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Wife Said No, Apple Said Yes
- Tyrant505 16y agoNow if he was smart, he would buy her a new pair of shoes, dress, new tie and shirt for himself and take her out with the money saved. That's what I call a good week.
- city41 16y agoIf he was really smart he'd ask her to pick out the dress and shoes :)
- rokhayakebe 16y agoExactly, because he is likely to return those as well.
- shaggyfrog 16y agoDepending on the dress and shoes, he might end up getting his tie and shirt from the thrift store and them both eating at McDonald's.
- splattne 16y agoHusband said No.
- angrycoder 16y agoOr he could just spend the money on a bigger pair of balls. Note: This is based on the assumption (perhaps false) the ipad was not a financially irresponsible decision. If it not ok to spend the money on frivolities like an ipad, clothes and fancy dinners are right out too.
- bad_user 16y agoHah, only on HackerNews are clothes on the same priority level as the iPad. What next? Food? :)
- sbov 16y agoSure, maybe if you have no clothes, or they are falling off you, or they no longer serve the purpose of actually clothing you. However, most clothes purchases are on the same level of necessity as an iPad - such as: "my current stuff is old" or "out of style" or "I just want something new and shiny".
- reinhardt 16y agoOne more use case: "I have to wear different clothes every day of the week/month"
- Dylanlacey 16y agoThe "Rationalization" variant: "I have a professional obligation to stay up-to-date / Wouldn't want to embarrass my friends / Need to support my favorite designer.
- haploid 16y agoWhat is it about hacker culture that places women on a pedestal and encourages fawning, obsequious devotion and sacrifice to them? Relationships should not be about master/slave dynamics, yet geeks seem to relish this dynamic more than I've seen in any other subculture. The man in this article has already castrated himself for his wife; this +15 comment suggests that unquestioningly bending to the indomitable will of his wife was not enough? What's next? Recommending cuckoldry as a solution to satisfying his wife's sexual needs?
- ay 16y agoProbably the reason is a higher percentage of gentlemen than you might meet elsewhere.
- francoisdevlin 16y agoStill single, huh?
- haploid 16y agoNot that this will prevent baseless, ad-hominem, assumptive comments from being posted and voted up on this site, but... I've been with a lovely woman, who enjoys being treated like a human being instead of a deity, for over four years.
- potatolicious 16y agoThe same baseless, ad-hominem, assumptive comments about the man in the article, right? You're jumping at ghosts - and IMO there's something concerning about reading that far into so little information. The fact that he had a disagreement with his wife and returned the iPad doesn't imply being castrated, obedient, dominated, or otherwise enslaved. The fact that you would jump on this possibility as a default is a bit concerning.
- araneae 16y agoAnd you're saying she's never talked you out of a frivolous purchase, and you've never talked her out of a frivolous purchase?
- alexsb92 16y agoI would love to have been in the room, when the execs heard about it and decided on the note, or to see the face of the guy when he received the iPad again. Either way, great PR move Apple.
- MichaelApproved 16y agoWife said "Sell it on eBay so we can pay our bills."
- aubhat 16y agosorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....
- protomyth 16y agoThere might be a lesson here on how to get a lot of positive press, inform people that you are taking quality really seriously in an indirect way, and don't spend much money doing it.
- simonsarris 16y agoYes, doubly so if the event never happened.
- protomyth 16y agoWell, given the lack of fact checking on the 24-hour news networks, truth is not a pre-requisite.
- Mafana0 16y agoIt's the sort of story I'd love to see more of on HN. Quite amusing and an insightful idea about PR for tech-companies.
- lawnchair_larry 16y agoPR has nothing to do with hacking. Just saying.
- caldwell 16y agoI actually had a similar interaction with Apple on a smaller scale. I had just ordered a magic mouse for my sister's fiancee for Christmas. I talked to my sister after purchasing it online and she told me that they were in an Apple store the day before and he had mentioned that he wanted a magic pad. Shit. So I called up Apple asking if I could return the magic mouse that I ordered online for the trackpad in a store because there wouldn't be enough time with Christmas fast approaching. The customer support guy put me on hold for a minute and then told me that in light of the Holiday Spirit they would send out a trackpad with express shipping free of charge. I could return the magic mouse if I wanted or keep both. Fed Ex ended up dropping the ball on the express shipping, but still Apple stepped up and made my day! I ended up giving him the magic mouse for Christmas and then the trackpad a month later for his birthday.
