Do you agree with that statement?
FRegards,
Posted on 04/17/2006 7:13:16 AM PDT by Panerai
Apple's corporate policy for dealing with unsolicited ideas may be changing. The company held a special meeting to discuss ways to improve its cold-hearted, boiler-plate response to any unsolicited improvements or suggestions submitted to the company, after it found out that it shattered a nine-year girl's heart. According to CBS 5 News, 9-year-old Shea O'Gorman wrote to Apple CEO Steve Jobs as her class was learning about writing business and formal letters. The third-grader wrote Jobs to offer suggestions on improving her iPod nano, such as adding song lyrics so listeners can sing along to their tunes. Although it took three months, the company finally responded to her letter--although it was not what O'Gorman and her family were expecting. Instead of a polite response from Jobs, the girl received a cold, stern letter from Apple's legal counsel telling her that the company didn't accept unsolicited ideas and that she should not send any suggestions to the company.
Apple's full legal policy, designed to protect itself from protracted legal battles about royalties and licensing from submitted ideas, was available online, according to the letter received and read by both O'Gorman and her family.
"She was very upset, and kinda threw the letter up in the air and ran in her room and slammed her door," the girl's mother told CBS 5 News.
Although Apple declined to comment on the story, a company representative reportedly called the girl to offer an apology (following an inquiry by CBS 5 News); in addition, the report says that Apple held a special meeting last week to discuss ways in which it could improve its corporate policy when dealing with children.
Any chance you could ping my company and convince them to dump the Macs they make us use.
Well yea that's true but from a consumer standpoint consumers do not have to buy from companies who do not take into consideration consumer feed back. The best selling tool on the market is customer satisfaction and having what the consumer wants and needs. Many times this is easily learned via feedback & suggestions from customers. Many companies encourage such input. If a company detaches itself from that input the company can find itself being detached from future sales.
If I write my phone service provider and suggest DSL service in my area I understand I will not get a cut in the percentage even though it was my idea. This is the first I've have heard on any company rejecting the receiving of customer suggestions or comments on a legal basis. Now if the child had send Apple the schematic drawing and software coding etc for the device then yes I could very well see their point. If Apple is closed to suggestions on their product IMO they can keep their products.
Now then any bets that this response was Out Sourced from somewhere not so familiar with our customer service traditions? I'd bet on it.
You are kidding?! This will really gum things up!
Should have him check that out.
Large companies can't afford to accept unsolicited ideas, because if someone submits an idea that's similar to a project already in development the large company is too likely to be sued. Small companies don't represent as juicy a target for lawyers, and can thus be a little more open.
Since you seem to be the only one in the world with problems such as you describe... especially in areas the Mac excels in, graphics... I think the problem probably exists in the loose nut on the keyboard, not inside the Mac.
It is strange that every other Mac user in the publishing business is NOT experiencing the "crashes" that you claim.
You still haven't answered my questions... "What MODEL Mac are you running?"... and "How much memory does it have?" ... and "What version of OSX?" ... "Have you reloaded your Font collection from known GOOD sources... or are you still using a collection of amateur fonts?"
The last time you wouldn't answer questions it turned out you were still running OS9... and complaining about OSX crashing. Now that you have upgraded to OSX, I want to know if the management of your company also bothered to upgrade the hardware to run it... or are you still working on a 1998 iMac?
To all you mac users who think a crash is only defined by a blue screen, the proper definition of a crash is if you lose your unsaved work due to a program freeze up.
By the way, BJung, Mac's don't "Blue screen"... that only happens on older PCs.
Kids should be allowed to upgrade their Mac OS for 10 per cent discount. ;')
no, he has a cushy job waiting at the RIAA.
The obvious problem is the total collapse of customer service in this country. By now we're used to being treated like shoeshine rags by airlines, banks and commodity PC manufacturers, but we were hoping for better from Apple. There was no reason whatever for such a cold response to a few suggestions. Somebody was having PMS that day, and should own up to it.
"Steve Jobs doesn't care about the children!"
