Posted on 04/17/2006 7:13:16 AM PDT by Panerai
Although not on the iPods, there are widgets available for OS X that do exactly this.
She probably typed it on her iBook.
The way things run today, I would suppose that Apple gets hundreds of suggestions a day.
How many lawsuits do you think would have been filed if Apple had, for example, written back to people who suggested adding video to the Ipods a " thanks for your suggestion " letter before they got around to putting one into production ?
Perhaps her teacher might be brought up to date on how things work in the world these days.
The kid seems a tad high strung.
Haha, yes, and emailed it from the wifi hotspot in the classroom...
"Young children have little of value to say on some topics. Allowing them to go through life thinking that Generals and CEOs are eagerly waiting to hear what they think, is not doing the children any favors."
While what you say is true, discouraging kids from putting their opinions into words is not a good idea. While children may well not have ideas that are of actual value to Generals and CEOs, adults do.
Teaching children that opinions have no value leads to adults keeping their opinions to themselves. That's a very bad idea.
A worse idea is companies that shrug off these kids' letters like Apple did. This kid's idea is actually not a bad one, if simplistic. A nice thank you from Apple would have been good PR, even if the idea is so basic that it's already in the works.
Back when I was a 13-year-old boy, in 1959, I got very interested in the electronic musical instrument, the Theremin. The web didn't exist, but I found a reference to the original maker of the instrument, RCA. So, I wrote a letter asking for more information, stating that I hoped to build one.
About two weeks later, I got a large envelope from RCA, with a letter written by an engineer who had worked on the RCA Theremin in the late 1930's, along with a photocopy (not a xerox) of the original schematic, owner's manual, and a bunch of other information.
I never built the thing until transistors were affordable for a young high school kid and someone published a Theremin schematic using them, but I always kept a warm spot in my heart for RCA, which took the time and spent the money to provide all that information for a 13-year-old boy who wrote them a letter.
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?
On their own time .... not on the time of any corporate CEO they are instructed to write a letter to.
Big difference between now and then. The Legal Department.
The problem isn't Apple, it is lawyers from start to finish. The legal profession has and continues to screw up the country in a wide variety of ways.
Dear Little Girl,
Welcome to the Real World. If you were expecting a Whiffle Life on a Nerf Planet, you're in for a rude surprise.
"Big difference between now and then. The Legal Department."
That's true, of course. However, Apple could have come up with a very nice way to state their case to this kid. By being upbeat and polite, they would have created some goodwill in a future customer for their products. Instead, they generated some ill will. Not a good plan for a company making consumer goods.
I think RCA did it better back in 1959.
Even adjusting for inflation, iPod nanos are outselling Theremins by just a tad.
"Even adjusting for inflation, iPod nanos are outselling Theremins by just a tad."
Of course. The Theremin was never a commercial success for RCA at all. Not my point. Communications with customers and potential customers is my point.
Although it was a tough way to tell this to a nine-year old, this is a reasonable policy for the company. What if Apple had already been working on a version of the iPod which displays lyrics also.Then she wouldn't be The Girl Who Had Her Feelings Hurt by Apple, she would be The Girl Who Had Her Idea Ripped Off by Apple. A victim either way. I'm not sure what the parents expected Apple to do in this situation. They should have managed her expectations better.
You also said:
discouraging kids from putting their opinions into words is not a good idea.
This gets back to the mis-understanding of Free Speech that so many people have.:
No one is discouraging kids from putting their opinions into words.
I am pointing out that CEOs at Apple have no obligation to listen or care about what a child says. The child should understand that while they can talk, no one is required to listen.
Cindy Sheehan, for one, never learned that lesson. If I don't pay attention to Cindy, she thinks I am trampling on her Right to Free Speech.
Aw, get over it ya big baby. If you don't like it then invent one better. Apple has a business to run and has better things to do than coddle a child and entertain her ideas. The real problem is the parental guidance in this matter. A good parent would have found a better way to explain to the girl how the world works - not cry to the media about how evil the business world is.
But this is what we have wrought by allowing socialism to take roots here.
My 8 year old would not have had her feelings hurt by this (and she is pretty sensitive). We would have had a talk about why they wrote the letter, and that would have been the end of the matter (it would certainly not have made the news). Kids are sheltered too much from the way life works. I'm trying to raise my kids to be realistic. I remember one of my dad's favorite sayings to me as a kid, "Life's not fair." It was the answer to a lot of childhood questions and complaints!
Why always a nuke when a water pistol would do the job better.
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