apple better figure this whole thing out quick. The holidays are around the corner and word travels fast...as long as your phone works.
If it said "different than" instead of "different from", then the software is definitely defective.
I fight my computers daily. On happy days, I win big time--the genie works for me. But there are also other times--not so happy.
So when, to take a current example, I contact tech support and am referred to a knowledgebase article I have just finished reading and discovered that it does not address my version of the software, but am told to find my answer there, I know the techie is either a robot or an idiot.
Nothing is more out of date than OS tech support articles. When tech support pro's treat them as the voice of god, even after it is clearly pointed out how they do not apply, I feel myself to be in "The Twilight Zone."
This writer's friend, about whom the story was told, clearly encountered a problem with the iPod that Apple needs to hear about. Instead, he is told he must have sinned against the machine.
The result is that there will have to be a tsunami of additional complaints before the glitch will be repaired. There's our current human condition in a phrase.
To Chris24's point, you are correct, my friend is not an idiot. He's just a gizmo nut who bought a toy and is getting crappy service from Apple.
I'm not exactly sure what Veronica's angle is in her response? Perhaps she owns a lot of the stock or dates an Apple Genius? I'm not a tech writer and I'm not trying to find the next story. Plus, I said how much I like and respect Jobs et al. Veronica should take a deep breath and read the entire article, not just the stuff she disagrees with... This story came and bit my buddy in the ass. I'm just fortunate to have Huffpo as an outlet for my point of view.
Take down the dont's!!
the body of a regular old phone, the old kind
with either a rotary dial or the pushbuttons,
NO fancy lights etc., and with a regular ringer.
For a gag, leave 3 feet of wire on it, so it
looks like you tore it out of the wall.
That said, I have to concur with with SouthJerseySteve, who gets his phones free. I'm as modern a guy as most and I just don't understand the motivation (a want expressed as some dire necessity) of some to be connected by phone/voice/text/pix/movies/web 24 hours a day in all places at all times. I have a very nice phone that keeps me connected in many ways. With a little planning I almost never find it necessary to HAVE to call someone (or be contacted by them) in the manner/frequency that so many seem to need to be connected. What in heaven's name can be going on in anyone's life that he/she NEEDS to be connected at all times in all ways 24/7?
Let's be honest: the iPhone is a toy. It may serve a useful purpose but a simple cost-benefit analysis seems not to compute. What is ironic is that when Apple made its bones in the early 80s with the 2E it did so with the promise of liberating us all from the tyranny of the techies. Now, those same techies, who've hacked their iPhones in obvious breach of what they knew to be restrictions on their use, have cost the average guy the benefit of the doubt with Apple.
Their "marketing strategy" is almost entirely about disparaging the "other guys" - something that ought to tell people something.
And that they treat their customers like crap is not even news. How long has it been since they extorted the early adopter premium from iPhone buyers, only to turn around and drop the price precipitously? And then, to make up for it, offer only "credit", not actual refunds?
Apple is a cult, make no mistake about it.
But the more I read and hear about the iPhone, despite how some people swear it has saved the world, the less I want one. The AT&T deal was enough to turn me off it from the get-go, and stories like this which continue to filter though, convince me that I may never own one.
Apple make great computers, but their new genius phone is a big black eye for a company which until now has always handled their customers as if they were important.