Oh - BS - when was the last time you were in an Apple Store?
There is a sigifinant area just for kids - just to the left of the Genius Bar and in front of the Check-Out area.
Hook them young - keep them as customers - he cares on several levels.
"Quite a difference in how they responded to me and the way Apple responeded to the kid in this article. Which one do you thing was better?"
We were not such a litegous society back then.
Then why are many publishing businesses switching away from Macs? We covered this before - we did a national training conference. The guy at the paper that put it on was using a PC. A group still using MAC asked him about a problem. When it all got sorted out, one of the other locations said they had that problem also until they got rid of the Macs.
Live in a cave if you want to. Go ahead, shoot the messenger if it makes you feel better. One day, though, you will finally get around to answering the question, what is the need for a Mac when a PC will do the same job with far less expense and far fewer conflicts with the rest of the world?
Do you really think that any advantage a Mac might have is going to be noticed in publication graphics. Get real. Maybe back in the early 90's when there was a detectable graphics difference between the two systems. But not today.
YOu could not tell the difference between art produced on a Mac or a PC when that art hits the finished product. Again, answering the question would show you to be operating on more than just emotion.
Do you agree with that statement?
FRegards,
Bj, I make my living supporting and fixing software and hardware issues on both PCs and Macs... including several publishing houses and printing businesses. I find my clients wtih PCs have FAR more problems than do the clients with Macs. That is the real world I live in, no cave. There is no emotion attached. I make a heck of a lot more money servicing my PC clients and solving THEIR problems than I do serving the Mac clients.
What you describe as your experience does not agree with my experience or my clients' experiences.
I did a Google search of "Roundhouse +Mac +crash" and only came up with YOUR vanity complaint thread on FreeRepublic (which you might do well to re-read) that was responsive to Roundhouse as software. That should tell you something about how uncommon your problem really is.
Your private post to me listed, again, things that were not responsive. Saying your are running a "G5" covers about 8 different Mac models. You have not told me how much RAM is in your machine or what VERSION of OSX (10.2, 10.3, 10.4. along with the third decimal iteration) it is running. Also, what version of the software that is crashing, etc. What version of Quark? What version of Illustrator? What version of Photoshop?
I can live with that limited definition. However, it is not the proper definition of a "crash" which can happen with or without the loss of data.
The advantage of a OS where an application can crash without taking the OS down with it is that the other applications are not affected and THEIR data is not lost also.
I still remember the old system crash window that could pop up on older Macs that said essentially, "Sorry, Program XYZ has crashed, save your work in other programs and restart" but by the time you saw that, everything had crashed along with XYZ and you had no way to get to the other apps to save their data. While I have had an occasional app crash, the loss of data in other programs has NEVER happened to me on my Mac with OSX.
When I have mission critical work, I still am in the habit of saving my work every five minutes or so...
By the way, did your department clean out their collection of fonts yet?
I can buy that one. Question though, is this unique to Mac? Seems to me I can get rid of an offending program on my PC without losing other work. And, strictly as in inquiry, doesn't XP now save anything you were working on, even when the whole system crashes?
When I have mission critical work, I still am in the habit of saving my work every five minutes or so...
I'm in the habbit of hitting save. That's a habbit instilled long before I touched a Mac.
By the way, did your department clean out their collection of fonts yet?
Do you think our IT department has done a font inventory yet? You have a good memory my friend. No, they have not.
I heard that Steve Jobs employs children in third world countries in South America and Asia. Makes them work 16 hours a day coloring in every single pixal in the MacOS and Pixar movies.
Steve Jobs doesn't care about the children!
No kidding (use BugMeNot to get into the NYT).
Bingo. If you were using an XP with the same compromised fonts, it would be having problems with the same apps crashing as well.
How to improve corporate response particularly towards children? Heck - how about their response to consumer suggestions altogether? Any self-respecting company should at least collect suggestions. If their policy is to not use suggestions, and they are going to send letters to that effect - don't be rude about it.
Some companies have a policy that all submissions become the property of the company to whom it was addressed - including intellectual property rights.
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