No nudes, bloated apps, Android sucks and 497 other complaints about Apple to the FTC Apple and its products prompted almost 500 complaints to the US Federal Trade Commission in the past 22 months – a number that suggests the iGiant has cut the rate at which consumers express dissatisfaction. That of course doesn't include social media ire about the new MacBook Pro. The Register sent a Freedom of Information …
"I have had images denied for having a slight bulge in the crotch of my pants."
Um, yeah. What exactly does this mean? Are his devices using AI to detect smuttyness in images and censoring them for him? Or are the devices detecting his 'slight bulge' and withholding the images suspected of causing it? I'm bemused.
In admiration of other celebrated organs of the press, it would be ever so gratifying if you would come up with a colourful and humorous substitution for the more than a little dreary snippet "Apple has not responded."
Since you have other measures in terms of animals (e.g. 30 rhinos on skateboards I believe?) perhaps something like "Not even the sonorous emission of a round-cornered cricket butt."
I have great faith that with your wide knowledge of the industry, in combination with the hard-earned and sharpened wit of your readers, a more accurate and melliferous phrasing could be engendered, honing Apple's prolonged abstention into a peerless description of disdain, such that the ever lovely Barbra shall at last be able to subside from public consciousness as the premier example of rebound.
Ever your faithful reader,
Fulwar Skipwith
I would be more interested in seeing this put in context.
About the only meaningful information this article provided was that the number of complaints went down, and that most of them don't quite come above the parapet of credibility. However, without doing the same for the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook (fill in any other large US outfit) the answers are at present of a "piece of string" quality.
I hope to hear from EL Reg that they have indeed done this and are turning this into a series with the comparison at the end, otherwise this article is mostly clickbait.
What do you mean, "mostly clickbait"?
How do you think online newsletters survive? Clickbait is literally their stock in trade. Writers are graded, and rewarded, solely on the basis of how many clicks they can get.
Note, this isn't just El Reg - it applies to just about every website. (Those that you pay a subscription for are sometimes, partially, exceptions. But even there, clicks are a huge metric.)
How do you think online newsletters survive? Clickbait is literally their stock in trade. Writers are graded, and rewarded, solely on the basis of how many clicks they can get.
I *think* El Reg still puts some effort in, getting the balance right between clickbait and actually offering content that is interesting enough for readers to return to. This is why the above reaction is important: readers will complain if they veer too much into "just clickbait" territory.
That said, I think the business model that exclusively hunts for clicks is under threat anyway, and other than subscriptions I don't see any other way to re-establish that revenue stream. Advertising has all been absorbed by the big guys, and then utterly destroyed because they grew careless in what they accepted as ad payload and so turned this into the biggest malware distribution platform ever. The problem was that, along the way, they needed to get everyone to believe that content was free and by doing so pretty much undermined a subscription model for the smaller players.
Not an easy one to solve IMHO, although I did just have an idea that I need to work out..
the complaint, and question I'd love to see put to Apple, is regarding default apps.
on Windows, Android, and even OSX I can choose my default browser, my default mail app etc... and thanks to DoJ investigations, consent decrees and EU oversight... that works as intended.
yet on iOS no such freedom exists. want to default to Google Maps? nope. Firefox as your browser of choice? nope.
why, as such a dominant player do they get a pass on such anti-competitive behavior?
Apple aren't a dominant player, they are number 2 and depending on the market often has less than 10℅ market share. Globally it has less than 16℅ market share in the mobile devices sector (smartphone and tablet).
That means that they don't fall under monopoly conditions and are subject to more lenient rules. Android on the other hand has over 80℅ market share and Google has, for example, over 95℅ share of the search market in Europe, where they are being investigated for abuse.
As is frequently pointed out on this site, USAian laws and policies do not apply on a global basis. The FTC is concerned with USAian companies and consumers only. Looking at things from that perspective, Apple is indeed the dominant smartphone manufacturer in the US, selling approximately 1/3 more phones than its nearest competitor (Samsung). While Android is the top smartphone OS, it is barely 10 percentage points ahead of iOS, and is distributed and modified by a multitude of manufacturers. Nothing in this article has anything to do with search in any form.
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Rankings/comScore-Reports-January-2016-US-Smartphone-Subscriber-Market-Share
US monopoly rules are usually applied when the total market share is so large the company can control the market. Fruit does not dominate the US mobile market like Slurp dominates the desktop OS market. While Fruit maybe the largest single manufacturer of devices there is plenty of competition from Android devices and Android devices outsell Fruity devices by a wide margin in the US.
These complaints could spur a product recall but that is about as far as it will go.
By comparison Slurp has something like 85 - 90+% of the desktop market depending on whose numbers you believe. Thus, any decision by Slurp could potentially distort the market and harm consumers. This could get an almost bright spark to look to see if they are abusing their monopoly position.
"Dude, you have no idea."
I have some idea, not much because I've never had to deal full time with the public but I used to see FoI requests and once for a whole year, during the construction of a system to provide information to drivers from roadside signs, as one of the design team, I had to take calls and emails from member of the public and provide a response. After about five emails I wanted to tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine. After ten I wanted to hunt then down, lay waste to their home and salt the land so that nothing could grow there for a hundred generations.
