"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?
Big difference between now and then. The Legal Department.
Even adjusting for inflation, iPod nanos are outselling Theremins by just a tad.
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.
The one where the company wasn't afraid of getting sued. That said, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for American Airlines since they sent a commercial airline pilot for an entire day for my seventh grade career day, and he brought a load of freebie materials with him.
But the thank you note would have become prima facie evidence of their stealing this girl's idea - and would have resulted in large payouts if and when they came out with the feature. The legal system caused this issue, not the Apple company, IMO.
"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.