- potatolicious 16y agoApple's service is, bar none, the best I've ever received from any technology company. A couple of years ago my MacBook Pro was conking out - graphics tearing probably caused by bad VRAM. I called them up, and having had a DVD drive and a latch fixed in the past, they informed me (voluntarily! without me asking for it!) that given the number of repairs done on this machine they'll just send me a new one instead of going through another round of repairs. This is also with ~2 minutes on hold, and talking directly to a human instead of navigating the touch-tone gauntlet. They sent me a return shipment label to start the process - I told them that I really can't be without a machine for a whole week while they sent out the replacement. They didn't argue or be difficult, they just decided right then to ship me my new machine and I can ship back my old one at my leisure. Did I mention I got a unibody MacBook Pro out of the deal despite being 2-3 generations out of date at that point? They replaced the MBP with the latest and greatest instead of sticking me with an old-gen refurb as is standard for hardware replacements. That singular experience has made me an Apple laptop customer ever since. The best part? My roommate at the time was dealing with a conked out Dell laptop, so were on the phone with our respective support lines simultaneously. Between dialing the number and finalizing the shipment details of the new laptop I took about 25 minutes end to end. He spent the next 7 hours arguing with Dell. On the other hand, after those 7 hours of pure customer service pain, they sent someone out that fixed the machine same-day... so his resolution was faster, but considerably more painful.
- pauldisneyiv 16y agoThis is very simple and very smart. It just "feels" like an Apple thing to do.
- Schultzy 16y agoDoes anyone know if Apple has any sort of employee empowerment policy? At start-ups, it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) take much for the decision makers to hear from customers and respond in a way that "wow"s them, but I'd be curious to know what processes or mechanisms specifically a large company like Apple has in place to catch these kinds of opportunities.
- Mafana0 16y agoThe guys who did that are VPs, according to the article: "It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it."
- Schultzy 16y agoRight, but I'm wondering HOW they found out about it. Was is just dumb luck that a particular go-getter found out about it and passed it up or do they have some kind of "pass interesting things up" policy and actively encourage it? It obviously wasn't the Veeps that were receiving the the returned iPad.
- protomyth 16y agoI actually can see it traveling pretty fast. District Manager calls Store Manager to find out how things are going. Store Manager does a "You gotta hear this return reason...". Or, the someone at the store calls corporate to find out what to code this return as. Never underestimate the number of stories that start "This guy gave returned it because....".
- Splines 16y agoInternally at MSFT we have support discussion lists that are used by field personnel to interact with the product team; our VP is on the alias and sometimes answers questions with the products that they used to directly work on. Granted, joining a discussion list is easier than monitoring product returns, but there is probably an analog for the retail channel (i.e., there is probably an upwards-facing report on iPad 2 sales and returns, and this note was probably included as an item of interest). I'm just guessing though. Odds are that anybody who really knows isn't going to tell you.
- teraflop 16y agoIs there any reason to believe that this actually happened and isn't just an Apple employee feeding PR fluff to MacRumors? It's essentially unverifiable.
- splish 16y agoAgreed, there is no source link. There is 1 link to the "story" on macrumors and another to the forum discussion.
- cletus 16y agoI suspect it's true. It's certainly Apple's style. But of course there is no proof. Think about it: if Apple put out a press release saying "we're awesome because we sent this guy a free iPad 2", everyone would (rightly) think it was crass. What (allegedly) happened here is far classier.
- arn 16y agowell, not having an external source link simply means this is the source. Whether or not you believe it or not is a separate issue. disclaimer: I wrote the article, and I believe it likely to be true, but can't verify it for certain, unless the Apple VPs or guy who-got-iPad steps forward.
- jokermatt999 16y agoTrue or not, this story is pretty much just fluff anyway. I clicked the title, because I figured it would be something interesting since it was on HN, but I just got a tiny anecdote about a company being nice. "You can get good PR by giving your customers free products." This is worth reading?
- originalgeek 16y agoThey do have a reputation for taking good care of their customers. I believe that qualifies as "any" reason. Secondly, considering their margins, it's probably the best bang for the buck with their advertising dollars. Tens of thousands of impressions for $226 (or whatever it costs them to make the dang thing).