Some examples: "I've just passed a new sign by the side of the road. It has a message on it about a car accident blocking the road thirty miles ahead. I'm not driving that far and I don't need to know this, why are you bothering me with it?"
" A roadside message says there are roadworks in ten miles. I checked with my GPS and the roadworks are 9.6 miles away. Why are you giving inaccurate information?"
"It says ten minutes to the next junction. How fast do I have to drive to make it on time?"
And a memorable phone call... "You have large signs that say "ACCIDENT AHEAD SLOW DOWN". I don't see any sign of an accident and I don't see why I have to slow down. There's nothing here. Please remove the message... Oh, Oh, Oh no... Sorry I'll have to call you back I've just run into the back of a van. I have no idea why he's stopped in the middle of the road."
Just a comment on the "ACCIDENT AHEAD SLOW DOWN" signs.
I think these are now treated as a 'cry-wolf' these days by most drivers, so tend to get ignored.
The amount of times I see this on the Motorway, so slow down, drive for another few miles, nothing seen, no stationary vehicles, no sign of debris or oil on the road, no emergency vehicles around etc. Nothing at all.
I'm guessing that many times the sign is just not being switched off again soon enough after the incident has been cleared.
The problem now is that most drivers seem to simply ignore these Accident warning signs, as most of the time the road is actually clear ahead, and any regular motorway users are aware of this, so now simply ignore the signs.
It also doesn't help when nonsense messages are put up on the boards, rather than keeping them for emergency use only. As people get used to them telling you pointless things (Tiredness kills etc). If the messages on the boards are mostly not real impending warnings, then people will stop looking at them in the first place!
"I think these are now treated as a 'cry-wolf' these days by most drivers, so tend to get ignored."
Yes, mostly because of impatience and arrogance on the part of drivers. I lost count of the number of times that I got calls telling me that the signs were set and "There's nothing, here, no incident, nothing." Not all of them were as funny as the prat driving into the back of a van, but most of them were plain wrong. The calls related to incidents such as a truck carrying cows to market rolling over with cows all over the motorway and vets and stockmen running around trying to catch them, police officers trying to stop someone jumping from a bridge onto the road, police chases (which a driver will rarely see) where there's a need to slow down the traffic to stop it catching up with the suspect/police cars and on two separate memorable occasions, an angry driver who said he couldn't see a vehicle on fire despite the fact we could see on CCTV that it was just a few hundred yards from where they said they were. In all these cases the callers were adamant that there was no reason for the signs.
For some reasons when they get behind the wheel of a car may people think that they are omnipotent and don't realise that someone in a motorway control room can see all of the motorway and the driver can see a very small part of it. Also every driver seems to think that they should be getting a personalised service and don't realise that with only two or three lines of text to display a message they are not going to get a nice set of Tweets about the current state of the motorway.
"As people get used to them telling you pointless things (Tiredness kills etc). If the messages on the boards are mostly not real impending warnings, then people will stop looking at them in the first place!"
The designers know this. It's a basic of good interface design that you don't overload the user and that displays should not show irrelevant garbage. This is how the signs were planned to be used - if there was text on a sign it would be relevant and important.
Then politicians got involved and were very angry that a sign costing £lots was blank. One of them, I forget which, wibbled that when he was on holiday signs in other countries show time, temperature, details of local events and handy advertising for credit cards. He wanted UK signs to be the same. There was an argument and the politicians lost on some points - be thankful that there's no advertising - and won on the display of gash information just to make it look like the signs are being used.
"Many of those voicing their dissatisfaction to the government demonstrate little interest in communicating clearly or presenting an actionable claim. It's almost enough to elicit sympathy for government officials and Apple's customer service team."
If it's not even coherent enough to be whinging, and not high pitched enough to be whining what should we call it? I guess I'd always imagined Apple customers to be intelligent to an extent (at least in their own imaginations).
I guess I'd always imagined Apple customers to be intelligent to an extent (at least in their own imaginations).
Having money and being intelligent are not necessarily related. There are customers who prefer Apple gear based on reasonable arguments as much as there are people choosing for Android for a probably equally valid set of arguments - in between lies healthy debate. Then you have people who buy on or the other based on a need to belong or avoid a group - those people do not have an opinion or reasoned argument, they are the technical equivalent of religious zealots, with associated room temperature IQ. You can recognise their postings because their emotions get so much in the way they are incapable of forming a coherent argument, spelling well or using caps lock correctly. The latter don't know the meaning of the word "debate", they always argue.
"Then you have people who buy on or the other based on a need to belong or avoid a group"
It's a rule that anyone who complains about spelling will have at least one typo in their complaint. Your post honours that rule.
