Celebrity conspiracy as Apple attacked over customer service Eagle-eyed weibo fans in China have uncovered what appears to be a pre-meditated and co-ordinated attempt to smear Apple following a high profile consumer rights programme on national TV which slammed the firm for its customer service. The broadcast on state-run CCTV – a hugely popular and influential consumer rights programme …
Makes me wonder whether Mr. Ho deliberately added/neglected to exclude the "8;20" business--to increase the chances he'll never be asked to do something so obviously calculated again. Strange, head-tilting quality to the Ho-le thing, really.
Anyway, if the powers that be are behind the curtain... devious, but incredibly amateurish puppetry.
"#315isLive# Wow, Apple has so many tricks in its after-sales services. As an Apple fan, I’m hurt. You think this would be acceptable to Steve Jobs? "
Well considering that I have read in the past complaints from Apple users about being treated like scammers when requesting warranty service, I would think that Steve Jobs would consider Apple China's handling of these matters to be outstanding.
At the same time as a celebrity has his account "hacked into", which tweets a message along the exact same lines, with a extra "send around 8:20" message tacked onto it for no visible reason (why would you add that, if you were posting live? Why would you add that, if you were hacking? If you were hacking to discredit all the messages by adding that last bit, how come some of those messages were posted earlier than that, some later, but the vast majority around exactly the same time? Are hackers psychic now? It was so shocking that not one celebrity could wait until the end of the show to tweet?).
It's dodgy however you look at it. But a lot of China's web dealings are dodgy. There's nothing new there, but it lends a whole new meaning to doing business in China. Makes you wonder quite what they'd do to get a business out of the country if the allegations of organised (forced?) collusions among celebrities to create an astro-turfing campaign on a national, government-backed level are true. Even if it were only a competitor behind it, it's dirty business and the government is supposed to regulate, not take sides and join in.
I asked the "I Ching Online"
"Was the smear against Apple as tweeted by the 8:20 party truthful or not?"
Cast Hexagram: 23 - Twenty-Three : Po / Splitting Apart
"The weight of the Mountain presses down upon a weak foundation of Earth: The Superior Person will use this time of oppression to attend to the needs of those less fortunate. Any action would be ill-timed. Stand fast."
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
"This is a situation easily mistaken for Stagnation (Hexagram 12) or Revolution (Hexagram 49). It just depends on which side you're on. During a time of Stagnation, human worms invade to feed on the decay. During a time of Revolution, oppression is being overthrown. But in this situation, oppressors are violently seizing power. Pay special heed when you receive this hexagram, because the oracle is often warning you of a situation of which you are totally unaware. You are about to be blindsided."
So probably not, but this sounds like even more ominous things are in the offing.
Easily understood.
Mountain: Apple
Earth: Chinese industry.
"Oppressors are violently seizing power" - the US is trying to dominate China.
This hexagram is clearly telling you that China is going to develop its own design, sales and marketing so that they will ultimately compete with and overthrow Apple.
So what were the moving lines? We need to know so we can predict the outcome and decide where to put our pension funds.
The Yi Ying. No scientific basis whatsoever but still a lot more reliable than stock market analysts.
...that Apple replaces the parts in China, rather than the whole phone?
When my washing machine breaks down within warranty, I don't expect a brand new washing machine. I expect a prompt service, where a guy comes out and replaces the failed part. See also: my car, my TV, my bicycle, my cooker etc etc.
As long as your phone comes back working as it should, does it really matter whether they replaced a component, or the entire electronic contents, or even replaced the entire phone? As long as Apple meets it's warranty obligations promptly and without question, who really gives a shit?
No, not really, I agree with you but I suppose it was about this "that the firm doesn’t have to reset the warranty period under local laws". Perhaps I just have no experience of such problems, most of my phones have been Nokia and so far I have never had any reason to return anything ever. Things have changed, and reliability in hardware and software has perhaps gone down. Marketing has simply become more important and somebody, like me, who expects something to work at least 5 to 6 years has simply lost touch with the reality.
Still there is perhaps something with this "that Apple replaces the parts in China, rather than the whole phone".
As those phones are produced in China would it not be possible that they have the knowledge and ability to actually replace parts. According to Apple CEO Cook the ability to build the hardware in the US is long gone. So when a iPhone is replaced with a new one, what actually happens to the "old" one, is it dumped into the river like a pig (forgive me for this shit) or are they returned to China, repaired and sold as new. And damned it, if you receive a new one, why do you think that the new, untested one, should be any better than the new one you just returned. Hmm.
They get their stuff fixed. Here you're told you are responsible for the defect (i.e. you dropped-held-fondled-charged it wrong) and you're sent packing.
Case in point :
Me : My display is kaputt
Them : (look at perfectly unscathed phone - not a scratch on it) You dropped it
Me : No I didn't.
They. Yes you did. Goodbye.
The TV programme gave some celebs the heads-up in a mutual promotion kind of thing. Newspaper critics often see and report a pre-screening of a programme.
The programme is saying, because of local laws, the warranty is extended when you get a replacement phone, but not if you get a replacement part; Apple do not offer replacement phones, like they do in rest of the world. There are probably several simple fixes: change to law to provide warranty extension on replaced parts, etc.
Since Apple do a lot of business in China, I doubt they want to lose them as either market or supplier.
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