- blinkingled 16y agoPeople are actually returning their iPad 2s for reasons other than production defects? (If there were defects I am sure the blogs would be abuzz about it by now.) I know this one was Wife defect but the story says Apple is looking to see if there are any production defects. I am pondering getting one and couldn't find one anywhere. To the people returning for refund of same amount - come over on eBay ;)
- cletus 16y agoI have a Verizon model, which I'll be returning. It was the only one I could find. I ordered an AT&T model online at 6am EST on March 11. It's still in Hong Kong. I can return this model up til this coming Saturday and get a free refund. iPads have had huge problems with mass organized scalping, particularly here in New York. For many, it's their job to camp out all night and buy 2 iPads, fronted by a guy carrying a wad of $50k+ cash for a bunch of people in the line. The scalpers want AT&T models first and foremost (the GSM 3G is internationally usable) and then Wifi-only. They aren't interested in Verizon, which I guess explains whY I found out. I've considered eBaying it but I don't think Verizon models are as in high demand as the other two. Probably more hassle than it's worth.
- uptown 16y agoMy wife is buying my iPad (late Christmas gift) and she's encouraging me to junk my old XPS laptop for a new Mac Book Pro. I think I've got a keeper!
- joelackner 16y agonope, you've just got an expensive one. that's standard issue. =)
- dave1619 16y agoi'd say keeper with style.
- spacemanaki 16y agoWhy was this upvoted over 90 times? This and its siblings are all pretty sexist comments.
- muppetman 16y agoBecause it made us laugh. It's not attacking an individual or being sexist towards an individual. It's funny. Sorry if you disagree.
- capstone 16y agoSo... joking about blacks being [racist stereotype] on a majority-white website is ok because (a) it makes the majority laugh and (b) it's not making fun of any one black person individually? Please explain your logic here.
- alextgordon 16y agoIt seems wrong to apply logic to people's perceptions of humour and offensiveness, since perceptions are rarely logical. But going with this, if the person telling this same joke were black, would that be OK? Or equivalently, are there classes of jokes that may only be told by black people? (also I feel I should point out that jokes about race tend not to be equivalent in offensiveness to jokes about sex, so this whole premise is largely irrelevant)
- FiddlerClamp 16y agoSounds like an urban legend to me, a la "Send standard 'we have no cockroaches' letter" or the "$400 red velvet cake recipe".
- dasht 16y agoSupposing that it is true, Apple has paid a very small amount of money and received a (comparatively) very large amount of advertising. Why, they've been well placed on HN for quite a while now, for one thing.
- kawasaki 16y agoDtb
- jjcm 16y agoGreat customer service is some of the best advertising money can buy. It's something that's been known for years, but hasn't made its way into corporate culture for a long time. Kudos apple/newegg/amazon/all the other startups out there/etc who've been successful with these principles.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mcritz 16y agoExactly! It isn't enough for Motorolla, HTC, or Palm could create a really cool, unique, and powerful tablet. They also have to have a great shopping and support experience.
- jlees 16y agoClearly Zappos' famously awesome customer service isn't good or memorable enough to make the off-the-top-of-your-head list there. Interesting! (They always keep saying "Whoa, Nellie! We upgraded you to express shipping free!" on my orders -- it was a delightful surprise the first time, but now I suspect it's standard..)
- jjcm 16y agoOnly because I've never used (and only vaguely heard of) zappos. I'll give it a try, I need some new clothes anyway. Thanks!
- wmboy 16y agoGood to hear Apple is still going the extra mile. There are lots of stories of people going into an Apple store with a product broken after it's warranty and still walking out the door with a brand new replacement. You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in the computer hardware business).
- saurik 16y agoYou just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in the computer hardware business). ...because most hardware companies are trying to compete for "price conscious customers" as commodity products, and therefore don't have any margin to spend on support.
- pdaviesa 16y agoIt's funny that there are people on this forum that believe husbands actually make decisions. A great quote from some random sitcom - "Marriage is all about compromise. My wife wanted a cat, I didn't want a cat, so we compromised and got a cat."
- anthonyb 16y agoThe day after that the iPad comes back with a note on it: "Wife is a Linux kernel hacker and fully paid up member of the FSF."
- pyre 16y agoThen why doesn't she attempt to hack it and install a different OS? It was given at Apple's expense.
- anthonyb 16y agoBecause the iPad doesn't have a real fucking keyboard[1], or a port to add one. [1] - http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/30/bye-apple http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/30/bye-apple
- lurch_mojoff 16y agoSure it does: http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.native.usb.support.for.many.devices/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.nativ...
- jh3 16y agoThe post is obviously meant to be funny even if it's true. There is really no reason to overanalyze it...
- jongraehl 16y agoDisgusting.