" they are the technical equivalent of religious zealots, with associated room temperature IQ"
I've been using Apple kit since the 70s. It tends to be well made, long lived, easy to use and since OSX has been especially useful for UNIX geeks because it's possible to open the terminal and use OSX from within a bash (or whatever) shell at which point all is nicely familiar and all the usual UNIX tools are either there already or easy to find/install. The GUI is pleasant to use. It's not perfect, nothing is, but it's better than the alternatives.
As to the "room temperature IQ", I spend a lot of time engaging with scientists and engineers from top rank universities and research institutions. The most popular laptop in this cohort appears to be a MacBook Pro.
" top rank universities and research institutions. The most popular laptop in this cohort appears to be a MacBook Pro."
Self perpetuation... Essentially. People buy this, as Apple ensures the message is, that this is the product that winners buy. The losers can't afford the MacBook, and are essentially going to fail in life.
Of course, this is utter tripe. A Macbook is essentially a very restrictive PC. If you don't care about the restrictions, you might as well buy a Chromebook and get the enhanced security that offers over a MacBook.
Of course, this is utter tripe. A Macbook is essentially a very restrictive PC. If you don't care about the restrictions, you might as well buy a Chromebook and get the enhanced security that offers over a MacBook.
LOL. You must have been paid by Google. There isn't a company in the world except Google itself for whom a Chromebook would rank as "secure".
First of all, tell me what "restrictions" you find on a MacBook. You can buy outside the App Store, you get support in any country in the world (and that includes hardware support) and about the only restriction in place is that applications that make it to the App Store get vetted. Which is not a bad idea compared to the Wild West of other platforms but (as indicated before) if you want to live on the wild side, you can, it's not like iOS.
Secondly, we have actively switched to MacBooks exactly because our research indicates them to be the easiest to both secure and KEEP secure without getting the way of usability. They also run a version of Unix that works well together with what we do on Linux, so I really can't see that being a restriction - it's more the reverse as it allows people to run both Open Source and commercial proprietary applications without the need to relearn another platform, and without any dependency on the biggest data collector on the planet after the NSA.
So no thanks, you can keep your Chromebook. If you feel that classifies you as a loser you don't need a laptop, you need help. For us laptops are simply business tools, to be bought on evaluation of the facts that pertain to our business, and that evaluation has pointed towards Apple for quite a few years now. For your use Chromebooks may be a better choice, but the only way security would point at a Chromebook would be in comparison to Windows.
Concerning the New Zealand complaint:
I have been back and forth with Apple over this very same issues. I am an American Citizen with American Visa/MCs. I have always been able to work around things a bit by using my secondary US address. However, I recently "consolidated" my residence to one current residence in Spain.
The big problem is this... I can no longer do anything on the US store because my address is in Spain. HOWEVER, I also CANNOT do anything on the Spanish store since my CCs are American... it WILL NOT accept them specifically because of the originating country of the cards.
This has been a known issue for many years. Recently when the Dash App was removed by Apple, I started a conversation with Apple. One of the "managers" at AppleCare who was an absolute prat, told me he was going to suspend my account and report me to the fraud department.... refusing to follow my suggestion and read about this issue in my previous discussions. Its truly the case of a company how has their mojo. (IMHO)
I have been back and forth with Apple over this very same issues. I am an American Citizen with American Visa/MCs. I have always been able to work around things a bit by using my secondary US address. However, I recently "consolidated" my residence to one current residence in Spain.
I am in the same position. There are a massive lot of uncertainties about what happens to your investment in apps when you move country. Worse, when you DO move it becomes impossible to even maintain what you already have as Apple locks in payment means to the country, so you can't use a credit card that is not tied to the country set in the shop.
In my case, the net result is that moving has pretty much halted any further spend in iTunes and App Stores - given the barriers they put in place I guess that must have been their intention. I could go after them in Europe as this clashes with EU Freedom of Movement laws, but it's not worth it for me personally.
At work, however, it has raised questions about continued use of their products despite being the best for our needs because we do occasionally move people to other countries.
" I can no longer do anything on the US store because my address is in Spain. HOWEVER, I also CANNOT do anything on the Spanish store since my CCs are American."
This isn't just a problem affecting Apple though. I live some of the time in Italy, they have a similar attitude to the Spanish about extra-territorial payment and debit/credit cards. I can fill my car with fuel and pay with a UK credit card but only if I decide to have someone fill the car and charge me 20c extra per litre for the pleasure. The self-service takes only Italian credit cards. I can't top up my Italian PAYG SIM using a UK debit or credit card it has to be either direct funds transfer from an Italian bank, an Italian debit card or it's a trip to a tobacconist to buy a scratch card, with cash. Most ludicrous of all is that Tre Italia offer to accept payment via PayPal. But they only accept payment from Italian citizens - the PayPal site will take you through he process but the Tre site then says "payment not authorised". Do it with a PayPal account registered to an Italian citizen and it's fine. So much for "Free movement of goods, services and people."
So pleased for you @AC. I myself have never felt the need to buy one but my present employer, in a fit of largess that was not to last, furnished me with one when I started. Felt very warm and cosy for a whole weekend. Alas they have now announced they'll be making me redundant. They can whistle through their arse if they think they're getting the iphone back.
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